EL Inland Wetland Agency refuses 108-unit housing development

Project blocked until concerns about stormwater runoff are corrected, resubmitted

East Lyme — The Inland Wetland Agency unanimously voted to deny without prejudice an application proposing to construct a 108-unit housing development on the western side of town, blocking it from moving forward until concerns about stormwater runoff are corrected and submitted in a new application to the agency.

Developer Jason Pazzaglia, owner of the custom homebuilding company Pazz & Construction LLC of East Lyme, submitted an application to the town’s Land Use Department late last year, proposing to build 108 multifamily units on about 12 of the 20 acres he owns at 90 North Bride Brook Road.

The forested and undeveloped property abuts the southern side of Interstate 95, is located about a mile away from the eastern side of the Rocky Neck Connector and sits about 500 feet west of Bride Lake, according to town Wetland Enforcement Officer and Director of Planning Gary Goeschel.

Pazzaglia presented his plans with his attorney Harry Heller of Montville in January, and again in February, before the Inland Wetland Agency when a public hearing also was held on the project.

Pazzaglia was required to go before the agency because three of the 13 proposed buildings extend into what’s known as the upland review area, or the 100-foot area surround

ing a watercourse — in this case Bride Brook.

Pazzaglia had told The Day earlier this year he had hoped to begin constructing the development as soon as this spring. He purchased the property from its estate owner Edward H. Dzwilewski for $450,000 in 2017, and the Water and Sewer Commission last September granted him 35,400 gallons of daily sewage capacity for the project.

Though Pazzaglia did not officially file his application with the Inland Wetland Agency under the state’s affordable housing statutes, in January he told The Day he planned to submit the application to the town’s Zoning Commission under those statutes after receiving permission from the wetlands agency to move forward.

The Inland Wetland Agency met for the first time since February via a virtual meeting Monday night to make a decision on the application, as well as address other, separate applications.

Goeschel advised the agency that Pazzaglia’s application was complete — including a report by soil scientist James Sipperly and a review by town municipal engineer Bill Scheer — and showed “nothing that would suggest there is an adverse impact to the wetlands.” However, agency members unanimously denied the application due to remaining concerns about stormwater runoff and how it may impact Bride Brook, Bride Lake and one of the town’s nearby drinking-water aquifers. Agency member Rosemary Ostfeld has said a small portion of the building site sits within an aquifer protection area.

Chief among the agency’s concerns Monday were plans to divert stormwater runoff from the roofs of three of the site’s 13 buildings into Bride Brook. The three buildings were proposed close to the brook, within the agency’s upland review area.

Agency Vice Chairwoman Kristen Chantrell worried that potential pollutants and warmed rainwater could be carried into the brook after hitting the roofs. Combined,

she argued, the warmed stormwater and pollutants could adversely impact the brook, which she said is an already impaired watercourse and therefore should be further protected.

“I think there are other alternatives instead of putting those buildings that close (to the brook) and having the purpose of those rooftops recharging the watercourse,” she said. “The rooftops will impact the watercourse and wetlands in a negative way and those buildings need to go.”

Chairman Gary Upton also raised concerns about a stormwater detention basin proposed to be built at the southeastern end of the site, where the rest of of the site’s stormwater runoff will filter into.

Attorney Heller outlined to the agency during public hearings in January and February that the basin could accommodate enough water for a “100-year storm,” accounts for overflow with a swale, or marshy depression, and follows design guidelines from the state’s 2004 stormwater quality manual. However, Upton worried pollutants coming from the proposed development and filtering through the basin still could impact the nearby Bride Lake and, eventually, the town’s drinking-water aquifer.

“My concern is that we have a detention pond that is receiving who knows what from driveways, anti-freeze from cars, who knows what pollutants from Roundups and all those different things,” Upton said. “It’s irrefutable that if a pollutant got into that detention basin, that it has the potential ... to cause pollution of a wetland or a watercourse.”

The agency requested that a hydrology report be submitted with a new application.

Pazzaglia and Heller were present at Monday’s meeting but did not speak while the agency deliberated.

Goeschel told the agency Monday he expects Heller and Pazzaglia will appeal the decision in New London Superior Court and simultaneously would submit a new application addressing the agency’s concerns.