The owners of an approximately 32-acre property across the street from the Country Club of New Canaan, in seeking a nine-lot subdivision, plan to protect more open space than what’s required by local regulations, their attorney says.
The owners of 82 Brookwood Lane—a limited liability company whose representatives, Jim Hoffman and Adam Sherer of property developer SPB Homes, attended the Jan. 28 Planning & Zoning Commission meeting—also have decreased the arc of a driveway coming off of Brookwood following feedback from the New Canaan fire marshal, are in discussion about helping firefighters by creating a “dry hydrant” using a pond on the property, and are looking for ways to improve the existing wetlands, according to their attorney, Amy Zabetakis of Rucci Law Group.
“My clients and the team have spent months carefully designing this project to adhere to all of the zoning regulations, environmental standards, and meet the requirements of the subdivision regulations as well as the [Inland] Wetlands Commission’s,” Zabetakis told P&Z during the appointed body’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference.
She continued: “We first started discussing the project with the town in August of last year before my clients completed the purchase of the property. And they’ve been sensitive to trying to develop the parcel in a way that also protects the wetlands and other environmental features of the property. The lots, as designed, are all larger than the two-acre minimum for the zone and do conform to the town’s zoning and subdivision regulations, as was confirmed in the staff report. I can also confirm that the Health Department has approved the lots as viable for septic and well. … I should note: We are not at this point proposing any development of any individual lots. This is simply for the subdivision.”
The meeting marked the first time that Zabetakis addressed P&Z. The Commission did not take public comment at the meeting and, as Town Planner Sarah Carey noted in her memo prior to the meeting, a P&Z vote on the subdivision application must come after the Inland Wetlands Commission has made its own decision. Zabetakis noted in addressing P&Z that the property owner’s plans call for open space along the parcel’s eastern border with Norholt Drive and Smith Ridge Road properties.
“There are also some conservation easement areas, as well,” Zabetakis said. “What we’re showing is only the required open spaces to satisfy the subdivision regulations. What’s not shown on this map is my clients do intend to supplement the open space and conservation easement with additional acreage. We’ve been working on that with staff in both Wetlands and P&Z. But we don’t want to cause any confusion. As I’m sure you’re aware, the New Canaan [Zoning] Regulations talk about a ‘percentage wetlands’ within the open space, so once we make the open space bigger, if we end up with any wetlands, we mess up that percentage. What we’re trying to do is show the minimum. We’re showing what would be a buffer with the neighbors on that eastern side… This sets aside more than two acres of open space and more than an acre of additional land. And then, likely, there’ll be additional space to come that we would like to add within the conservation easement once that’s all drafted.”
She added that though the lot “was likely eligible for a first free cut,” the developers “decided not to go down that route.”
“So it’s possible that we could have even done less open space,” Zabetakis said. “But we think this is a layout that works well. This allows us to provide this green space buffer for the eastern neighbors. … The plan would be, if this application and subdivision were approved, to create a private homeowners’ association that would be responsible for the maintenance of this shared driveway and would also be responsible for the maintenance and care of the open space and conservation easement areas.”
She referred to a shared driveway, currently 14 feet wide, that could be widened to 18 feet to accommodate the subdivision, or not made any wider, if it’s shown to impact wetlands negatively.
The driveway itself already has been altered following feedback from the fire marshal, Zabetakis said.
“At the point where it enters Brookwood Lane the entrance has been changed, that arc has been changed slightly because the current driveway goes up in a sharp turn, that is something the fire marshal had asked for,” she said. “So that arc has been smoothed out, but then it meets up with the existing driveway, and like I said, it does widen it from the 14 to 18 feet, but does follow the line of the existing driveway. All of the other driveways that you’ll see on here—for example, the driveway to the caretaker’s cottage, which is also another entrance off Brookwood Lane—would be removed. That entrance would be closed and other driveways will all be removed. The proposed new driveway would culminate in a cul-de-sac at which point there would be a turnaround for emergency vehicles.”
The cul-de-sac also is near a pond that could serve as a water source in a “dry hydrant,” she said—identified as a pressing need in town.
