A Treat To The Historic

Sandy Hook Center

The following letter to William O’Neil, chairman of the Planning & Zoning Commission has been received for publication.

Dear Mr O’Neil:

During the three years that we have lived in Sandy Hook considerable improvements have been made to our historic village; i.e., the restored Red Brick Tavern, the Mocha Coffee House, the Ragazze Gift Shop, not to mention vast improvements made to other existing businesses and homes. In addition, with the help of Representative Julia Wasserman, Sandy Hook was funded primarily by the state to beautify our village with sidewalks, street lamps, and trees. We expect this work will be completed this spring.

We are now in danger of possible construction of a 23-unit condo complex that will house 57 bedrooms right smack in the middle of our small historic village. Sandy Hook presently has a large age-restricted complex on Walnut Tree Hill Road just above where the new complex is proposed. All the trees will have to be removed, not to mention tons of soil in order for Dauti Construction to build these condos… what an eyesore and what will happen to the ecologically sensitive Pootatuck River?

Traffic in Sandy Hook is extremely congested with just one lane in each direction. If this development is approved we can expect each unit will probably have two vehicles. Multiply that by only one round trip per vehicle and that is 92 trips daily, and this estimate is very conservative. In addition, there will be numerous service trucks, delivery trucks, visitors, etc, going in and out of this complex…up go the numbers. With 57 bedrooms in the proposed complex, we could easily expect an additional 30 or more children attending our school system. The school buses transporting these children would stop traffic in both directions twice daily.

Mr Dauti has been rejected twice by Planning & Zoning for multiple family housing and now he wants to change the zoning to “Mixed-Income Housing District” (a type of zoning we do not have in Newtown) just to meet his developmental needs. The present zoning for 95 Church Hill Road is R-2 and it should remain that way. This “out-of-character complex” would forever ruin our lovely village. We urge you to deny Mr Dauti his request to change the present zoning of this property.

Thank you,

Sincerely,

Lincoln & Jean Sander

211 Walnut Tree Hill Road, Sandy Hook                  March 19, 2006