Hilltop Developer Proposes Changes

The engineer for a proposed seven-home mountaintop development said Monday the developer is willing to consider design changes to address planning board and neighbors' concerns about steep slopes, stormwater management and construction of a wall or other retaining devise to hold back roadside slopes.

The familiar issues were aired at three-hour planning board session that followed a weekend site visit.

The development, called Highgate at Chatham, calls for building seven homes on 6.3 acres on lots that rest above the elevation of neighboring homes. The site is wedged between existing neighborhoods. The developer, Fenix-Chatham LLC, has been before the planning board several times discussing  allegedly troubling aspects of the plan.

Board President Lydia Chambers said she was concerned after Saturday’s site visit that a considerable number of trees would be  removed to accommodate the drainage systems needed to prevent water from flowing downhill into neighbor’s yards.

“After the site visit,” Chamber said, “ I’m concerned about the layout of the plan.”

She said she was chiefly concerned that there would be no wooded buffer between the new homes and existing homes if the drainage  plan as described was constructed.

Resident Lyn Francis said that was her chief concern, that the location of the drainage  systems at the rear of the homes would impact her property.

“We need to rethink what was presented,” Chambers said.

Engineer Ronald Kennedy, president of Gladstone Design, said the applicant has examined the drainage system and has changes that could address the concerns.

As previously presented, three of the  homes would have a trench in the rear of the yard to catch runoff and dry wells to capture the water that was not directed to the trenches. Four of the homes would have collection systems that by underground pipes would drain into  two detention basins in the front of the homes.

Kennedy said that all the  homes could be drained through the pipe system, which would allow less intense development along the rear of the lots.

Another option, he said, and one he did not recommend, would be to move some of the houses closer to the street. That choice, however, would have greater impact on the steep slopes on the lots, according to Kennedy. The position of the home had been selected to reduced the need to dig into the hillsides.

The developer’s attorney Steven Schaffer at the end of the meeting asked Chambers if the board could provide a little clearer direction on the rear drainage issue. He said the  applicant is nearly complete with the presentation, and it would help to know if more engineering was going to be needed to address the drainage issues.

Informally, the board said that building shallow swales and piping the  water to the detention basin was preferred.

Kennedy also addressed the issues of Mountainside Drive, the road that leads to the proposed development, and the fate  of a 9-foot retaining wall that would hold back the hillside along that road.

The road would be re-engineered to a consistent 20-ft. width from the intersection with Ormont Avenue to the development site, Kennedy said.

The road would have curbs, and drainage basins that he said would stop runoff from washing into the existing yards. Driveway cuts would be made for each home.

On the upside slope, Kennedy said, existing plans show a 9-foot wall to hold back the hillside, and a 2-to-2.5-ft. wall with a wooden guiderail on the downslope side to prevent vehicles from exiting the road.

An  alternative to the 9-ft. stone wall, Kennedy said, was constructing a sloping hillside by altering the existing steep slope to a shallower depth.

The hillside would more gradually slope away from the road and would be secured with a lattice work of cement forms designed to encourage the growth of  grass and other vegetation which would act as a cover for the support structure. That approach required a 10-foot easement to alter the hillside, he said.

Kennedy said that approach would keep to the rural nature of the neighborhood, an element the planning  board and neighbors said was an important consideration.

The application  will be taken up again on Jan. 9.