Kathryn Court Estates takes shape
Proposed Waterford subdivision had been stymied by neighbors, recession
Waterford — For more than a decade, Rob Renehan has been sitting on a 37-acre piece of land whose development neighbors at first opposed at nearly every step.
They fought him in 2004 when the Kathryn Court Estates subdivision was proposed off Doyle Road. It was first planned as a 15-lot cluster development that called for sewers, and Renehan said a rumor went around that everyone in the neighborhood was going to be forced to pay up to $30,000 apiece for a hookup, though that wasn’t the case.
In August 2007, a Superior Court judge ruled that the town Planning & Zoning Commission’s 2005 approval of the subdivision was legal and reasonable. It wasn’t long after, though, that the nation’s economy started to cave in, and Renehan put off completion of the project that had been named for his daughter.
“In retrospect, they did me the hugest favor,” Renehan said last month. “That delay caused me not to open the project right in the middle of the recession.”
The delay also caused Renehan to rethink the project and cut it down to 10 lots, including two overlooking Niantic River Road, with more than 18 acres of open space.
“We had to adapt to the changing business environment,” Renehan said.
All lots are at least an acre and a minimum of $140,000, and Renehan is partnering with Reagan Homes to build houses on the site for about $500,000 and up. Renehan said he has closed on one lot so far, and he has three more reservations in the pipeline.
“A lot of people are downsizing,” he said during a tour of the property last month. “They want the first-floor master bedroom.”
A decade ago, neighbors formed an organization called Residents Against Kathryn Expansion and hired a lawyer to combat the development. Renehan, who lives on Doyle Road himself, said neighbors snubbed him, and he still has leaflets they handed out as well as yellowing newspaper articles detailing the controversy.
“I didn’t take it personally — you can’t,” Renehan said. “They have the right to say stuff. They were just misinformed.”
The original plan was for an approved use, he said, and no variances were required. The project also did not disturb wetlands, he said, despite protestations from neighbors.
Renehan said the main issue was the need for a sewer line to be brought in to serve the original cluster-lot development. But he said there was never any truth to the possibility that the whole neighborhood could be forced to adopt sewers.
What’s more, the revised plans were less dense, obviating the need for sewers. The new houses will all have on-site septic systems, he said, and water runoff will be dealt with in an ecologically friendly way.
“I believed in the land the whole time,” he said. “I believed in the project. It wasn’t going to fail.”
Renehan, who trades derivatives on the stock market and does occasional work at the Millstone nuclear plants, said Kathryn Court Estates was not his first real estate deal. He has built houses in the area, and also worked on a subdivision off Vauxhall Street under his company name, Hard Eight LLC, a gambling term that refers to getting a 4-4 pass in craps.
Renehan said he is proud that his project will be creating jobs in the region. “The recession was so deep around here — it was devastating,” he said. “I was just lucky enough to hold on.”