178-Unit Project—

WSA Reaches Tentative Settlement

On Condo Complex Court Appeal

By Andrew Gorosko

Water & Sewer Authority (WSA) members this week approved a tentative legal settlement with a firm that had filed a court appeal against the WSA over the capital costs to be paid for providing municipal sanitary sewer service for a planned 178-unit age-restricted condominium complex at a 50-acre Hawleyville site.

WSA Chairman Richard Zang convened a special meeting of the agency on November 28 at which members unanimously approved the tentative agreement that would settle the court appeal against the WSA filed in Danbury Superior Court last June by the Woods at Newtown, LLC. 

Woods at Newtown, LLC, of Montebello, N.Y., is the current owner of the site, which is a depleted sand-and-gravel mine.

Toll CT III, LP, of 53 Church Hill Road, a unit of Toll Brothers, Inc, has an option to buy the site from the Woods at Newtown, LLC, for the construction of a 178-unit condo complex.

In October, both the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z), and the Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) approved the plans for Toll’s 178-unit complex.

Fred Hurley, town public works director, told WSA members November 28 that Toll’s construction proposal for the site is somewhat different than previous condo construction plans that the WSA had endorsed for the property in the past, but which had never materialized.

The town had a consulting real estate appraiser review the current construction plans for the site in advising the WSA on reaching a settlement with the Woods at Newtown over capital costs for sewering the site, according to Mr Hurley.

Under the terms of the tentative settlement, which requires approval by a judge, the WSA would receive $250,000 in sewer capital costs, in addition to the $850,000 which the WSA received in the past, according Mr Hurley. The $850,000 past payment stemmed from a previous condo project proposed for the site that never materialized. Thus the overall sewer capital cost payments to the WSA would be about $1.1 million, according to Mr Hurley.

Such sewer capital costs reflect the value that is added to residences based on their access to municipal sanitary sewers.

The 178-unit 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.

The 19 townhouse buildings would include two-, three-, and four-unit structures. Three of the large buildings would have 17 units each, with the other three large structures containing 20 units each. Including the clubhouse, the site would hold 26 buildings that would enclose 202,800 square feet of floor space overall.

The Toll project is planned for property with a street address of 12-16 Pocono Road. Access to the site would be provided from the north side of Mt Pleasant Road (Route 6) via an existing private street, known as Splendid Place that now serves Maplewood at Newtown, which is a 100-unit assisted-living rental complex 166 Mt Pleasant Road.

The Toll project represents the fourth time since 1998 that various firms have sought to develop the site with a large-scale, high-density multifamily housing project for people over age 55. The three previous projects failed to materialize.

In December 2010, P&Z members modified the zoning regulations on high-density elderly housing complexes, thus setting the stage for Toll’s application to construct what was then proposed as a 171-unit condo complex.

The various rule changes on high-density, age-restricted, multifamily housing complexes that Toll sought and received from the P&Z in December 2010 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 add a new category of age-restricted multifamily housing termed “apartments.”

Mr Hurley said on November 28 that a maintenance plan for a privately owned sewage pumping station will need to be reached between Toll and the owners of Maplewood at Newtown. That pumping station, which now serves Maplewood, also would serve the Toll project.

In a September letter to P&Z Chairman Lilla Dean, Assistant Sanitarian Edward Knapik writes that in the recent past, the pumping station has overflowed.

“Assurances are required that the issues that have caused the overflows have been addressed and corrected, and that the pump station will function properly with the additional [Toll project] sewage flows. The Newtown Health District will only recommend approval for this project if the town engineer and public works director are satisfied that the pump station will function properly,” Mr Knapik wrote.