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OLD LYME — A developer has opened an application for an eight-lot subdivision on Buttonball Road. The wooded area is located across the street from a town-owned site currently under much-debated consideration as a public boat launch.
The subdivision would be built at 21 and 39 Buttonball Road, two parcels that together total about 12.5 acres. The project was proposed by Greenscapes Development, of Mystic, at the Sept. 8 Planning Commission meeting.
If approved, all eight lots would be at least one acre in size and have frontage on Buttonball Road. At their rear boundary, each parcel borders the Black Hall Golf Club.
The location of the lots is across the street from a town-owned three-acre parcel at 36-1 Buttonball Road that was proposed as a public boat launch for the Black Hall River. After debates over jurisdiction, three town boards agreed to form 36-1 Buttonball Road Committee to resolve access issues.
The developer has proposed about 1.88 acres, or 15 percent of the total acreage, as open space, according to Seamus Moran, a civil engineer with H+H Engineering Associates, who represented Greenscapes at the meeting.
According to the Sept. 8 Planning Commission minutes, the open space “will protect the wetlands, steep slope, and the natural environment features and provides a contiguous parcel along the golf course.”
Wetlands straddle .37 and .36 acres of each lot, but no vernal pools have been identified on the properties. The project will require an Inland Wetlands Permit, said Moran.
In a phone call with CT Examiner, Dave Reagan, owner of Greenscapes Development and Reagan Homes, said he has been building custom homes from Westerly to Essex for more than 30 years.
“Obviously we’re always concerned with our neighbors and the town and the community. We don’t want to cut down a lot of trees. We want to keep what’s there, keep the natural beauty,” he said. “We’re not looking to build McMansions, we want our new homes to be in keeping with New England shoreline design.”
Adjacent to the project, 11 Buttonball Road is for sale. The 22-acre property contains a 1,000-square-foot house and fronts Buttonball Road and Shore Road, and at the back borders the Black Hall Golf Club.
The public hearing for the eight-lot subdivision is scheduled for the Planning Commission Oct. 13 meeting.