Hawleyville Site—

Design Board Endorses Proposed Condo Complex

By Andrew Gorosko

The town’s Design Advisory Board (DAB), a panel that reviews the architectural and site design aesthetics of certain proposed construction projects, has endorsed to the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) a proposal to build a 178-unit age-restricted condominium complex at the 50-acre site of a depleted sand-and-gravel mine in Hawleyville.

Following a September 27 review of plans for Toll CT III Limited Partnership’s construction proposal, DAB members George Reichert and Donald Strait endorsed the project. Mr Reichert is an architect. Mr Strait is a landscape architect.

The working name for the project is Woods at Newtown. Toll CT III Limited Partnership is a unit of Toll Brothers, Inc. The property has a street address of 12-16 Pocono Road. Access to the site would be provided via an existing private road that serves Maplewood at Newtown at 166 Mt Pleasant Road.

The Toll project would contain 67 dwellings within 19 multiple-unit townhouse-style buildings, 111 condo units within six large buildings, and a community clubhouse, with a swimming pool and bocce courts. All residential units would be offered for sale.

In reviewing the plans for the project, the DAB found that, “The [construction] proposal serves to reclaim much of the site and improves the overall quality of the site appearance,” according to DAB records.

The DAB review found that the proposed positioning of a turf area, known as a green, on the site would be aesthetically positive.

Also, the DAB found that the suitable visual integration of utility devices, such as electrical transformers, meters, and heating-ventilation-air-conditioning units into the project’s design minimizes or eliminates the usual unpleasant appearance of such devices in large-scale residential projects.

The P&Z was scheduled to conduct a public hearing on the proposed condo complex on the night of October 6, after the deadline for this edition of The Bee.

The Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) is scheduled to conduct a public hearing on the wetlands/watercourses protection aspects of the project at 7:30 pm on Wednesday, October 12, at Newtown Municipal Center, 3 Primrose Street.

According to documents submitted to the IWC by Toll, the construction project would physically alter about one-sixth of an acre of wetlands, requiring an IWC review of that proposed work.

Also, the IWC would review the proposed physical alteration of seven acres that lie in an “upland review area,” which is situated within 100 feet of wetlands/watercourses at the site.

Last December, P&Z members unanimously modified the zoning regulations on high-density elderly housing complexes, setting the stage for Toll’s anticipated application to construct what was then proposed as a 171-unit complex.

The various rule changes on high-density, age-restricted, multifamily housing complexes which Toll sought and received from the P&Z last December generally allow taller buildings than previously permitted, allow the placement of a bedroom on the upper level of two-story townhouse-style condo units, and adds a new category of age-restricted multifamily housing termed “apartments.”

Three large multifamily housing complexes for people over age 55 have been proposed for the Hawleyville site in the past, none of which ever materialized for various reasons.