Rubber and guns and retention ponds … oh my.
Debate at a planning and zoning public hearing Monday night circled around these three topics – and whether one, or all, could preclude White Hills Homes LLC of Shelton from building four single-family homes off Hoinski Way.
A four-home subdivision is not usually a hot issue, but this 4.19-acre lot has about 20,000 cubic yards of rubber waste buried on it — and abuts the Ansonia gun club.
And then, there’s the matter of water runoff, which neighbors fear will create a burden on their private retention pond.
The developer argued Monday that a title search of the property yielded no restrictions on developing it. Steven Bellis, an attorney representing White Hills Homes, said the state Department of Environmental Protection has given the green light to develop the property, as long as the homes are not built on the rubber landfill.
“I have nothing against the four lots, if the rubber is removed,” said Gene Sharkey, a member of the Board of Aldermen, who was the chairman of the planning and zoning commission in the 1990s, when an adjacent 88-home subdivision was approved.
Sharkey and Board of Aldermen President Steve Blume, who both spoke at the hearing, said the 88-home subdivision was originally slated to include the 4 acres in question, but the planning and zoning commission at the time determined the area with the rubber landfill could not be developed.
Bellis countered that the 88-home subdivision did not include that 4 acres, so there could be no restrictions placed upon it during that application process.
Legal fine points aside, the more practical issues of how future homeowners would live near a gun club and landfill also came up.
The homes would be built in areas around the buried rubber, but it would remain in their back and side yards.
Planning and zoning commission Chairman Bart Flaherty wondered:
Cold they build a swimming pool? Garden?
Not without state Department of Environmental Protection approval, according to Greg Gardner, an environmental expert hired by White Hills Homes LLC to review land records for the site.
“They can…. if they go to the DEP and get a permit to get rid of that rubber,” Gardner said. “The DEP’s primary concern is with the disturbance of the rubber.”
As for the gun club, Bellis said the club poses no safety hazard. Bellis said representatives from the gun club told him all shooting faces away from the property — and that no bullets leave the gun club’s property.
As for noise, Bellis said there is a “sound easement” that clearly notifies homeowners they waive their right to make a claim against the noise coming from the club.
“It will be in their title that there is a gun club next to them and on occasion it could be noisy,” Bellis said.
Still, neighbors who live close to the club, but not as close as the proposed subdivision, said the noise was extremely loud.
“I would think the developer and the real estate agent who are going to sell these houses would bring those people by on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday,” said Sobin Drive resident George Mayo.
The gun club operates on weekends, Tuesdays and Thursday, Mayo said.
