Date: Fri 24-Oct-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: ANDYG

Quick Words:

P&Z-Tamarack-Woods

Full Text:

Land Use Agencies Get Fourth Tamarack Proposal

BY ANDREW GOROSKO

The fourth version of Tamarack Woods, a controversial home building proposal

for an isolated area near Lake Lillinonah, has been submitted for review by

town land use agencies.

M&E Land Group's request for a wetlands construction permit is pending before

the Conservation Commission.

M&E partners, developer Thomas Maguire and engineer Larry Edwards, want to

subdivide a 33-acre parcel into eight house lots. The land is within the

triangle formed by Sanford Road, Tamarack Road and Echo Valley Road. In the

current proposal, four lots would have frontage on Sanford Road, three lots

would face Tamarack Road, and one lot would have frontage on Echo Valley Road.

As part of the project, the developers would make some improvements to

wetlands in the area. In their Conservation Commission application, the

developers seek approval to install a drainage culvert beneath a driveway

proposed for Lot 2 on Sanford Road.

No earthen material would be placed in wetlands, according to the development

application. Subdivision construction would be done within two years of a

Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) approval of the project. Some 13 acres

would be designated as open space land. There are seven properties which

adjoin the development site.

Last June, P&Z members unanimously rejected the third version of Tamarack

Woods, which was then a ten-lot proposal.

M&E withdrew its initial version of Tamarack Woods from P&Z consideration in

the summer of 1996, before the matter reached the P&Z public hearing stage.

The P&Z rejected a second version of Tamarack Woods last December following a

public hearing on it.

Last June, the town attorney informed P&Z members the application didn't

provide water storage facilities for firefighting on the property as required

by P&Z regulations which were approved in September 1995. State law does not

allow the application to be exempted from the water storage rules, the town

lawyer wrote.

At a May public hearing on the third version of Tamarack Woods, attorney

Robert Hall, representing M&E, had argued that the third development proposal

was exempt from the water storage regulations, noting that an earlier Tamarack

Woods application had been submitted to the town before the water storage

regulations had taken effect.

In the third version of Tamarack Woods, a proposed dead-end road extended from

Tamarack Road onto the development site.

The developers have modified the Tamarack Woods design plans as various

neighboring property owners pressured them to present designs which would have

minimal effects on their individual properties.

Nearby property owners have expressed concerns that building new homes in

their area would threaten their domestic well water supplies.

Mae and Robert Schmidle of 53 Echo Valley, who were granted intervenor status

in the third Tamarack Woods development application, have a lawsuit pending

against the Conservation Commission and M&E over the Conservation Commission's

approval of a wetlands construction license for Tamarack Woods last March. The

Schmidle property abuts the development site.

Also, M&E has a lawsuit pending against the P&Z over the P&Z's rejection of

the second version of Tamarack Woods.

In a now-defunct lawsuit which was filed in March 1996, Cordalie Benoit Eliscu

of 23 Sanford Road sued the Conservation Commission and M&E over the

Conservation Commission's approval of a wetlands construction permit for its

first Tamarack Woods application. That lawsuit was withdrawn after M&E agreed

to withdraw its first application and submit a second revised application.

Besides water supply concerns, neighboring property owners' objections to

Tamarack Woods have focused on disturbing a rustic area; potential

environmental hazards; creating traffic problems; and damaging archaeological

artifacts and local plant life.

Controversy over developing the site dates back to early 1996.

Several residents attended a recent selectmen's meeting to support a pending

"scenic road" application for Sanford Road.

Protections afforded to country roads under the provisions of the town's

scenic road ordinance limit major road alterations or improvements, such as

widening a right-of-way, paving, grade changes, straightening, and removing

stone walls and mature trees.

M&E Land Group says its fourth proposal would have less impact on the

neighborhood than the previous proposals, adding that road improvements to

Sanford Road and Tamarack Road would not be necessary.