Grace Christian Fellowship Submits Church Application To P&Z

By Andrew Gorosko

Grace Christian Fellowship Church has submitted plans to the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) describing a new church that the group wants to build on a 13.7-acre site in a R-2 zone at 4 Covered Bridge Road in Hawleyville, near Exit 9 of Interstate 84.

After town officials review and comment on technical aspects of the construction proposal, the application for a special permit will be scheduled for a P&Z public hearing. Eleven properties are listed as lying within 500 feet of the church site. The owners of those properties will be formally notified of the upcoming public hearing.

Last May, the Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) approved a permit for regulated construction work at the site.

The congregation currently occupies a 13,500-square-foot church about one mile away at 174 Mt Pleasant Road (Route 6). The group wants to build a new larger church at Covered Bridge Road to meet the needs of its expanding congregation.

Plans submitted by the group call for a 32,191-square-foot church, of which 29,053 square feet represents the main level, 2,086 square feet would be covered space, and 1,052 square feet would be a mezzanine.

The church would hold a main assembly hall containing 518 seats for church services. The church also would enclose a sanctuary, baptistery, office space, kitchen facilities, a nursery, and youth facilities, plus various meeting rooms and gathering spaces.

Designed by Archdesign Group, LLC, of Danbury, the church would have a traditional appearance with a tall central steeple, plus two adjacent cupolas. The church would have two large gables on its façade. Facing brick would cover exterior walls.

The church grounds would be landscaped with a variety of plantings, including sugar maple, red oak, birch, cherry, spruce, pine, azalea, holly, bayberry, rhododendron, winterberry, and highbush blueberry.

Access to the site would be provided via a curving driveway that enters the property directly from Hawleyville Road (Route 25). That driveway would intersect with Hawleyville Road approximately 350 feet south of the Exit 9 off-ramp of eastbound Interstate 84.

The driveway would have separate exit lanes for left-turning and right-turning vehicles. A stop sign would control traffic exiting the driveway. The driveway would cross a wetland on a bridge.

Emergency access for the site would be provided via Covered Bridge Road, a dead-end street that extends from the west side of Hawleyville Road.

Traffic engineers Barkan & Mess Associates of Branford conducted a traffic study for the project. “The amount of new traffic added to the roadway [Hawleyville Road] will not adversely affect traffic operations in the study area,” according to the traffic engineers. 

The site plan for the project calls for 156 marked vehicle parking spaces, situated around the church, plus areas where “pervious pavers” would be installed to provide several dozen spaces of overflow parking on the site. Such pavers are rigid enough to allow vehicles to park atop them, but contain holes to allow stormwater runoff to flow through them and enter the underlying soil.

In September 2006, the IWC rejected the church’s May 2006 application for a wetlands permit partially because the plans did not contain parking areas with such pervious paving stones, among other reasons. The church appealed that rejection in Danbury Superior Court, after which it submitted revised design plans that included such paving stones. The church withdrew the court appeal in July.

The IWC has maintained that having areas on the site with such paving stones, to reduce the overall amount of pavement there, would be environmentally sounder. Pond Brook runs through the area.

Artel Engineering Group, LLC, of Brookfield represents the church in its P&Z application.

Developing the site would entail both earthen cutting and filling to create the proper grades for construction. The project would require the cutting of 11,441 cubic yards of earth, combined with 10,338 cubic yards of filling work. Thus, there would be net removal of 1,103 cubic yards of earth from the site.

The site is largely undeveloped. It lies in an area with a low development density that consists of residential and commercial properties.

The church property would contain a buried stormwater detention basin to regulate the flow of stormwater from the property after heavy rains. The detention device would be located beneath a paved parking lot.

Wastewater from the church would be discharged in a septic waste disposal system. Water would be supplied to the church from a United Water extension line stemming from Mt Pleasant Road.

When it approved a wetlands permit for the church project last May, the IWC listed 12 conditions of approval.

Those conditions include that: various erosion and sedimentation controls must be installed on the site before construction starts and must be maintained while construction is underway; the conservation official must inspect and approved the marked limits of physical disturbance on the site before construction starts; and site plan modifications are not allowed unless IWC approvals are received for such changes.

Also, an environmental consultant must be hired by the applicant to monitor and record the steps taken to prevent erosion and sedimentation problems; the applicant must create an invasive plant eradication program for the site, and the applicant must install permanent stormwater drain markers for the site. Such markers typically state that substances entering the storm drains eventually reach Long Island Sound.