Scaled-Back Commercial Building Approved For South Main St

By Andrew Gorosko

About three years after proposing construction of a commercial building in an environmentally sensitive area just north of Sand Hill Plaza, a local businesswoman has gained required town approvals to start work on the project.

Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members April 6 unanimously approved Judith Volpe’s plans to build a two-story, 6,065-square-foot office/retail building at 224 South Main Street in the town’s Aquifer Protection District (APD). The 1.7-acre site is on the corner of South Main Street and Bryan Lane. Bryan Lane formerly was known as Washbrook Road.

P&Z Chairman Daniel Fogliano said P&Z members had reviewed several versions of the development project, adding that the plan has changed dramatically. The current version appears to be a well thought-out project, he said.

In approving the project, P&Z members said the construction work would not have a significant effect on the Pootatuck Aquifer, the underlying sole source aquifer in the area.

The P&Z held a February public hearing on Ms Volpe’s request for a special exception to the zoning regulations for the project. Conservation Commission members later decided that the work would have “no significant impact” on the Pootatuck Aquifer.

The Volpe application is one of the first land use applications subject to the town’s revised stricter aquifer protection regulations which were approved by the P&Z last June.

It was the project’s location in the APD and its proximity to the Pootatuck Aquifer and Pootatuck River, plus its placement right across South Main Street from United Water’s public water supply wellfield, which resulted in it taking Ms Volpe about three years to get required approvals for the project.

Ms Volpe received a change of zone for the property from “residential” to “business” from the P&Z in mid-1997. She then applied to the Conservation Commission for approval to develop the property, but encountered problems with that application.

Conservation members reviewed three different development proposals for the property from Ms Volpe. They rejected two larger, more intensive versions of the project for environmental reasons, before endorsing the current scaled-down version last October.

Following the Conservation Commission’s March 1999 rejection of her second development proposal, Ms Volpe sued the commission in seeking to have a judge overturn its rejection of her plans.

The current proposal involves no construction in the floodplain of the Pootatuck River, a significant difference compared to previous plans.

Ms Volpe scaled down the development project after the P&Z approved stricter aquifer protection regulations for the APD in June 1999. Ms Volpe reduced the scope of the project, keeping in mind its proximity to wetlands and to United Water’s public water supply wellhead which is just across South Main Street.

Avance Esthetiques, a day spa that Ms Volpe owns at the nearby Sand Hill Plaza, will not be located in the commercial building.

Ms Volpe’s previous plans to relocate the day spa to the proposed commercial building proved a stumbling block in past applications to the Conservation Commission. Commission members questioned the use of various toxic chemicals by the spa in an environmentally sensitive area across the street from the United Water wellhead. United Water opposed previous versions of the development proposal on environmental grounds. United Water has endorsed the latest version of the development plan.

When it rejected two earlier versions of her development project, Conservation Commission members told Ms Volpe the project should be scaled back in light of its proximity to the wellhead for United Water. In January 1998, Conservation Commission members turned down the initial development proposal, citing the extensive earth moving required by the project in the environmentally sensitive area.

An earlier version of the project proposed a 9,500-square-foot building with 53 parking spaces. The approved 6,065-square-foot building will have 35 parking spaces.

Plans call for a two-story building in the Colonial style with vinyl clapboard siding. The building will be constructed on a slope with direct access to both levels. A house on the site will be demolished to make way for new construction.