SHARON — A site visit and public hearing for a new housing development in downtown Sharon turned prickly in more ways than one as neighbors and residents showed up largely in protest of the project.
Late in the afternoon on March 12, George Johannesen, engineer with North Canaan-based Allied Engineering Associates Inc. and representative of the applicant Gold Dog LLC, led a group of about fifteen into the woods just below the Sharon Medical Arts building parking lot.
The group bushwhacked through heavy vines and thorny bramble, following Johannesen as he pointed out a group of orange-taped stakes spread across the cedar-dotted hillside, demarcating the dimensions of the proposed condominium buildings.
As the crowd slowly lost cohesion in the thick undergrowth, some expressed exasperation — not with the painful woodland stroll, but with Gold Dog LLC’s proposal.
“Homeowners not happy,” said 61 Hospital Hill Road resident Andrea Weyant with a rueful, pained smile. “They should take their ideas and bring them somewhere else,” she said of the developers. “And that’s putting it nicely.”
Silvina Leone parted from the main entourage to lead a smaller group straight down the hill to a point just behind her property at 71 Hospital Hill Road. She motioned to a stake indicating one corner of a building, sitting about ten feet from the mowed grass of her backyard, and then toward the side of her house where the entrance driveway to the complex is meant to be located. She noted it was conspicuous that Johannesen’s site visit didn’t mention the entrance, which she said was one of the more intrusive aspects of the plan, coming within feet of her home and necessitating the removal of a vacant home and stand of large spruce trees.
Leone explained that she already hangs curtains and blankets on the windows to block noise, light and sightlines into her home. “They’re nuking the value of my property,” she said bluntly.
Leone furthered her case at the public hearing that followed later in the evening at Town Hall. Reading a letter, which she said she would submit to the Planning and Zoning Commission, she explained how the pervasive ledge and gradient at the site make it a poor choice for development,.“Everybody loses except Mr. Palmer,” she said of Florien Palmer, the developer behind Gold Dog LLC.
Leone’s husband, Pablo Cisilino, offered an emotional appeal when he took the floor: “I beg you to stop it. I beg you to reconsider.”
Dobrila Waugh, whose family has owned 17 acres at the bottom of the hill for 75 years, has already seen the property face runoff damages from the large, paved areas of Sharon Hospital.
“Everyone is entitled to privacy and quiet enjoyment,” Waugh said, referencing a core tenant of real estate she had learned when working in the field years ago. This project, she posited, would radically upset that right.
Not everyone in attendance was against the development, though. Donna DiMartino, who is a member of several town boards, said she understood the concerns with the development but that the town needs more housing options. “We need to have houses like duplexes where people who are not millionaires can live,” she argued.
P&Z alternate Jill Drew asked whether the new condominiums — 24 units, each a duplex — would be designated affordable.
Johannesen said it is not an affordable housing development — “It’s for people who can afford to buy a single-family home and work in town.”
Resident Carol Flaton stated in a written comment that she is “keenly interested in a prudent path of growth for the town,” and that the development seems like “exactly what Sharon needs.”
After concluding public comment, P&Z decided to keep the hearing open as new information may be submitted in the coming weeks.
The public hearing will resume at the April 9 P&Z meeting.