“We’ve been working pretty closely with the fire marshal, that cul-de-sac turning radius is something that had been discussed with him,” Zabetakis said. “The other element that’s been discussed is providing access to the pond with a dry hydrant for a source of water, which would not just for this subdivision, but also for other lots in the area. … There wouldn’t be a paved easement, but there would be a grass easement area that we kept clear of trees, et cetera, so that the fire trucks could back up and fill directly from the pond. We are looking to see if there are any other ways to provide access to that pond for the fire marshal, either from Brookwood Lane, at the entrance or from up top. There is, if you look at the topography on the existing conditions map, there’s a pretty steep slope, so I’m not sure that’ll be possible, but that is something we’re continuing to work on with him.”
Concerned neighbors in December lodged a petition for intervention with Inland Wetlands, and other parties have filed letters of opposition to the subdivision since then.
Regarding the wetlands, Zabetakis noted that she and a team that includes SPB Homes, William Kenny of Fairfield-based William Kenny Associates, and Len D’Andrea of Riverside-based RVDI, the civil engineer on the project, had appeared the prior night before the Inland Wetlands Commission.
“I received a number of comments from them that we’re looking to address,” she said. “In particular, part of the feedback that we got from them was they really wanted us to try to minimize the impacts on the wetlands. The existing driveway is quite close to the wetlands currently. So we’re going to be working on that to see if there’s any way that we can minimize the actual incursion into the wetlands. Again, that’s mainly because we’re trying to widen the driveway. I think we’ll be looking at trying to see if we can make it less than 18 feet wide so that we are not encroaching into the wetlands.”
In addition to narrowing the driveway, an option may be altering access to the various lots, she said.
“We tried to carefully design it so that the open space provides this permanent buffer to the neighbors on that side of the property, and we believe the goals of the town Plan of Conservation and Development are better protected with this low-impact development,” she said.
If and when plans for the actual development of the property come forward following subdivision approval, those plans will be reviewed by Inland Wetlands as well as P&Z, “and there will be an opportunity if neighbors have concerns about drainage, runoff, et cetera,” Zabetakis said.
She continued: “And again, we’re not going to change this tonight, but I think that when you hear from the project engineers, you’ll see that, in fact, what we’re proposing now will be a major improvement to the surrounding areas since there is no drainage or stormwater retention currently on the property. There will be, both from the work we’re doing on the driveway, and then of course, each of these lots, we’ll have to show no net runoff. You’ll hear this from Mr. Kenny, proposing a number of actual improvements to the wetlands on this property. Because of the way the property’s been developed in the past, the wetlands are not functioning properly right now. In particular, in the wetlands that are over on the north side of the property, there’s a ton of fill, driveways straight through the wetlands. We’ll be removing all of that and actually adding to the wetlands in that area, which should help. They’ll be able to function as they’re supposed to with retaining water, taking stormwater from other properties.”
She said that the existing conditions map shows a topography that’s high on the Brookwood Lane side and high on the eastern side.
“The low point is towards the center of this lot feeding down to the south,” Zabetakis said. “So this is where water is going and then feeding into the Fivemile River watershed eventually. So anything we can do to improve the wetlands and the retention on this property will help neighbors both upstream and downstream.”
During the meeting, Zabetakis also addressed a Jan. 24 letter filed with P&Z behalf of the New Canaan Land Trust, asking P&Z to consider a fee-in-lieu of granting a conservation easement.
Typically, parties come before P&Z with a request for fee-in-lieu because a project can’t comply with the regulations, but “we can provide the necessary open space within this project,” Zabetakis said, adding that it makes more sense to set aside open space that goes beyond what’s required than “putting money in a fund with the hope that at some point some open space will become available somewhere else in the town.”
The next regular meeting of P&Z is scheduled for Feb. 25.
Environmental concerns are being raised on this project by a private equity firm, as an Advertiser’s article indicates. I hope the oversight is looking at all the repercussions of this development project no doubt with teardowns, and tree cutting as part of it. It is well overdue that an ordinance be enacted requiring permits for tree removals as other towns require.