Walnut Tree Condo Location Draws Questions

By Andrew Gorosko

Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members do not support Walnut Tree Developers’ current proposal to change the location of four as-yet unbuilt condominium units at the Walnut Tree Village construction site on Walnut Tree Hill Road in Sandy Hook, according to Community Development Director Elizabeth Stocker.

P&Z members’ concerns about the relocation proposal focus on the developers’ plan to place the four units adjacent to a proposed 40-foot-tall sheer rock cliff, which would need to be cut to create a place to build those four units, Ms Stocker said. Extensive blasting would be needed to create that cliff.

P&Z members reviewed Walnut Tree Developers’ condo relocation proposal at a September 6 session and decided that the location would not be an appropriate place to build the units, Ms Stocker said. P&Z members, however, did not act on the relocation proposal.

Starting in 1995, the developers built 80 condo units for people over 55 on a relatively level 18-acre site at 26 Walnut Tree Hill Road. The developers are now in the midst of constructing a 110-unit expansion of the complex on 35 steep acres to the south, at 14 Walnut Tree Hill Road.

In the past, a looming rock cliff, which the developers had created in constructing the 80-unit complex, later posed falling rock hazards for residents living at the northern edge of the complex.

Before the P&Z agreed to approve the 110-unit condo expansion project, it had required the developers to take steps to alleviate the falling rock hazards posed by that cliff.

Also, the P&Z rejected an initial 133-unit version of the condo complex expansion project, telling the developers that the proposal involved a radical recontouring of the landscape, which was unnecessary.

The developers later returned to the P&Z with a scaled-down version of the expansion project, which involved less earthmoving than the previous expansion proposal. The P&Z approved that 110-unit expansion project in August 2000.

In approving the 110-unit expansion project, the P&Z granted the developers permission to build a seven-unit condominium building near the top of a ridge on the site.

However, in order to settle of one of the three lawsuits, which were later filed by nearby property owners against the developers, the developers agreed not to build four of those seven units at that ridgetop location.

As result of the legal settlement, the developers then sought P&Z approval to shift those four units about 325 feet to the south, requiring that a 40-foot-tall cliff be cut for that construction work.

The developers’ calculations indicate that if the four units were constructed at the ridgetop location, which was originally approved by the P&Z, it would have required the removal of 450 cubic yards of earth material to prepare the site for the construction for those four units.

However, repositioning the four units about 325 feet to the south would require the removal of about 11,970 cubic yards of earth material, or more than 25 times the amount of earth material removal required for construction of the four units near the ridgetop, according to the developers.

Ms Stocker said she expects the developers will return to the P&Z with some new proposal for relocating the four condos.