Taunton Pond Public Access At Issue—

P&Z Rejects Hunter Ridge Project Near Taunton Pond

By Andrew Gorosko

Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members have rejected the Hunter Ridge residential resubdivision proposal for a sloped 30-acre site lying between Mt Pleasant Road and Taunton Pond, turning down the 14-house construction project based on various open space concerns.

P&Z members October 6 voted 4-to-0 to reject developer Hunter Ridge, LLC’s project. Voting in opposition were P&Z Chairman William O’Neil, Lilla Dean, Robert Poulin, and Robert Mulholland.

The project’s rejection followed lengthy P&Z discussion of the open space aspects of the project. 

Specifically, conflict over the development application has focused on the town’s desire for open space acreage there to provide direct public access to Taunton Pond. Hunter Ridge, LLC contends that there is no legal requirement for it to donate any open space anywhere on the site.

In seeking to strike a compromise, the developer had offered to give the town $172,000 as a fee in lieu of open space. The town uses such funds to acquire open space elsewhere.

Developers David and Carol French, doing business as Hunter Ridge, LLC, proposed the project for the site on the south side of Mt Pleasant Road, just west of the Taunton Lake Drive neighborhood. Two proposed building lots would have shore frontage on Taunton Pond, which lies downslope of Mt Pleasant Road.

Before the vote on Hunter Ridge, Mr O’Neil said the development application hinges on whether the P&Z can require the developer to provide the town with open space on the site.

Typically, subdividers provide at least 15 percent of the acreage at a site as public open space. Alternately, developers sometimes donate cash to the town equivalent to ten percent of the value of the undeveloped land at the site.

Mr O’Neil noted that the P&Z stands at risk of a court challenge from the developer in rejecting the Hunter Ridge application. But the town wants to acquire open space access to Taunton Pond at the resubdivision, the P&Z chairman added.

The town currently has public access to Taunton Pond via property off Taunton Lake Road, near the Newtown Fish & Game Club boat storage area, but that access is limited.

The town should acquire better access to Taunton Pond at Hunter Ridge than it now has at Taunton Lake Road, said P&Z member Richard Eigen.

“That’s an extremely valuable piece of property,” Mr Mulholland said. The $172,000 fee offered by the developer to the town is a relatively small amount of money considering the property’s value, he said.

Mr Poulin, however, said it would be unwise for the town to acquire shoreline property on Taunton Pond at Hunter Ridge. He questioned the wisdom of allowing increased public access to a “fragile, pristine lake,” saying that doing so would pose environmental hazards to the lake.

Mr Poulin said the developer should offer the town 15 percent of the value of the undeveloped site as a fee in lieu of open space, or $258,000 instead of $172,000.

In contrast, Mr O’Neil said, “We’re only asking for access to the pond” because current town access to the pond is limited. The town would comply with the regulations on pond use specified by the pond’s homeowners’ association, he said.

Having public access to the pond at Hunter Ridge would increase the value of the building lots in the subdivision, he said.

Ms Dean acknowledged that the existing town access to the pond off Taunton Lake Road is limited, but added that she doubts the town could adequately manage public access to Taunton Pond from Hunter Ridge. She cited littered conditions at the town boat launch at Lake Lillinonah as an example of her concern.

“I just don’t think [Taunton Pond] can take it,” she said of increased public access. The pond could again serve as a public water supply reservoir in the future, she said.

If the town had access to the pond from Hunter Ridge, it would need to provide parking facilities, she said.

Ms Dean urged that the town seek more money as a fee in lieu of open space than the $172,000 that has been offered by the developer.

P&Z member Edward Kelleher said the inaccessibility of Taunton Pond to the general public has bothered him over the years. “It’s kind of like a private club. It sticks in the craw,” he said.

The town should pursue gaining improved public access to the pond, he said.  

In the motion to reject the resubdivision application, P&Z members decided that the proposed 14-lot resubdivision served by a new public road amounts to a project that warrants the developer providing open space land to the town.

Also, commission members decided that the developer had set the fee in lieu of open space at $172,000 without consulting with the town on the amount of the donation.  

Commission members also found that the application is inconsistent with the town’s subdivision regulations.

In recently reviewing the Hunter Ridge application, members of the town’s Open Space Task Force found that no open space had been donated as part of an original 1970 subdivision of the site, so the panel has recommended that the developer donate a proposed 3.2-acre building lot with frontage on Taunton Pond as open space land.

The other proposed building lot with pond frontage is 1.9 acres. Both of those proposed lots are “rear lots,” which would have driveways extending to them from the turnaround circle at the end of  the proposed subdivision road known as Dakota Drive. The 1,400-foot-long dead-end road would extend southward onto the site from Mt Pleasant Road toward Taunton Pond.

In a June letter to the P&Z, Linda Shepard, chairman of the Borough Zoning Commission, wrote, in part, “We would like to see open space provided for this subdivision, preferably close to [Taunton Pond].”

In a June letter to the P&Z, George Benson, the town’s land use enforcement officer, wrote, in part, “The proposed [Hunter Ridge] resubdivision has to comply with the current subdivision regulations that include the 15 percent [open] space provision.”

In August, Mr French told P&Z members that while he is willing to donate $172,000 to the town as a fee in lieu of open space, he would challenge the P&Z requiring him to donate at least 15 percent of the land area in the development as open space acreage.

That 15 percent of the 30 acres would be 4.5 acres, meaning that the developer might lose a building lot in a resubdivision that has an open space area.

In early 2001, Ginsburg Development Corporation Connecticut, LLC, had proposed building 110 condominiums for people over age 55 at the Mt Pleasant Road site now eyed for Hunter Ridge.

But in May 2001, citing strong neighborhood opposition to its condo construction proposal, plus uncertainty about the availability of municipal sewer service for the project, Ginsburg dropped its proposal to build there. Ginsburg is currently constructing a 96-unit age-restricted condo complex several miles to the west on a 40-acre site at 178 Mt Pleasant Road, known as Liberty at Newtown.