FARMINGTON — Developers of Brookside Village, a proposed senior-housing project on the Fairbanks Road, are ready to start infrastructure work after reaching an agreement with Farmington Village Corp., the town’s water department.

Brookside Village is a 32-unit apartment building for low-income elderly people. It will be situated on the site of a former dowel mill. A condominium project, Willow Springs, is also expected to be built on the property.

The town’s Planning Board approved the Brookside Village project in July pending an agreement on a monitoring well between the developers and the town’s water department.

That agreement was reached within the 30 days allotted by the board, Jane Woodman of the water department said last week.

The developers, William Marceau and Bryon Davis, will put in a monitoring well at their expense to conduct three different water tests each quarter for a year. After that, the department takes over testing and the cost, Woodman said.

The first year, at a cost of about $375 for three tests per quarter, will provide a baseline of what to expect according to each season. The agreement also allows water department officials the discretion to cut back or do more testing depending on what they think, she said.

Snowmelt and rain can cause more runoff and more testing might be needed.

“It’s been a good exercise for all of us. We’ve looked at our wellhead protection,” she said.

Property abutter, Brad Smith, raised concerns about a proposal to use a small pond on the property, which is within the department’s wellhead protection zone, as a wet pond, a method of treating surface runoff water.

The Planning Board’s approval and the assessors of the water department initially withheld their support as they waited for results of a Department of Environmental Protection report.

Bids for the $500,000 infrastructure work supported by a Community Development Block Grant are going out this week, Marceau said Tuesday. 

Selectmen held a public hearing last week to update residents about the CDBG that the town agreed to apply for and administer.

The infrastructure work, including sewer and water lines and a road into the project, should be completed by November.

Other bids for construction of the housing unit will go out in time for an early spring, perhaps February, construction start, he said.

“It’s been years,” Marceau said of the work to clear the property and develop plans for both Brookside Village and Willow Springs.

abryant@sunjournal.com

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