Oswegatchie Hills Preservation
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SAVE THE OSWEGATCHIE HILLS!!
Save The River-Save The Hills continues to advocate for the preservation of ALL of the Oswegatchie Hills. 420 acres of The Hills has been preserved to date. STR-STH has supported the Town of East Lyme and The Friends of the Oswegatchie Hills Nature Preserve in this effort. We continue in our legal battle with the developer who owns the last 238 acres - the acres on the Niantic River. We believe this stretch of land is the last mile of salt water frontage that is not already developed or preserved in all of CT. Let's Save the Last Mile!!
In January 2016 we were happy to become a Founding Member of the "Save Oswegatchie Hills Coalition"
along with The Friends of the Oswegatchie Hills Nature Preserve and Connecticut Fund for the Environment/Save the Sound. The Coalition has been very active these past 2 years gaining members and educating the Region about the importance of saving the Hills to the Niantic River and thus, the LI Sound.
SAVE OSWEGATCHIE HILLS COALITION UPDATE OCTOBER 2021:
Legal Victory for Oswegatchie Hills!
Judge denies developer’s attempt to re-zone entire property for project that would cause well-recognized and substantial environmental impacts
(written by Save the Sound, Coalition Member)
East Lyme, Conn. - In long-awaited victory for conservation of East Lyme’s Oswegatchie Hills and the Niantic River, a judge has ruled in favor of three organizations seeking to protect 236 acres of coastal forest threatened with destructive development. The court rejected the developer’s challenge to the preliminary decision, sending the decision back to the local zoning commission.
“This is the fourth Judge over 17 years to recognize the substantial environmental interests in preserving the Oswegatchie Hills and the Niantic River and to uphold the Commission’s obligations to thoroughly consider and protect these interests before allowing ultra-dense development that could destroy them forever,” said Roger Reynolds, senior legal counsel at Save the Sound. “The applicant will finally have to disclose their detailed plans and we look forward to presenting in-depth, science-based information about the devastating and irreversible impacts that this 840-unit monstrosity would have on wetlands, coastal forest, and the Niantic River.”
Landmark Development Group LLC had appealed East Lyme Zoning Commission’s 2015 conditional approval of the developer’s preliminary site plan, claiming that the commission acted illegally by refusing to rezone a vast swath of the Hills for high-density development. Save the Sound (previously Connecticut Fund for the Environment), Friends of the Oswegatchie Hills Nature Preserve, and Save the River-Save the Hills intervened to protect the public trust in the Oswegatchie Hills and Niantic River. At that hearing the intervenors provided evidence that stormwater from the development would unreasonably pollute wetlands and the Niantic River and that the developer had failed to disclose that one of the buildings would actually be located directly on a wetland. The developer did not seek to rebut or contest any of this evidence at the hearing.
On June 30, 2021, Save the Sound’s attorneys presented oral argument before Hartford's Connecticut Superior Court/Land Use Court, contending that the court should reject the developer’s appeal because the developer had thus far failed to address any of the substantial environmental impacts raised at the hearing and in the previous decisions.
Late Friday night, the court released the decision in which Judge Marshall K. Berger declared that the court will deny the developer’s appeal to overturn the preliminary decision and stay the matter pending action by the commission. The developer was ordered to supply the necessary environmental and other information for the commission to adequately consider the final site plan and rezoning.
“Obviously the Friends of Oswegatchie Hills is thrilled by Judge Berger’s decision,” said Kris Lambert, president of Friends of the Oswegatchie Hills Nature Preserve. “It has been a long five years to get to this point and an even longer 20 years that we have been in the fight to protect the fragile environment of the Hills and the Niantic River. This ruling now requires Landmark to provide complete information so that the Zoning Commission has the facts it needs to make a decision about a final site plan, if and when submitted. The Friends continue to think that absolutely no development on the 236 acres is best for the environment of both the Hills and the River. In the end it is still our goal to acquire and permanently protect the last bit of undeveloped land on the Niantic River.”
Fred Grimsey, founder and president of Save the River-Save the Hills, said, “We are gratified by Judge Berger’s decision and recognition that the final site plan, with necessary environmental information about the impact to wetlands and water quality, is needed to determine whether high-density development can be safely constructed in compliance with environmental laws. Our organization has always advocated that the best way to protect the River would be no development in the Hills.”
