Senior living project has sewer capacity problem

— One of the first challenges for a proposed 454-unit senior living development on Dodge Pond in Niantic is to secure a connection to the town’s sewer system.

There is a question, though, if there is enough capacity remaining in the system for the project.

A request from Pelletier-Niantic LLC for 110,000 gallons per day would accommodate 160 condominiums, 144 apartments, and a 150-bed memory care section, as well as urgent care and radiology facilities open to the public. The site is made up of several parcels along Pennsylvania Avenue, about a half mile north of Town Hall.

A public hearing will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Town Hall.

Town utilities engineer Ben North has said there are only 1,397 gallons per day that are not being used or reserved for other developments.

The town is allotted up to 1.5 million gallons per day of treatment capacity at New London’s Piacenti Water Treatment Facility.

“We’re in a situation where we don’t have a lot of capacity left,” North said.

Part of the reason is because most of the 313,131 gallons per day of sewage capacity going unused is being saved for multiple projects in various stages of completion. They range from not yet approved — like the more than 800 apartments proposed by Landmark Development in the Oswegatchie Hills — to a swath of luxury, single-family homes known as The Orchards that are 81% complete.

The Niantic Village senior housing proposal covers 37 acres owned by the Trakas family from Pennsylvania Avenue to Dodge Pond, with the sale to Pelletier-Niantic pending project approval.

The project’s civil engineer, J. Robert Pfanner, said the developer would pay for the extension of the sewer main from Main Street to the site on Pennsylvania Avenue. He told the commission last month that it would not require a public pump station and would “bring connection availability to dozens of other homes” along the new line.

Dodge Pond is known for the alewife that have spawned there for centuries, and the Navy’s sonar research there since the 1950s. In 2017, a researcher discovered its waters contained healing powers that may provide a solution to the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant infections.

A natural pond formed by glaciers, its connection to the sea through the Pattagansett River which hasn’t been blocked by dams like many other waterways, so alewife still swim there to spawn every spring.

First Selectman Kevin Seery, chairman of the Water and Sewer Commission, reiterated the town is struggling because it’s at the end of its available capacity.

“There are people who have previously qualified, so we have to reserve capacity for them,” he said.

That fact has been legally reinforced in multiple court rulings, emanating from as high as the state Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of Landmark Development’s proposed affordable housing development.

Judges ruled the 14,434 gallons per day in sewage capacity authorized by the Water and Sewer Commission was “excessively low” in comparison to the amount the town subsequently allowed the Gateway Commons community, with its hundreds of luxury units near Costco.

Since 2001, Landmark Development has sought to develop housing on the 236 acres in the Oswegatchie Hills over the course of several zoning applications with the town, sewage capacity requests and appeals. It has faced resistance from multiple town agencies as well as environmental advocates.

Landmark has since been allotted 118,400 gallons per day for the project that has not yet come to fruition. The town is also reserving 35,400 gallons per day for developer Jason Pazzaglia’s planned, 80-unit affordable housing development on North Bride Brook Road, according to Water and Sewer Department documents.

About 137,000 gallons per day are being held for lots along existing lines that have not yet been connected, the numbers show.

The first selectman and the utilities engineer suggested different solutions to the lack of capacity. North recommended approaching the state about accessing some of its unused sewage capacity at sites like York Correctional Insitutition, Camp Nett and Rocky Neck State Park.

Seery said the town could negotiate for more capacity, but that would involve waiting a few years.

Based on a 2021 tri-town agreement through which East Lyme and Waterford’s wastewater flows into New London’s treatment facility, the towns have to wait until 2026 to open negotiations for more capacity.

The two smaller towns last year agreed Waterford gets 30% of the 10 million gallon treatment capacity of New London’s treatment facility while East Lyme gets 15%, or 1.5 million.

Seery emphasized Thursday’s public hearing is solely about determining sewer capacity for the project. He said it’s not up to the Water and Sewer Commission to determine if the project fits with the town’s Plan of Conservation and Development, whether there are any wetland concerns, or if it meets the zoning regulations.

“The land use commissions will have that chore to determine that,” he said. “The Water and Sewer Commission’s chore is to determine is there capacity or is there not, and if there is, how would it be connected.”