Farmington's Town Plan and Zoning Commission on Sept. 28 approved the last 46 houses in Farmington West Estates, the subdivision off Snowberry Lane near Route 177. Much of the discussion was not about whether to approve them, but about whether the conditions attached to the approval will be followed.
The developer, Farmington West Estates Limited Partners, must restore part of a protected conservation area where a construction entrance appears to have been cut, post signs barring snow storage and dumping at the edge of that land, and add a cleaning schedule for the storm drains. Those conditions were not in the motion as made. Secretary David St. Germain, who made it, added the words "with conditions" after the vote, and a commissioner said a second vote was unnecessary because the conditions were on the record.
"This commission in the past has frequently put conditions on approvals that then sit in drawers," Commissioner Josh Davidson said. No one at the meeting said how or when the town will check that the land is repaired or the signs are up.
The protected land
Most of the site is surrounded by open space and conservation easements, land the developer has agreed will stay undeveloped and has conveyed to the town. Davidson asked whether construction traffic was allowed to cross it. The developer's attorney said, as a general rule, no. Davidson said Google Street View images from October 2024 appeared to show a construction entrance running through it. The attorney said that was possible and that if it had happened, the land should be restored.
The attorney's recollection was that the easement was recorded in October 2024, and that the opening may predate it. Town Planner Shannon Rutherford said the entrance had been there a while and that no one had worked on the site for at least a year. "They should have waited to file the easement until after construction was finished," Rutherford said. Restoring the land became a condition, along with Davidson's suggestion of more signs and instructions to contractors so the opening is not used again.
Plaques every 40 feet will mark the boundary for homeowners. The town's 2005 natural resource inventory had flagged land around Snowberry Cobble; much of the surrounding land was later protected by easements, a town planner told the Conservation Commission this spring.
Town staff had also suggested connecting one of the new streets, Governor's Pride, to the north leg of Snowberry Lane to ease traffic. The developer's traffic engineer said the connection was unnecessary, and the attorney said the easement runs along that edge, so a road there would require the Town Council to release it.
Two short dead ends
Governor's Pride and another new street, Derby's Run, each end in a short dead end serving three houses, with no cul-de-sac. Davidson read the plans as showing those ends at 18 feet wide. "A generous parking spot is nine feet wide," Davidson said. "So you're talking about two parking spots."
The attorney said the narrow ends, which the plans call cart paths, were part of what the 1994 court decision approved. Plowed snow there will go into the front yards at the end or the road's edge, with any excess trucked away, because it cannot go into the wetlands, the developer's site planner and attorney said. The no-snow-storage signs became a condition. The developer also agreed to add a cleaning schedule for the catch basins on the private roads, which the plans had left out.
Three decades in the making
The attorney told the commission the project was the subject of a judicial decree approving it in September 1994, and that the town's zoning regulations were revised afterward to accommodate it. The attorney did not describe the court case itself. The commission approved the first 43 lots in November 1997, and later phases followed and were built.
The Inland Wetlands Commission approved the wetland impacts for all the remaining phases on Dec. 6, 2023, according to the site planner, and the zoning commission approved a first 10-lot piece, Phase 6A, on July 8, 2024. That hearing was on the town's calendar that summer. Construction on Phase 6A got as far as a water-quality basin and some capped utility lines, then stopped about two to two and a half years ago, Rutherford said; no reason was given at the meeting.
The land is zoned AH, which the site planner described as affordable housing. The plans call for two-story colonials of roughly 2,300 to 2,500 square feet. Nothing said at the meeting addressed whether any of the homes will be priced as affordable.
What will be built
- Where: 12.88 acres north of Snowberry Lane, along new streets named Governor's Pride, Preakness Way, Saratoga Circle, Speedster Way and Derby's Run, Phases 6B through 6F. About eight existing homes face Snowberry Lane on the south side.
- The houses: nine designs, all two-story colonials with two-car garages. The smallest lot is 5,000 square feet; a few are about 7,000.
- The streets: about 2,800 feet of new road, all private, plowed and maintained by the homeowners association. Only the outer loop of Snowberry Lane is a town road, Rutherford said.
- Water: public water from Connecticut Water and public sewer. Two detention basins and treatment units on the drain lines are designed so the site sends no more stormwater downhill than it does now, up through a 100-year storm, and to remove more than 85 percent of the sediment, according to the project engineer. Staff required the main drainage system to be built before anything else.
No one from the public spoke at the hearing, and the commission received no letters.
This coverage is supported by Farmington Storage, 155 Scott Swamp Road, the only storage facility in Connecticut with Museum air. 860.777.4001 📦
Jack Beckett has covered Farmington's Plan and Zoning Commission long enough to know that some subdivisions take a weekend and some take 32 years. Third coffee. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers the town nobody else is covering: the meeting that ran late, the log nobody typed up, the subdivision plan with a 1994 court decree in its footnotes. We publish slowly and without apology. Always last to breaking news, thorough about everything else. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell your neighbors. #WeAreFarmington 📰