The first of six rental apartment buildings, sited on rolling terrain off Covered Bridge Road in Hawleyville, has been completed, and dwellings are being rented out to new tenants at the planned 180-unit complex known as Covered Bridge Apartments.

Developer Anthony Lucera, the managing member of the firm Covered Bridge Newtown LLC, provided a tour this week of the partially constructed complex at 9 Covered Bridge Road, a side street that extends from Hawleyville Road (Route 25), near Exit 9 of Interstate 84.

Town land use regulators approved the multifamily housing project, which is sited on more than 20 acres, in late 2015, under the terms of the town’s Incentive Housing-10 (IH-10) zoning regulations.

The Planning & Zoning Commission (P&Z) created those zoning rules to give developers an incentive to construct “affordable housing.” Provided that developers designate at least 20 percent of the units in a complex as affordable housing, the P&Z offers the financial incentive of allowing certain commercial development at the site. Newtown, like many other communities, is under a state mandate to increase its stock of affordable housing.

Initially, the developer had proposed constructing a diner on an adjacent 3.7-acre parcel with frontage at 13 Hawleyville Road. But plans for that project fell through. That lot has been sold to a firm known as 13 Hawleyville Road LLC, which has expressed interest to town land use regulators about constructing a gas station/convenience store there.

Also, Grace Family Church is now constructing a new church off Covered Bridge Road to replace its church on Mount Pleasant Road.

In 2015, under the IH-10 rules, the P&Z simultaneously reviewed the proposed apartment complex, church, and diner projects for an overall 42 acres.

Mr Lucera said November 6 that the five apartment buildings yet to be constructed will have the same design as the first building. After the first 30-unit structure has two-thirds occupancy, the developer plans to start construction on the second and third buildings in the complex. A clubhouse and adjacent heated outdoor swimming pool already have been built at the entrance to the site.

The 36 units of the 180-unit complex to be designated as affordable housing will be rented out to income-eligible tenants at lower prices than the 144 market-rate units. The project offers dwellings with one, two, and three bedrooms. There will be 108 one-bedroom units, 54 two-bedroom apartments, and 18 three-bedroom dwellings. The apartments are situated on three levels. The basement level of each building will hold a garage with 23 parking spaces.

Mr Lucera said he expects that very few schoolchildren will live at the completed complex. Families with children are more likely to rent houses than to live in apartment buildings, he said. Previous multifamily complexes in Newtown have been age-restricted to people at least 55 years old, but not Covered Bridge Apartments.

The complex offers six different apartment designs, which range in monthly rental prices from $1,660 to $2,800. Two of the apartment designs are intended for people with disabilities. The size of the units ranges from 751 square feet to 1,447 square feet.

Mr Lucera said that the dwellings are designed so that occupants will not hear the highway noise of the nearby I-84.

The developer added that if the project proceeds as planned, Covered Bridge Apartments should be fully built and completely occupied by sometime in 2020.

The magnitude of the three-component IH-10 mixed-use application in 2015, and especially the amount of traffic that it would generate in Hawleyville, drew concerns from residents who attended the many land use public hearings that were held that year. Many complaints came from nearby Hillcrest Drive residents, who raised issues about the proximity of the new construction to their neighborhood.

The high construction density of the apartment complex was made possible by the town’s 2016 extension of the Hawleyville sanitary sewer system to the site. In February 2014, voters at a town meeting approved expanding the Hawleyville sewer system to stimulate economic development in that area.