Planning Board Updates

Updated as of July 18, 2008

After receiving preliminary approval for our 22-home plan in September 2007, we have been working on detailed grading and drainage plans for review by the town engineer and the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services.

DES regulations prohibit any increase in stormwater runoff from the site as forest land is converted to meadow, roadways, rooftops and yards, and we are working on meeting this requirement by designing cisterns to catch roof runoff, as well as drainage swales and detention and treatment ponds.

On the water supply front, whenever more than 19 homes are planned, the State requires a community water system, which must be designed with careful regard to potential contamination sources within a given area, must meet prescribed per-house quantity and pressure requirements, and must treat water produced by the common well or wells to bring it up to drinking water standards. We have drilled a single thousand-foot well and will be pump testing it in July to see if we need to drill a second well.

In addition to local Planning Board and community water system approval, we need State approval for our septic (wastewater treatment) system, State and Federal approval of our construction-phase stormwater runoff prevention and treatment plan, and approval of our condominium documents by the New Hampshire Attorney General. The well access road has been put in (see photos) and test pits for the septic leach fields have been dug, and the soil drainage capacity looks good. We have filed our State subdivision permit application, will file our State septic system permit application before the end of July, and will file our Alteration of Terrain permit application in August. Those state permits should come back by the end of October, by which time we hope to have filed the condominium documents with the Attorney General.

We are on track to have all of our permits by late fall 2008 and start construction of the access road and first-phase infrastructure in spring 2009 if we have buyers for the phase 1 homes; however, we are now taking non-binding unit reservation agreements. Windy Hill has designed a second home for the neighborhood, "the Nissitissit," our all-on-one-floor-living model. Have a look at it on the house designs page.

At the July 16^th Planning Board meeting, we discussed infrastructure bonding and phasing and responded to Town Counsel's comments on the draft condominium and easement documents. Our next Planning Board hearing is Wednesday, August 20^th, at 7:30 p.m. in Wilton Town Hall. The public is welcome to attend.