Government
Neighbor Objects To Proposed Wider Driveway for Undeveloped Parcel on Hill Street
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A newly submitted plan to install a 16-foot-wide driveway to access an undeveloped 2.42-acre property in New Canaan that had been approved for a subdivision in 2014 will negatively affect the wetlands and watercourses that must be disturbed in order to create it, according to a consultant retained by one objecting neighbor. The driveway and utilities proposed for “Lot 72” on Hill Street will also harm an adjacent property “by modifying the naturally occurring drainage patterns in this area, thus increasing the potential for surface flooding on the adjacent properties,” Steven Trinkaus of Southbury-based Trinkaus Engineering LLC said in a Feb. 19 letter and report to the New Canaan Inland Wetlands Commission. “The driveway alignment as proposed is not adequate for the movement of emergency vehicles and should be denied on this basis alone. Additionally, there is a feasible and prudent alternative to the current proposal which is more environmentally friendly and less destructive to the wetland and adjacent upland areas.”
That alternative—described more fully below—would relocate the proposed driveway and change the infrastructure needed to address runoff.
