Office/Retail/Eatery—

P&Z Reviews Proposed Mt Pleasant Road Commercial Building

By Andrew Gorosko

Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members are reviewing a proposal to construct a 28,380-square-foot commercial building at 164 Mt Pleasant Road (Route 6), which would hold a mixture of retail, office, and restaurant uses.

P&Z members heard presentations on the proposal at a June 18 public hearing from representatives for applicant Acme Realty of Scarsdale, N.Y. The developer is seeking a special permit.

The site is in a B-2 (Business) zone. The site currently holds a vacant dilapidated single-family house, detached garage, and shed, all of which would be demolished to make way for new construction. The site is lightly wooded and has stone walls.

The appraised value of the property is $737,174, according to town assessment records posted on the Internet. Nuevo Pueblo, LLC, is listed as the owner.

The 3.2-acre site is on the north side of Mt Pleasant Road, directly east of the driveway for The Homesteads at Newtown assisted-living complex. The commercial building would be served by a single two-lane driveway.

The proposed building would hold about 14,180 square feet of office space, approximately 12,200 square feet of retail space, and about 2,000 square feet of restaurant space. The unspecified restaurant would have 50 seats.

The two-story structure would have parking lots that would hold up to 130 vehicles.

Landscape architect Keith Beaver of Didona Associates of Danbury, representing the developer, explained the landscaping aspects of the project to P&Z members.

The site would be illuminated by a series of 14-foot-tall lightposts in the Providence style, similar to those that are in place along the eastern end of Church Hill Road in Sandy Hook Center, Mr Beaver said.

The sloped property would require the construction of three retaining walls. The property slopes upward northward of Mt Pleasant Road.

“Rain gardens” would be constructed on the site, Mr Beaver said. Rain gardens are shallow depressions in the  ground planted with vegetation that allow stormwater to drain downward through the soil to reach the underground water table.

About 920 cubic yards of earthen material would be removed from the site to prepare it for construction.

Engineer John McCoy of JFM Engineering of Ridgefield, representing the applicant, said that United Water would provide water for the commercial building from its public water supply, which has supply lines installed along Mt Pleasant Road.

Also, the applicant is seeking approval from the Water & Sewer Authority (WSA) to discharge the commercial building’s wastewater into the nearby municipal sewer system, according to Mr McCoy.

The developer is seeking an Economic Development Commission (EDC) endorsement of the project as a form of “economic development,” as has been requested by the WSA, Mr Mc Coy said. The town installed sewer lines along Mt Pleasant Road almost a decade ago to encourage economic development in that area.

Architect Kevin Bennett of Bennett Sullivan Associates, Inc, of Southbury said that the ground level of the proposed building would contain retail space, as well as a restaurant. The upper level would hold office space.

A brick façade would be complemented by shingle siding and clapboard siding. A sloped roof would be employed to screen rooftop mechanical systems from view, he said. The structure would contain an elevator.

P&Z Chairman Lilla Dean asked whether the building would contain energy-efficient features such as solar panels or a sod roof.

Such features are not planned, but quality equipment to be used in the building, plus quality construction  would make for an energy-efficient structure, Mr Bennett responded.

In a report on the traffic aspects of the development proposal, traffic engineer Michael Galante of Frederick P. Clark Associates, Inc, of Fairfield, wrote that the project “will have an insignificant, if any, impact on the overall operation of adjacent and nearby roadways.”

Mr Galante said that the section of Mt Pleasant Road near the proposed commercial building has an average of four vehicular accidents annually, indicating a low rate of traffic accidents in the area.

The road there carries about 9,000 vehicles daily, he said. However, the road carries more traffic when motorists use it as an alternative route to the nearby Interstate 84 when traffic backups occur on I-84, he said.

No member of the public spoke at the June 18 hearing.

P&Z members asked for additional information concerning the project’s connection to municipal sewers, the placement of trees on the site, and the use of a grease trap to filter grease from wastewater discharged from the proposed restaurant. The public hearing is scheduled to resume at the P&Z’s July 2 meeting.

In February, the project received a wetlands protection approval from the Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC). 

A prime concern among IWC members was the quality of the stormwater that would be discharged from the site to a nearby wetland, with the goal of preventing any additional pollution from entering that wetland, which lies south of the site.