OPINION: As Old Mystic frets over disputed project's flood risks, town appoints developer's agent to wetlands board
May 9—When I met recently with Stonington First Selectwoman Danielle Chesebrough to ask about the continuing construction debacle in Old Mystic, where residents say a developer has destroyed a crucial wetlands, she shied away from discussing the problem.
"I don't want to go into much more detail relating to the past review of this site," she said in a follow-up email, citing a pending appeal of the calamitous project before the town's Zoning Board of Appeals.
She also didn't want to talk much about why she voted recently to appoint the developer's agent for the controversial Old Mystic project to the town's Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Commission, the agency which residents say caused all the ongoing problems with its green light for the work.
She did provide a recording of the Board of Selectmen's interview with the applicant.
I don't blame Chesebrough for not wanting to talk about what has become literally an open wound of botched town regulation, a muddy flood-prone area the size of a small soccer field, created, neighbors say, by the elimination of parts of an historic wetlands, one crucial to the natural management of heavy river and stream flooding there.
It's hard to imagine, after reading the extensive file on the public hearing before the wetlands commission ― a review demanded by residents ― how the commission ever allowed the excavation of what one neighbor called "an obvious swamp."
Indeed, much of the low-lying portion of the 1.49-acre lot at 16 Smith St., after being denuded of trees and bulldozed by the developer, was for much of the winter a pond containing several feet of water.
It is so muddy now that the developer, Dan O'Brien of Coast Development Group of Newport, R.I., got and received town permission last week to cross its adjacent playground property with his heavy equipment, an apparent workaround for the impassable mud on his own land.
It's hard to know how extensive the long-term damage from the work permitted by the wetlands commission may be. Neighbors, who say the flooding problem that is already exacerbated, will grow much worse, once the allowed fill is added, further pushing the water onto their properties.
What troubles me most as a town resident is that Chesebrough and Selectwoman Deborah Downie voted to appoint Peter Gardner, agent for the troubled project at 16 Smith St., to the wetlands commission even as neighbors were loudly complaining that the 4-foot-deep pond he helped create was a drowning risk for children at the nearby playground.
Selectman Ben Tamsky voted against the appointment.
Gardner, who identified himself in the interview with the Board of Selectmen as a licensed surveyor, is a frequent flyer before town boards in the region, representing developers proposing commercial projects like gas stations.
Some of the applications have led to lawsuits pertaining to wetlands.
He made it clear in his interview with selectmen that he doesn't think of the wetlands board as a conservation commission.
He said he would not be there "to protect anything other than what the regulations call for."
I reached out to Gardner this week to ask him more about his thoughts about wetlands conservation and the problems in Old Mystic, but he said he doesn't talk to the media.
Gardner was appointed the agent for the Old Mystic project after developer O'Brien notified the town that he had fired his first agent. That notice came after the agent was arrested for assault, which, according to a police report, occurred when he admitted to investigators he had an altercation over $15,000 he was owed for "managing the building of a house."
The name of the victim was redacted from a 2022 Groton Town Police report.
I caught up with O'Brien as he was bulldozing brush from town property ― with town permission, according to Chesebrough ― and wanted to ask him about the firing of his first agent, the muddy terrain on his property, and a pending lawsuit by a Smith Street neighbor accusing him of tearing down a fence and cutting trees on his property, but he waved me away.
He said to talk to his lawyer, William McCoy, who didn't return my phone calls.
Among the issues the Zoning Board of Appeals might be expected to take up at its June 11 meeting on an appeal of the approvals for 16 Smith St., is the construction of a 2,700-square-foot house on the property.
Also under possible review is the town permission granted to rebuild a small storage building, which burned down on the property after O'Brien bought it. Neighbor J.D. Fontanella said the town allowed the new structure, some 18 inches from his property line, to be twice as tall as the original building, built before zoning rules.
A current listing for the proposed house, with an out-of-town broker that advertises fixed-fee commission packages ranging from $299 to $699, says: "all permits in hand." It is listed for $1.69 million.
Even with intervention by the appeals board, neighbors say the damage to the delicate balance of the watercourses in the Old Mystic neighborhood is already done and can't be fixed.
The wetlands commission gave the developer permission to cut down six full willow trees, which they say are irreplaceable. They are gone.
The wetlands commission, in granting its approvals, waved away dire pleas from local environmentalists, a wetlands scientist hired by the neighbors, delegates from the Old Mystic History Center, who warned about historic flooding there, and representatives of the nearby Old Mystic United Methodist Church, who told their own flood stories.
Many pleaded for a third-party review that would allow testing of the property to determine the soil quality, a step not demanded by the commission and rejected by the applicants, who said they would not voluntarily agree to testing on the property.
"A third-party review of the wetland boundary is urgently needed and highly recommended," George Logan, professional wetland scientist wrote in his lengthy report on the application for neighbors. He underlined "highly recommended" and put it in italics.
"In our professional opinion, as proposed, the proposal will result in long-term adverse impacts to regulated areas."
Among those sounding a loud warning was Maggie Jones, landscape ecologist and former executive director of the Pequotsepos Nature Center, who testified about the wetlands-denoting plants on the site and the proximity to apparent vernal pools.
She noted the interconnected nature of watercourses in Old Mystic.
"The critical location and function of this wetlands continuum cannot be underestimated," she wrote in comments submitted to the commission.
"Certainly nothing proposed by the developer will 'improve' the site, but instead could cause irreparable damage to the larger wetland complex associated with the Mystic River."
Elderly neighbor Joanne Fontanella recalled that the property was so swampy when she was a young girl that she had to wade through it to walk to school.
I worry now for the neighbors, already bracing from the rising waters of larger storms brought by global warming, who must deal with a wetlands crisis and the risk of destructive floods, apparently made much worse by the town.
This is the opinion of David Collins.
