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io the editor:
Sony, Mr. Hatter, despite your disclaimers, my integrity has been impugned — along with some injury to other body parts — by your Jan. 4 editorial, “Difficult questions,” regarding the approval by Town Council on Dec. 13 of the subdivision of the former Stuart property.
Being unsure whether the difficult questions to which you refer involved the waiver (there was only one) of one section of the subdivision ordinance or the fact that the members of Council “knew” the applicants, I will address both.
Section 6-8-1 of the Town Subdivision Ordinance provides, under the captions of “Required Improvements, Sewerage Service,” in pertinent part:
“As a part of the preliminary plat process, the (Zoning) Administrator shall receive in writing from the State Health Department a statement to the effect that the lots contained in the subdivision are satisfactory for the installation of septic systems and that said systems will not create hazards to the public health. All primary and alternate drainfield sites must be located on each lot of the subdivision! at the preliminary plat stage and be shown on the preliminary plat.”
Lawyers could argue all the way to our Supreme Court whether this provision means that the drainfields must be shown on the preliminary plat (“must be located on each lot of the subdivision at the preliminary plat stage”) or that you cannot have a lot without drainfields on that lot (“must be located on each lot of the subdivision”).
The purpose of the provision —to ensure the public health — is satisfied, in my opinion, if there is Health Department approval of primary and alternate drainfield sites for a septic system for each lot, whether on the lot, or not, so long as the drainfields are sited within the subdivision.
A primary and alternate drainfield site for each of the seven lots in the subdivision was located on the preliminary plat and the written approval of the sites by the State Health Department accompanied the final plat. In addition, legal documentation for deeded easements for every site not on the lot were required.
‘ There seems, then, no basis for your suggestion that town soils will be “polluted by septic effluent from developed lots which cannnot absorb their own waste” nor for this weekend’s Town gossip that the South end of Town will be awash in septic effluent from this subdivision in the North end of Town.
I do agree that a precedent of approval for off-site drainfields (drainfields located other than on the lot of the septic tank served) for Town lots has been established. That precedent was established, historically, long before the 1981 subdivision ordinance was adopted or this subdivision was aDDroved last month.
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