Hanover Road Subdivision Gets Wetlands Permit

By Andrew Gorosko

The Conservation Commission has granted a wetlands permit for a proposed nine-lot residential subdivision on 16 acres on Hanover Road in the Borough of Newtown.

Commission members October 27 unanimously approved J. Richard McLachlan’s and others’ application for a wetlands construction permit for the property at 8 Hanover Road, according to Conservation Official C. Stephen Driver.

In approving the permit, commission members stated that any changes made to the development plan as a result of a Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) approval shall require that those changes be submitted to the Conservation Commission for review.

The development site is an irregularly shaped parcel, which would be divided into seven lots fronting on Hanover Road and two lots fronting on The Boulevard. The Hanover Road lots would have sanitary sewer service while the Boulevard lots would have septic systems.

The property lies on the east side of Hanover Road, across Hanover Road from its intersection with Sunset Hill Road. One of the lots would abut the intersection of Hanover Road and Hall Lane. Just over three acres of the rugged, mostly wooded site is wetlands. No new roads would be built.

Although there would be no construction in the wetlands, a driveway for one of the lots would be built within 50 feet of a wetland, requiring that the Conservation Commission review the development plan.

The steep grade of the land will require extensive earthen filling and cutting to provide driveways for lots along Hanover Road. Such driveway geometry and placement issues are subject to P&Z review.

The developer proposes no open space donation.

 The Hanover Road site is one of the few subdividable parcels left within the largely developed Borough.

The last residential subdivision approved in the borough was the three-lot Sugar Acres, an 11-acre project with frontage on Roosevelt Drive and Main Street. It gained the P&Z’s final approval in May, 1998. Its developers had submitted various versions of that proposal during a period of several years to the Borough Zoning Board of Appeals and Conservation Commission before the plan gained those agencies’ approvals.