Redding Planning Commission
Redding Center, Connecticut 06875-1028
Site Walk Minutes March 13, 2021, 9:00AM
Re: Application #502, 24 and 26 Diamond Hill Road.
Attending: for the Redding Planning Commission: Toby Welles, Regina O’Brien and Daniel Barrett and the owner Andrew Kern.
Purpose: Viewing the parcels mentioned in the application for a merger of 24 & 26 Diamond Hill Road.
We arrived on site and met briefly with Mr. Kern. The adjoining parcels are located on a generally level area of Diamond Hill with the existing house on the highest point of the two parcels. The land slopes gently down to the west where the vacant parcel #24 lies. That parcel is generally level but with a small, rounded, 6’ foot high gently rounded mound about 30 feet in diameter that shows some exposed ledge. This mound is in the eastern side and is centered approximately halfway back along the parcel’s depth from the road.
There are medium sized cedars and other brush along the road frontage, two maples flanking the mound and a stand of cedars further to the rear in the eastern portion of the parcel. The majority of the land appears as a maintained meadow.
Mr. Kern stated that it is his current intention to build a tennis court on the site.
No concerns as far as limits to the expansion of the proposed conjoined buildable area were seen, with the possible exception of the mound, which mostly covers exposed ledge. There is some concern that incorporating the ledge outcropping into the newly defined buildable area could allow blasting in the future should the ledge’s removal be desired. Mr. Kern was informed that blasting can have harmful effects on his well and those of his neighbors.
On the whole, the proposed merger and redrawing of the buildable area seems quite workable, but the Commission should discuss whether the ledge area should be excluded from the newly defined buildable area, or whether a no blasting provision should be a condition of acceptance.
Submitted by:
Toby Welles, Chairman – Redding Planning Commission