Wetlands Approves Big Y Project
“The applicant will clean/restore all existing downstream pipes, channels, and swales, and other drainage systems up to but excluding channel tide gate, as part of their development, prior to the initiation of construction on the site,” according to the meeting’s minutes.
The Commission is requiring the applicant to follow suggestions and comments made by town engineer Geoff Jacobson in ten different memos, creating low impact development techniques in three primary areas of the site, and to obtain appropriate bonding for maintenance and construction.
The low impact development techniques required would be proposed within parking lot islands, Jacobson said, to “provide a disconnection between impervious areas and to reduce runoff volume.”
Jacobson suggested at least one of those locations should have a bio-retention area which has benefits experienced in other locations throughout the country and could serve as a model for future developments in town.
Additionally, the applicant must clean culverts under Center Road West, Center Road, Route 1 and the trolley line, all actions the applicant had promised to perform at the commission’s June 15 pubic hearing.
Jacobson believes cleaning the culverts is important even if there was no development because doing so would “remove existing hydraulic restrictions that would otherwise allow increased flows downstream.”
Residents of the Chalker Beach area stated at the June 15 public hearing they are experiencing flooding during high rain periods and are concerned the development would worsen these problems.
However, the applicant’s attorney, David Royston, has stated, “we will attenuate the flow from its area so the rate of runoff does not create more problems.”
Jacobson has studied the effect construction would have on the site and has suggested it be phased in to “avoid the disturbance of the entire site at the same time and therefore reduce the potential for associated sediment and erosion control problems.”
The motion to approve the action passed on a 5-1-0 vote with a dissenting vote from Vice Chairman Charles Sohl.
The Old Saybrook Land Use Department expects the application will be reviewed by the Zoning Commission and possibly later sent to the Architectural Review Board and Planning Commission for further review.
The shopping center, to be located at the intersection of Boston Post Road and Spencer Plains Road would be anchored by a 63,400 square foot Big Y Supermarket and two separate retail buildings of 24,000 and 21,000 square feet located in the rear of the site behind a large parking lot.
In an effort to create a different type of shopping center, plans show two retail buildings of 6,200 and 5,800 square feet would abut Boston Post Road.
Along Spencer Plains Road, two retail buildings of 8,000 and 7,500 square feet are also planned.
Plans show sidewalks would be in front of those four buildings with a pedestrian sidewalk allowing shoppers to walk between them and the retail buildings on the rear of the site.
The proposed shopping center would have about 47 percent less retail space than the 288,000 square foot Old Saybrook Shopping Center built in 1969.
