WILTON – A proposal for a five-lot subdivision on Village View Street was intensely scrutinized at a Planning Board meeting Thursday, said board member Irving Faunce.
The plan “doesn’t conform to the (town’s) comprehensive plan or subdivision ordinance,” he said Friday. It would create unsafe traffic conditions, with the addition of 50 estimated vehicular trips daily on the road, he added.
According to the town’s ordinance, a subdivision must provide its own access road but the current plan has five lots, each with a driveway entering onto Village View Street.
Though the plan is only in the preliminary stages, Faunce made a motion said that the application does not meet the subdivision ordinance or the town’s comprehensive plan. The motion was approved.
The traffic issue “is a bone of contention,” Code Enforcement Officer Paul Montague said Friday.
Soil erosion was also a concern. The property sits about 100 feet above Wilson Stream behind the abandoned Forster mill, and the steep slope causes concern.
The soil erosion plan “is a major issue,” Faunce said.
“The problem is, we don’t know what will be built there so we can’t approve the soil erosion (plan),” Montague agreed.
Adam Mack, the property owner, does not plan to build on the property but rather plans to sell the lots to individuals who would construct their own homes. Mack also owns the former mill, although plans for that property are yet to be announced.
In other business, the Planning Board unanimously approved plans for a shoe and orthotics manufacturing plant in the former G.H. Bass building, now The Nichols-Bass Business & Technology Center.
New England Orthotics and Diabetic Shoe Manufacturing Co. Inc. will lease 10,000 square feet of the facility. It plans to hire about 17 employees, mostly shoe manufacturing technicians, by the end of next year.
The board’s only concern about the manufacturing operation centered around hazardous waste disposal from liquids used in the leather tanning process. But Gil Reed, a principal in Nichols Development, which owns the building, told the board that the lease contract is contingent on proper hazardous waste disposal by a commercial company.
Also approved Tuesday were plans for a six-child day care center, a home business and the move of Bradley’s Pizza from Wilton Road in Farmington to the former Mario’s Pizza shop on Main Street.
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