KENT, Conn.—The Inland Wetlands Commission got a first peek the evening of Monday, Sept. 22, at plans for the housing development being planned for land adjacent to the Kent Town Hall.
The 12-acre tract is bisected by a swale that collects water from the larger Kent Green area and transports it across the site to an egress near Maple Avenue Ext., where it is funneled under the railroad tracks and eventually makes its way toward the Housatonic River. The swale presents challenges for the development of the site, which will add a proposed 76 housing units to the town’s tight inventory.
The property was acquired from developer John Casey by James Millstein, managing member of Kent Housing Development Associates, who is seeking to alleviate the “desperate need for workforce and affordable housing” in the community. Fifteen units, or 20 percent of the project, would be deed restricted as affordable.
Monday’s presentation was a pre-application conversation with the Inland Wetlands Commission. “This is an information-gathering operation for us, not to give advice to you,” said Chairman Lynn Werner. Nevertheless, following a presentation by soil scientist Jay Fain, the commissioners indicated areas where they would welcome additional information when formal application is made.
Fain said it could be several months before the application is ready for presentation, perhaps next spring.
Millstein said that the drainage ditch is manmade and was maintained previously by Casey to drain water away from the Kent Green businesses. Werner said there was an intermittent waterway prior to the ditch that collected water, but Fain said he had been unable to identify its path.
“There was probably once a drainage way,” he agreed, “but I haven’t found the original stream bed.” He said the parcel was extensively studied in 2015 when an incentive housing zone was established.
“There was a lot of engineering done on the town’s behalf,” he said, but conceded “drainage on the field will need to be addressed before any development.”
His own assessment revealed well-drained soils, with the swale being the only regulated area on the property. “There is a constraint in the southern part,” he said because a culvert was installed higher than the swale. “To develop that area would be difficult and counterproductive,” he concluded.
That area should instead be left in its natural state as a wildflower meadow while development is concentrated at the northern end of the tract, he advised. There are currently invasive plants growing there that would be eradicated and replaced with native growth.
His solution to the drainage problem would be to retain the existing swale “and make a feature of it for the site.”
“We can’t do anything fancy, there’s not enough gradient to do that,” he said. “So, we came up with a plan for using native wetland material—pollinator species—to create a walkway on one side of the swale with a road on the other side. The concept turns it into something people can enjoy.”
The native plantings would be mirrored by landscaping around the buildings.
Rain gardens and bio-swales would be used to collect water to ensure that surface water flow from the site is not increased. “We haven’t designed it yet,” Fain said, “but I think it brings a good tone to the plan, it brings a ‘green’ quality.”
Werner observed that the water flows from a large watershed and said the commission will want to know the amount of runoff and how it is calculated. “The commission will be interested in real detail with actual measurements,” she said. “I know the swale fills with water in the spring and that you can hardly find it in the fall.”
Other commissioners expressed interest in where the swale begins and where the water will go. The Planning and Zoning Commission recently demanded verification of the surface water plan for a second housing development being planned by Kent Affordable Housing on a lot just the other side of the railroad tracks and Route 341.
“The whole area does tend to flood when we have heavy storms,” observed Land Use Administrator Tai Kern.
Fain said the plan would try not to use a holding pond, relying instead on rain gardens and bio-swales to allow the water to infiltrate the water sand and gravel below the top soil.
