Date: Fri 28-May-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: ANDYG

Quick Words:

P&Z-Parmalee-Hill-Road

Full Text:

Parmalee Hill Road Subdivision Rejected Over Traffic Concerns

BY ANDREW GOROSKO

In view of area residents' public safety concerns, Planning and Zoning

Commission (P&Z) members have rejected the proposed Daniels Hill Estates

residential subdivision, a development project calling for 13 house lots on 40

acres off Parmalee Hill Road.

P&Z members Michael Osborne, James Boylan, Stephen Koch and Chairman Daniel

Fogliano voted May 20 to turn down the development project proposed by Daniels

Hill Development, LLC. Member Heidi Winslow dissented in the vote.

The developer and the town do not have a road work agreement under which the

developer agrees to improve town-owned roadway near a development site.

Before the vote, Mr Osborne said "I'm very concerned about the potential for

accidents along that road."

"It's a recipe for disaster," he said of the added traffic the subdivision

would generate on the narrow, winding, hilly Parmalee Hill Road.

Until Parmalee Hill Road is physically improved and the sight lines for

motorists there are improved, the P&Z shouldn't approve the proposed

subdivision, Mr Boylan said.

The development proposal calls for extending a new dead end street off the

west side of Parmalee Hill Road, just north of the Housatonic Railroad train

tracks. The developer's plans do not call for improving Parmalee Hill Road.

In a May 11 report to P&Z members, planning aide Elizabeth Stocker wrote that

the town in the recent past widened Parmalee Hill Road, improved its sight

lines, installed guard railing and made drainage improvements. Planned town

improvements to the road in the 1999-2000 fiscal year include stormwater

drainage work and paving, she wrote.

In a May 14 letter to Ms Stocker, Mary Kelly, the town's director of school

bus transportation, wrote that for safety reasons no 65-passenger school buses

are used on Parmalee Hill Road.

"School bus drivers who currently service that part of Parmalee Hill Road

often have to stop, pull off the traveled portion of the road and wait for the

other vehicle to pass through. The subdivision will create more traffic,

increasing the possibility for additional accidents in such a narrow, windy

area," Ms Kelly wrote. Traveling through the area will be difficult in the

wintertime, she adds.

In light of area residents' public safety concerns, P&Z members May 6 had

agreed to take a closer look at plans for Daniels Hill Estates.

P&Z members had been poised to act on and possibly approve the project May 6,

but Mr Osborne stressed his concern that many area residents at a March public

hearing told P&Z members that traffic generated by the development would

worsen existing traffic hazards on Parmalee Hill Road.

Mr Osborne has said he raised the public safety topic on behalf on current

neighborhood residents and people who would move into the proposed

subdivision.