Log In


Reset Password
Archive

A Look At Land Use In 2004 - Town Plan Approved,Multifamily Growth Proposed

Print

Tweet

Text Size


A Look At Land Use In 2004 —

Town Plan Approved,

Multifamily Growth Proposed

 

By Andrew Gorosko

As residential growth continued apace, the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) approved its decennial Town Plan of Conservation and Development in 2004, providing a set of guidelines to town agencies on the suitable public oversight of residential, commercial, and industrial growth, plus the preservation of undeveloped land.

The town plan’s “vision statement” holds that a prime local goal is the protection and enhancement of the town’s picturesque, rural, historic New England setting and attributes. The architecture and landscaping of all local properties should be designed to protect the town’s image as a rural and historic town, it adds.

During the coming decade, town agencies should work together to maintain a suitable variety of housing, taking into account residents’ varying lifestyles and economic circumstances, while providing recreational activities and facilities for residents, according to the statement. The vision statement adds that the town will work to protect open space areas, farmland, trails, aquifers, wetlands, and other environmentally sensitive areas. It also holds that local public education should continue to excel in quality and efficiency.

The town plan, which covers the planning period until 2014, was in the making for more than two years.

 

Multifamily Housing

Besides residential subdivisions of single-family houses, the town faced development pressures from builders seeking to construct several large condominium complexes for people over age 55.

Toll Brothers, Inc, a national construction firm based in Pennsylvania, currently has two proposals pending before the P&Z for age-restricted condo complexes.

One project would hold 60 condos on a site off Oakview Road, near Newtown High School. An initial proposal for 80 condos there was rebuffed by the P&Z, resulting in a revised proposal from the developer.

Toll Brothers also has proposed building 104 age-restricted condos on a site off Walnut Tree Hill Road, across the street from the 189-unit Walnut Tree Village condo complex. Toll Brothers reportedly is reformulating that condo proposal with a reduced number of dwellings.

Both development applications encountered opposition from nearby property owners, who cited traffic concerns as a main complaint.

Last summer, Paragon Residential Properties, LLC, proposed the construction of a 147-unit age-restricted condo complex off Mt Pleasant Road in Hawleyville, at the largely unbuilt site of The Homesteads at Newtown. The Economic Development Commission (EDC) has conditionally endorsed that proposal. The Water and Sewer Authority (WSA) has said it would negotiate to provide municipal sewer service for the project, if the developer receives required approvals from other town agencies.

Next door to The Homesteads site, Ginsburg Development Corporation is constructing its Liberty at Newtown age-restricted condo complex, which when completed, will hold 96 dwellings in 12 buildings served by elevators.

Last January, two development firms withdrew their controversial request for zoning rule changes that would have increased the number of dwellings that are allowed in age-restricted condo complexes.

Developers KASL, LLC, and IBF, LLC, had wanted the zoning rule change in connection with their proposal to residentially develop an approximately 180-acre wet, rugged site that they own in the vicinity of Route 302 and Scudder Road. The firms want to build approximately 200 dwellings there. The proposed zoning rule change, which would have increased the current dwelling limit for age-restricted housing from 150 units to 250 units, drew heavy opposition from nearby property owners.

The firms are expected to return to the P&Z with another proposal to develop the site.

Although the P&Z has turned down two controversial attempts by developer Guri Dauti to create an “affordable housing” complex in Sandy Hook Center, P&Z members entered talks with Mr Dauti in October concerning his renewed efforts for such a project at 95-99 Church Hill Road. 

Nearby property owners have strongly opposed the multifamily proposal, charging that the area is already densely developed, adding that a complex would generate yet more traffic in a congested area.

Mr Dauti is expected to soon submit an affordable housing development application to the P&Z.

Commercial Growth

The P&Z is a considering a proposal from TP Properties, LLC, of Danbury to build a 70,000-square-foot shopping center, known as Plaza South, on the west side of South Main Street. The site is at a former gravel mine that lies between Sand Hill Plaza and South Main Street’s intersection with Cold Spring Road.

The development proposal has drawn opposition from nearby property owners who have raised issues concerning the project’s size, the traffic volume that it would generate, its landscaping, and architecture.

At the P&Z’s request, the Legislative Council in September authorized creation of a Design Advisory Board. The three-member panel would review the architectural and landscaping elements of new commercial development proposed for the Hawleyville Center Design District-East (HCDD-E), which generally lies along the east side of Hawleyville Road in Hawleyville Center. The panel also would review proposed construction for the Sandy Hook Design District (SHDD) in Sandy Hook Center. The P&Z created HCDD-E zoning in 1999, and enacted SHDD zoning in 1995.

As the P&Z creates additional design districts in other parts of town, the advisory board would review the commercial construction proposed for those areas.

 

Open Space

After nearly two years of consideration and revision, the P&Z in August approved both zoning and planning regulations that are intended to maximize the amount of undeveloped land that would be preserved in some new subdivisions of single-family homes, as a mechanism to limit suburban sprawl in a town that was once largely rural. The zoning regulations would allow developers to design a project as an “open space conservation subdivision.”

Also, last April, P&Z members increased from 10 percent to 15 percent the minimum amount of public open space land required in a new subdivision. Such land is open to the general public for passive forms of recreation. P&Z members decided that the 15 percent minimum open space requirement is consistent with the 2004 town plan.

In the spring and summer, residents in the Taunton Lane and Orchard Hill Road areas expressed their misgivings over the town’s plans to remove trees along those streets for public safety and road improvement projects, saying that such tree removal would damage those areas’ appearance. 

In October, Foxview Farm owner Judith Holmes received P&Z approval to subdivide 72 acres at that horse farm on Hundred Acres Road into 18 residential building lots, 15 of which would contain new houses.

When the P&Z approved the subdivision, it required that the developer blaze an equestrian trail across the property, with trail easements to be deeded to the Newtown Bridle Lands Association, a local equestrian group. The development application had drawn scrutiny from members of the local equestrian community, which has boarded horses in stables at the farm for many years and has held equestrian events there.

Also, in 2004 the town created a new road map, accurately depicting the many new roads that have been built in town during a period of rapid residential growth.

Comments
Comments are open. Be civil.
0 comments

Leave a Reply