Groton Open Space Association

GOSA Ponders Next Steps After Watrous Appeals Rejected

GROTON–Lawyers for the Groton Open Space Association are examining texts of several New London Superior Court rulings favoring a developer’s plan to construct what he contends is a “Residential Life Care Community” on 105 acres of the 160-acre Watrous Property.

Judge Joseph Purtill on April 13, 2005, denied appeals by GOSA against approvals of the “Four Winds” project by the town’s Zoning Commission and Wetlands Agency. He also allowed an appeal by the developer, Ron Bonvie, against two restrictions placed on the development by the Groton’s Inland Wetlands Agency (IWA).

GOSA has 20 days from April 13 to decide whether to seek permission from the state Appellate Court in Hartford to appeal Judge Purtill’s rulings to that court. GOSA is actively considering all options, officials of the conservation association said.

The town has not said whether it will contest Judge Purtill’s dismissal of two IWA restrictions placed on the development: the denial of a wetlands crossing, known as Crossing C, near the northern border of the property, and the imposition of a seasonal closure of the development’s main interior road during salamander mating season. The IWA’s denial of Crossing C would have had the effect of reducing the planned number of units in the community to 147 from an originally proposed 161 and blocking Mr. Bonvie’s access to a large parcel of land to the north for possible expansion.

GOSA contended in its zoning appeal that Mr. Bonvie’s plan did not meet town requirements for a “Residential Life Care Community” and was in fact only an age-restricted condo development. GOSA’s wetlands appeal alleged, among other things, that the IWA failed to consider alternatives to the Bonvie plan and that the IWA did not adequately protect wildlife, biodiversity and trees. GOSA contended that regardless of the Avalon Bay Supreme Court decision, which severely undermined biological protections, these resources should have been protected under the terms of the Connecticut Environmental Protection Act (CEPA), which GOSA had invoked.

Under state legislation adopted in the wake of the Avalon Bay decision on October 14, 2003, “a municipal inland wetlands agency shall not deny or condition an application…in an area outside wetlands or watercourses on the basis of an impact…on aquatic, plant, or animal life unless such activity will likely…affect the physical characteristics of such wetlands or watercourses.” The full legal ramifications of this legislation, signed into law June 3, 2004, have yet to be determined in the courts, in part because biologists have determined that aquatic life does in fact have physical impacts on water quality. That determination broadens the range of activities outside wetlands that may affect physical water quality within wetlands and watercourses.

GOSA still has an appeal pending before another judge against the Planning Commission’s approval of the Four Winds site plan.