KENT — The public will get another chance to comment on a proposed 80-unit downtown housing development when the Inland Wetlands Commission hosts a public hearing on Monday, Nov. 16.
At its regular meeting in late October, the IWC scheduled the hearing in response to a petition signed by 31 residents and organized by local real estate agent Bonnie Bevans, who opposes the project.
Bevans has said the development is too large, and a consultant speaking on her behalf has questioned whether the town’s sewer system can handle the additional wastewater.
Jim Millstein, managing partner of Kent Housing Development Associates, the developer proposing the project, has said the Sewer Commission indicated the system has sufficient capacity for the development.
Connecticut law allows an inland wetlands agency to hold a public hearing if a proposal may significantly affect wetlands or watercourses, if it receives a qualifying petition, or if it determines a hearing would be in the public interest.
The hearing, which will take place online via Zoom at 7 p.m., will focus on the proposal’s potential effects on wetlands and watercourses.
It will be the first public hearing on the project since the Planning and Zoning Commission’s hearings this spring.
Those hearings drew mixed reactions, with residents praising the prospect of more housing options in Kent while raising concerns about the project’s size, traffic and effects on town services.
That process eventually led to the establishment of a Planned Development District, or PDD, on a 12.5-acre parcel of meadowland south of Town Hall, meaning the land is now restricted to the uses described in the application.
P&Z approved the district April 9, allowing 80 mixed-income housing units in townhouse and apartment-style buildings, including 16 designated as affordable. Five acres at the southern end of the property will be preserved as open space.
Introducing the project during the spring hearings, Millstein described the vision as “a village-scale residential neighborhood that fits naturally in Kent while addressing the town’s documented housing needs.”
The PDD approval was not a go-ahead for the project itself, but rather an initial permitting step. The site plan for the development is now under review by P&Z; however, that process will not feature additional public hearings.
The primary concern for the IWC is a drainage ditch that runs the length of the property from north to south. The development team has stated it will utilize the channel as a feature of the property and “beautify” it with native plants.
The IWC has also questioned a section of the southern meadow that collects standing water intermittently. The applicant’s engineer has said soil testing showed generally well-drained soils across the property. These findings and others are currently under review by the IWC’s consulting engineer.
Alongside information from Millstein and his development team, the Nov. 16 hearing will also feature input from Bevans and her consultants. Bevans has formally intervened in the application process to raise environmental concerns.
During the late-October IWC meeting, Bevans requested that the hearing be hosted either fully in person at Town Hall or in a hybrid format allowing residents to participate from Town Hall via Zoom. She stated that she and others were uncomfortable and felt underrepresented with the online format of P&Z and IWC hearings, which has been standard practice for years in Kent.
IWC Chair Lynn Werner said that she was uneasy breaking that precedent for the sake of one application, and that she preferred the online format to ensure presentations and testimony are captured in the meeting record.
“I think participating via Zoom is the fairest way to do it as long as we’re enabling people who are uncomfortable with Zoom to participate,” she said, “because it captures everything, online, for the record.”
Land Use Administrator Tai Kern said that residents who have difficulty accessing the meetings via Zoom should contact her office before the hearing to arrange access to a laptop and instructions on how to participate. She also welcomed those with materials to share, such as maps, to submit them to her office before the hearing so she can help present them.
