Police Commission Endorses

Condo Complex Driveway Design

By Andrew Gorosko

The Police Commission and a developer have reached a compromise concerning the design of a private driveway on Oakview Road that would serve a 54-unit age-restricted condominium complex proposed for a 51-acre site there.

Toll Brothers, Inc, a Pennsylvania-based developer, proposes the construction of Regency at Newtown at 21 Oakview Road, near Newtown High School. Since it was initially proposed in February 2004 as an 80-unit condo complex, much public discussion has focused on traffic flow to and from such a complex on the narrow, hilly, winding Oakview Road, a street that contains about 12 houses.

Town land use officials have said they want the traffic entering and leaving a condo complex to use the northern section of Oakview Road that links to Berkshire Road, rather than using the southern section of Oakview Road that connects to the section of Wasserman Way near the congested Exit 11 interchange of Interstate 84. Having condo-related traffic flowing on the northern section of Oakview Road is viewed as a way to curb additional traffic congestion in an already congested area.

Attorney Robert Hall, representing Toll Brothers, on November 1 presented Police Commission members with three alternative driveway designs for the Regency at Newtown complex. The commission serves as the town’s traffic authority, and makes recommendations to the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) concerning the traffic-flow aspects of development proposals.

During its review of an earlier version of the development proposal, the Police Commission had endorsed a Toll Brothers driveway design that would make it physically quite difficult for motorists to enter or to exit the condo site from the southern section of Oakview Road.

But based on ensuing public safety comments from the town engineer, as condo project planning evolved, the developer formulated three possible driveway designs that would make it progressively less physically restrictive for motorists to use the southern end of Oakview Road in entering or exiting the condo complex.

Mr Hall explained that the town engineer did not like Toll Brothers’ initial driveway design for traffic safety reasons, which was the design that the Police Commission had endorsed, so the developer then formulated three new versions of the driveway.

The driveway design endorsed by the Police Commission on November 1 would deter condo-generated traffic from using the southern section of Oakview Road, but would not necessarily physically stop traffic from doing so.

To buttress the desired traffic flow on Oakview Road, the developer proposes installing a variety of signs near the driveway entrance that would state variously Stop, Do Not Enter, One Way, No Left Turn, No Right Turn, and Keep Right. The Police Commission regulates such traffic sign placement.

Police Commission Chairman Carol Mattegat stressed that the panel wants condo-related traffic to use the northern section of Oakview Road, not the southern section.

Mr Hall said he does not expect that the traffic-flow rules for Oakview Road would be violated very often. “There’s going to be plenty of signage,” he said. Condo residents will learn the approved way to use Oakview Road, he said. But he pointed out that the occasional visitor to the condo complex may unknowingly use the southern section of Oakview Road.

At an October 20 P&Z public hearing on the condo proposal, resident James Knapp of 22 Oakview Road predicted that despite measures that would be taken by the developer to shunt traffic traveling to and from the condo complex to the northern end of Oakview Road, motorists leaving Exit 11 of Interstate 84 will nevertheless use Wasserman Way to reach the southern section of Oakview Road for access to the condo complex.

Mr Knapp then proposed that the developer build a driveway to link the complex directly to Berkshire Road, instead of having the complex’s driveway intersect with Oakview Road.  

Oakview Road residents at that P&Z session said traffic flow on the street has increased during the past year.

Toll Brothers is expected to provide additional traffic flow information to the P&Z when the P&Z’s public hearing on the condo complex construction proposal resumes on December 1.