The Oswegatchie Hills are one of Connecticut’s most vulnerable parcels of open space. The Hills rise sharply from the Niantic River with a union of spectacular rock formations, rugged forest, wetlands, and vernal pools that provide a home for a multitude of native plant and animal species. The slopes carry shallow topsoil cover to the bedrock. Its coastal location provides a safe haven and refueling stop for migrating birds, and the hills protect the delicate ecosystem of the Niantic River, a tidal estuary that flows directly into Long Island Sound. The southern two-thirds of the forest is protected as the Oswegatchie Hills Nature Preserve, threaded with public trails that provide hiking and birdwatching.
The owner of the threatened parcel of 236 acres, Landmark Development, LLC, seeks to construct up to 840 units of housing, with 1,767 parking spaces and 36 acres of pavement and hard surfaces. Not only would the diversity of animal and plant life be harmed by this development, but stormwater runoff carrying pollutants from acres of impenetrable surfaces would threaten water quality. Nearly 30 local, regional, and state-wide organizations and hundreds of individual supporters have been working together for years, through the Save Oswegatchie Hills Coalition, to prevent destruction of this land and add it to the existing preserve.
In our role as "legal intervenors" we have assisted the Town of East Lyme in winning 2 of the 5 court cases the developer has brought against the Town. For a detailed look at the case made for preservation, the East Lyme Town Hall has copies of over 100 exhibits (letters, reports, etc.) submitted for the zoning Public Hearings.
STR-STH supports the Town's decision to deny the developer's applications and has been raising money and awareness through fundraisers and grassroots events. We will continue this fight until the last acre of the Hills is preserved.
Legal Defense (This is still accurate as of October 2021): Below is a the explanation of where we stand in our legal battle to Save the Hills, specifically about the latest Application for development, written by a Board Member of The Friends of the Oswegatchie Hills Nature Preserve:
“You may have read the article in The Day about the conditional approval of Landmark's preliminary plan for an affordable housing development (read the article here) and wondered what it means for The Hills.
The conditional approval granted by the Zoning Commission on 8/20 came with significant teeth. It stated that only a portion of the proposed development site is eligible (the portion within the sewer service district) and it stated that a project must meet very strict environmental thresholds, the very same thresholds that our engineer said this project does NOT meet.
So, stated another way, this particular proposal is in essence denied, but the applicant can come back later with a scaled down project. Importantly, because the preliminary phase is done, the next proposal needs to be a Final site plan and will, per the regulations, be subject to much more stringent requirements. A Final site plan is required to show in detail how the project will be built and those details will allow our engineer to show precisely how and why the plan will not adequately protect the environment, and should therefore be denied.
All that said, the commission did not address all of our concerns or take full advantage of the strong record we submitted. We will consult with counsel and then decide whether we should appeal this conditional approval, possibly for failure to adequately address traffic and sewer/septic design. The traffic issues will have a huge impact on residents of Golden Spur and the environmental impact can not be properly evaluated until the developer shows a feasible plan for septic/sewer. In fact, the application should have been denied for failure to properly delineate wetlands and for failure to apply to the Inland Wetlands Agency as well. One thing is for sure... we will keep our eye on the ball and continue to 'speak for the trees'.”
History: The Oswegatchie Hills have been part of the Town of East Lyme's plan for open space for over 20 years. The Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection has listed it for preservation and actively tried to purchase the land for over four million dollars. The Stewardship Committee of the Long Island Sound Study has placed it on its list of parcels that should be preserved to protect the sound.
Fred Grimsey, Save the River-Save The Hills Founder and President, has been appointed to the Citizens Advisory Committee of the Long Island Sound Study (LISS). He will provide liaison, as needed, for any interested party. As a member of the Stewardship Committee of the LISS he will provide assistance and communication. Fred is also a member of The Niantic River Gateway Commission which was created by the State Legislature to prevent destructive development of Oswegatchie Hills.
Please help us continue the fight by becoming a member or donating to our Legal Defense Fund.