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Commission approves Horton Electric storage and stormwater retrofit with waivers and conservation easement
Summary
After a technical presentation and detailed Q&A, the commission approved Horton Electric's application to pave an outdoor storage area, add stormwater controls and accept waivers for impervious coverage and some planting requirements; the applicant offered a conservation easement over wetland-adjacent slopes.
The Farmington Town Plan & Zoning Commission voted March 9 to approve a special permit and site-plan application from Horton Electric (97 River Road / 525 New Britain Ave) to pave and retrofit an outdoor storage area, modify landscaping, and install stormwater controls tied to an increase in impervious coverage.
Philip Doyle (land planner) and Brian Panico (civil engineer) described a nearly two-acre site with an existing 15,000-square-foot building and an open field previously used intermittently for storage. The proposal would raise the site's impervious coverage from about 27% to roughly 45% if the paved storage area is developed as proposed. To offset that increase, the applicant proposed a comprehensive stormwater system that includes a roof-drain collection pipe, a chain of pretreatment features (pre-treatment strip, grass swale), a detention/infiltration basin sized to provide approximately 4,700 cubic feet of water-quality storage (roughly 107% of the site's treatment requirement), and an oil-water separator for vehicle-area runoff.
Engineers said the scheme reduces peak offsite flow by about 75% compared with current uncontrolled runoff, corrects an eroded gully caused by roof drains, and routes treated flow to a stabilized outlet point. The applicant also offered a permanent conservation easement covering roughly 17,000 square feet of inland-wetland buffer and will provide a drainage easement to the town to preserve future DPW options for roadway drainage improvements.
Commissioners explored materials stored on-site (trailers, solar racking, PVC pipe, van-type trucks and four containers used to transport equipment), maintenance practices (twice-yearly inspection of basins, monthly early-year checks of oil-water separator), lighting (down-lighting with motion sensors), snow management (store snow in basins to melt), and operational hours (typical hours 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.; motion-sensor lighting for security outside hours). The applicant confirmed no long-term fuel or hazardous-oil storage on site and said equipment maintenance would occur indoors.
Because the proposed impervious coverage and some planting setbacks deviate from strict zoning requirements, staff had recommended and the application requested waivers; the commission approved the project and the waivers as presented. Staff noted required follow-up engineering corrections and standard construction-phase erosion controls. The approval includes standard conditions for stormwater maintenance (periodic sediment removal, oil/water-separator service) and the conservation and drainage easements the applicant offered to the town.
The project now moves to the building-permit and erosion-control-review stages; staff will track maintenance requirements for the stormwater features and record the easements.
