80 Units—

Condo Complex Zone Change Request

Slated For Public Hearing

By Andrew Gorosko

A developer’s application to change the zoning designation for approximately 59 acres off Oakview Road, as a major step toward building a proposed 80-unit age-restricted condominium complex there, is scheduled for a Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) public hearing next week.

The hearing is slated for 7:30 pm, Thursday, March 4, at the town land use office at Canaan House at Fairfield Hills.

Pennsylvania-based applicant Toll Brothers, Inc, is asking the P&Z to convert the zoning on the 59 acres at 21 and 23 Oakview Road from R-2 (Residential) to EH-10 (Elderly Housing). The site, which lies south of Interstate 84’s eastbound lanes, is in the area between Oakview Road and the Pootatuck River. The site, which is vacant, has frontages on Oakview Road and Berkshire Road.

R-2 zoning requires a minimum two-acre building lot size for the construction of single-family houses, without age restrictions. EH-10 zoning is designated for high-density, multifamily housing for people over age 55. The proposed development would contain 20 to 25 buildings, each of which would contain several dwellings. Toll Brothers holds a purchase option on the site.

Concurrently, Toll Brothers is seeking Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA) approval to extend sewers to the 59-acre site. A sanitary sewer line, as well as a public water line, run beneath Oakview Road, adjacent to the property. Both of those utility lines serve the nearby Newtown High School.

There are 32 private and public property parcels lying within 500 feet of the site eyed for development. Those property owners will receive formal notification of the public hearing by Toll Brothers.

Traffic Issue

Barkan and Mess Associates, Inc, of Branford, a traffic engineering firm employed by Toll Brothers, states in a traffic report on the project that, “Access (to the site) is only practical off Oakview Road, due to the site’s hill topography and pockets of wetlands throughout.”

Oakview Road, which has a 20-mile-per-hour speed limit, is a hilly, curving road. The road is generally 18 to 20 feet wide, but in some areas is only 14 feet wide. The traffic engineers state that the minimum width of Oakview Road should be 18 feet.

Until several years, ago, Oakview Road was a dirt road. It was paved after public utilities were installed beneath it. Oakview Road runs in a north-south direction, to the west of the high school. Some motorists use Oakview Road as a shortcut between Wasserman Way and Berkshire Road.

The traffic engineers explain that access to the development site would be provided from two driveways extending from Oakview Road. One driveway would be a primary access point to the site; the other driveway may serve as an emergency entrance-exit.

 In their report, the traffic engineers estimate that an 80-unit age-restricted condo complex would generate 30 vehicle trips during the morning peak travel hour and generate 30 vehicle trips during the evening peak travel hour.

If 20 to 22 single-family houses were instead built at the site, they would generate between 20 and 25 vehicle trips during each morning peak travel hour and also would generate between 20 and 25 vehicle trips during each evening peak travel hour, according to Barkan and Mess.

The presence of 80 condos on the site “would nominally increase (traffic) volumes on Oakview Road, Berkshire Road, and Wasserman Way,” the traffic engineers add.

The traffic volume that would be added to the area by residents living in 80 condos would not change the traffic “level of service” at the intersection of Wasserman Way and Oakview Road, at the intersection of Berkshire Road and Oakview Road, and at the driveways leading from Oakview Road to the proposed complex, according to Barkan and Mess.

“With implementation of the spot [widening] improvements on Oakview Road, the safety of the motorist on this street would be better than it is today,” according to the traffic engineers.

Drainage

Milone & MacBroom, Inc, an environmental engineering firm from Cheshire, has submitted a basic drainage report on the site on behalf of Toll Brothers.

The property, which is bordered on the west by the Pootatuck River, lies within the town’s environmentally sensitive Aquifer Protection District (APD). The APD is situated above the Pootatuck Aquifer, the town’s sole source aquifer, which is a major local source of drinking water. The APD is an overlay zone, whose regulations the P&Z strengthened in 1999. It is closely regulated to prevent environmental damage to the aquifer.

The site contains an undeveloped open area in the floodplain of the Pootatuck River, as well as a wooded area atop a prominent knoll comprised of glacial sand-and-gravel deposits. The proposed dwellings would be built on that knoll.

The engineers describe the basic design of drainage structures that would be built on the site to regulate stormwater flow in order to limit damage to wetlands, watercourses and developed areas downriver of the site.

Town approvals required for the proposed 80-unit condo project include: a change in zoning designation from R-2 to EH-10 by the P&Z; a sewer connection approval from the WPCA; a special exception to the zoning regulations from the P&Z; a site development plan approval from the P&Z; a wetlands construction permit from the Conservation Commission, serving as the town’s inland wetlands agency; and an aquifer protection approval by the P&Z, based on an aquifer protection review conducted by the Conservation Commission.

Toll Brothers has sought and received an endorsement for the condo project from the Economic Development Commission.

The firm wants to build 80 luxury-grade condos, each of which would contain two bedrooms. The proposed complex would be similar to the firm’s Regency Meadows at Trumbull, an age-restricted multifamily complex that is now under construction on Route 25 in the Tashua section of Trumbull, just north of Route 25’s intersection with Route 111.

Toll Brothers has developed several residential subdivisions of single-family houses in Newtown, including Greenleaf Farms off Poverty Hollow Road, Newtown Chase off Blackman Road, and Newtown Hunt off Hawleyville Road.