Planning board asks church to redraw site plan after hours of debate over parking, trees and walkway to Bog Meadow Run

The Saratoga Planning Board spent the bulk of its meeting reviewing a detailed site plan for a new Unitarian Congregational Church at 400 Loudoun Road and stopped short of a decision, asking the applicant to return with a one-sheet sketch plan addressing parking configuration, tree retention and pedestrian connections.

Jeff Anthony, the project's landscape architect, told the board the site plan has been refined from the conceptual drawings approved last year. He said the applicant is willing to add a pedestrian connection to Bog Meadow Run and to show a paved walkway connecting the site to the adjoining neighborhood. "We would be amenable to putting in a paved 2-minute walkway between the project site, hooking it onto the parking area and connecting it to Bog Meadow Run Road," Anthony said. Board members asked for the path to be 6 feet wide and to use a non‑asphalt surface such as a crusher‑run or a pervious pavement; Anthony agreed to amend the drawings.

The meeting’s central contention involved parking and tree removal. The applicant proposed building 40 permanent parking spaces immediately, grading an additional 16 spaces in Saratoga to be left as turf for overflow, and reserving nine spaces in the adjacent Wilton parcel as future overflow. Staff and board members parsed parking-demand calculations: planning staff noted seating in the floor plan (155 seats) which translates to about 16 required spaces under the cited ratio, and board members discussed a 25% allowed increase (bringing an allowable baseline to roughly 20 spaces). Board members pressed that clearing and grading for as many as 56 spaces on the Saratoga parcel — and as many as 87 vehicles in a valet-event scenario — represents significantly more impervious area and tree loss than the code baseline expects.

Anthony said the permanent parking bays would use a permeable bituminous pavement and that the drive lanes would be traditional blacktop; the design also includes approximately 8,000 square feet of permeable parking bay area and a plantings program that would add 38 new trees while removing six mature trees that fall inside the development footprint. Board members suggested design changes to save trees, including removing the separate exit roadway and routing circulation through the parking area, or switching to a one‑way diagonal parking pattern to reduce paved width. The applicant also proposed keeping some future overflow areas as turf rather than immediately paving them.

Dr. Mowery, a nearby resident, urged caution about relying on Bog Meadow Run for overflow. "It's not a safe road to park," Dr. Mowery said, adding that photographs and police logs show large numbers of vehicles have parked on the road during past events and that the road is only about 23.5 feet wide in spots.

After extended discussion about configuration, tree impacts, and stormwater design, the board concluded that members could not reach the four‑vote unanimity required to decide tonight. Instead the board asked the applicant to return with a single sketch page that makes clear which trees could be saved, the number of spaces the board will accept, and alternatives for circulation and surfacing. The applicant agreed to return with a condensed drawing and the meeting closed without a vote on the site plan.

Next steps: applicant will provide a one‑sheet sketch plan for review at a future meeting; board feedback from tonight will be incorporated into the revised submission.