Sandy Hook Condo Complex Sewer Request Under Review

By Andrew Gorosko

Water and Sewer Authority (WSA) members have asked a Danbury developer to provide more technical information to help them decide on the developer’s request to connect a controversial proposed 23-unit mixed-income condominium complex to the central municipal sanitary sewer system.

Developer Guri Dauti, doing business as Dauti Construction, LLC, proposes Edona Commons for a steep, rugged 4.04-acre site at 95-99 Church Hill Road, just west of Dayton Street, in Sandy Hook Center. Seven of the 23 dwellings at the five-building complex would be reserved for moderate-income families. The project, which would contain a total of 57 bedrooms in both two-bedroom and three-bedroom units, would take about 18 months to construct. The Edona Commons site abuts the 52-acre site of the 189-unit age-restricted Walnut Tree Village condo complex.

Engineer Steven Trinkaus, of Trinkaus Engineering, LLC, of Southbury, representing the developer, attended a May 11 WSA session to discuss the requested sanitary sewer connection.

When developers request sewer connections for multifamily construction projects, the WSA typically has them demonstrate to it the wastewater-handling capacity of the construction site if that site were to employ a large-scale septic system. The WSA uses that engineering exercise to aid it in determining the number of dwellings that may be connected to the sewer system and also to prevent sites from being overdeveloped.

In a March letter to the WSA, Mr Trinkaus estimated that if a large septic waste disposal system were built on the site, it could handle wastewater from 18 dwellings, each of which would contain two-bedrooms, for a total of 36 bedrooms.

Two past proposals from Mr Dauti for multifamily complexes at the site were thwarted by the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) when it rejected his proposals for zoning rule changes to allow his proposals to be constructed.

In a 2003 attempt to develop the site, Mr Dauti sought to build 16 units. In a second failed attempt early in 2004, he sought to build 12 units.

Revisions Required

Fred Hurley, town public works director, said he has reviewed engineering information from Mr Trinkaus with town technical staff members in seeking to gauge its implications for the Church Hill Road site’s development.

As currently stated, the sewer connection proposal for Edona Commons is “unacceptable,” Mr Hurley said.

The property contains a water rights easement, which poses developmental issues for the site, he said. The mapping presented for the site is incomplete, lacking information on the location of the municipal sewer district and the Aquifer Protection District (APD) in relation to the site, he added. 

Also, the engineering proposal for an on-site septic system includes technical devices that the WSA does not endorse due to potential liability concerns, he said.

Also, the proposed septic system design does not include a “reserve field,” where a secondary septic system could be constructed if the original system were to fail, as is required by the WSA, Mr Hurley said.

The project also faces issues of driveway placement and a secondary site access point for emergency use, he said. 

If a developer needs to “jump through hoops” in order to fit the desired number of dwellings onto a site, then the developer may need to consider a more “conservative” design for a site, Mr Hurley said.

The engineering proposal for the site needs to be reworked, Mr Hurley said, suggesting that a solution may involve proposing somewhat fewer than 23 dwellings for the property.

Mr Hurley termed the site “a very difficult piece of land” for development, considering its rugged terrain.

The WSA is holding Dauti Construction to the same standards for sewer connections to which it has held other developers proposing multifamily complexes, Mr Hurley said.

As part of his several P&Z applications for Edona Commons, Mr Dauti is seeking to create a new zoning designation, Mixed Income Housing District (MIHD). He further seeks to convert the existing zoning designation for the site from R-2 (Residential) to MIHD. The MIHD zoning would allow a much higher construction density than is allowed by R-2 zoning.

Such a rezoning of the site needs to make sense from an environmental standpoint, Mr Hurley said. The municipal sewer system, which started operation in 1997, was not designed with MIHD zoning in mind, he noted.

Mr Trinkaus is expected to return to the WSA’s June 8 session to further discuss the condo sewering request. 

Edona Commons has received a wetlands permit from the Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC). It however, has not yet received an aquifer protection endorsement from the IWC.

The Police Commission, serving as the town’s traffic authority, is reviewing the traffic flow and site-access issues of Edona Commons.

The Edona Commons proposal drew heavy public opposition at an April 6 P&Z public hearing. That P&Z hearing was slated to resume on the night of May 18, after the deadline for this edition of The Newtown Bee.