Rugged Site—

Planning & Zoning Approves Eight-Lot Hanover Heights Development

By Andrew Gorosko

Following lengthy review, P&Z members have approved a controversial eight-lot residential resubdivision planned for approximately 32 acres at 64 to 74-A Hanover Road, known as Hanover Heights.

On January 5, P&Z members approved developer Robert Mastroni’s construction application in a 3-to-1 vote, with member Jane Brymer dissenting.

The P&Z held public hearings on Hanover Heights in December, November, and October. Some people living near the site had pressed P&Z members to consider their concerns when reviewing plans for Hanover Heights, in order to minimize the construction project’s adverse effects on the area.

Residents had raised concerns about stormwater flow, domestic well water supplies, personal privacy, project aesthetics, the preservation of an old barn on the site, the need for blasting, and more broadly, the town’s increasing residential development density and its implications for public education spending.

The site has R-2 (Residential) zoning, in which the minimum building lot size is two acres, excluding steep slopes and wetlands. The steep, rugged land is on the east side of Hanover Road, near the intersection of Hanover Road and The Boulevard Extension. The project had earlier been proposed as a six-lot project on a somewhat smaller site there. Initial plans for the project had been drawn in November 2003.

The P&Z approved Hanover Heights with numerous conditions.

The developer must post a performance bond in the amount of $603,350 to guarantee that certain improvements will be made on the site. That sum includes $550,000 in bonding for the construction of a dead-end street and the installation of an underground 30,000-gallon water storage tank for firefighting use. The location of the underground water storage tank will be subject to approval by the local fire chief .

The $53,350 balance of the bonding will cover the installation of building-lot pin markers, the planting of ornamental trees alongside the new street, the placement of markers for conservation easements, the placement of plantings at a stormwater control structure, and the construction of a shared driveway that will serve two building lots.

Certain areas in the development are subject to conservation easements where physical changes will be prohibited. The P&Z is requiring the developer to set aside buffer areas on the site to create buffer zones between Hanover Heights and adjacent properties.

The P&Z is requiring that the town receive an overall fee in lieu of open space of $69,000, in connection with the resubdivision approval. That sum would be paid to the town in eight separate installments of $8,625 as each of the eight building lots are sold for home construction. The town uses such fees for the acquisition of open space elsewhere.

The developer must permanently field mark the boundary lines of conservation easements on the site. Such markings will allow potential homebuyers and the public to identify such protected areas.

The P&Z is requiring the developer to plant at least 30 ornamental trees along the new roadway, in areas where preexisting vegetation is disturbed by construction. Such planted trees must not be invasive species.

In order to extend a new road from Hanover Road onto the site, the developer must create a passageway for it through an area of rock ledge near Hanover Road. The developer proposes the new street’s name as Anthony Ridge Road.

The P&Z is requiring the developer to observe certain technical recommendations concerning road construction, and also to have road construction monitored by a geotechnical engineer during its progress to ensure that physically stable conditions are maintained.

The developer must preserve as many of the existing stonewalls and healthy large trees on the site as possible, according to the P&Z.