By Janet Stoica

There is a dispute between a Connecticut housing development site owned by Dr. Ishwara Sharma, a retired cardiologist, and the Town of Webster, Massachusetts. The housing development site located in the town of Thompson, Connecticut and does not have its own access road in Connecticut. Rather, developers seek to use Brian Avenue in Webster located off McGovern Lane near the Harrington/UMass hospital campus as access. Brian Avenue is a short and well-worn road, as is McGovern Lane, that would be inevitably reduced to rubble and require new paving and restoration if heavy construction vehicles, dump trucks, and the like were allowed to traverse its pavement in addition to anticipated new homeowner access. Webster taxpayers would have to pay for a new access road for future Thompson residents who, obviously, would not be taxed, leaving as Webster residents are who live along Brian Avenue and McGovern Lane to pick up the bill.  

“Thompson would benefit nicely from this construction project,” stated Webster Town Administrator Rick LaFond. “They would receive the taxes from the properties constructed, but Webster would suffer by having to maintain the roadways accessing the Thompson housing development site. Currently, emergency response vehicles from Webster would be those to have access to the property.”  

Because Webster was never notified of the project before the Thompson Planning Board’s approval of same, the town has two appeals pending in the Connecticut court system. Dr. Sharma has re-applied for a special permit before the court cases have been resolved. It is the same application that the Thompson Planning Board had approved but issued despite the fact that Thompson never met the abutter’s notice requirements. The Thompson Planning Board failed to notify Webster before their public hearing regarding the construction site.  

When Webster officials learned of the housing development project and the fact that there is no access to the site except through its streets, concrete barriers were placed at the end of Brian Avenue to prevent construction from proceeding before a court decision had been rendered. It appears that a simple remedy would be for Dr. Sharma to seek Connecticut roadway easements through Thompson Road in Thompson. The current project is not in compliance with Webster’s zoning laws. 

The town is very much concerned about the negative impact to McGovern Lane and Brian Avenue. Heavy construction vehicles on the fragile asphalt would turn into a nightmare for Webster taxpayers who would have to foot the bill for new repaving without the benefit of tax funding. All Webster taxpayers would be burdened with paying for new road construction, most likely requiring a tax increase for all Webster taxpayers. The additional tax load would pay for maintaining the roadways leading to a private investor’s housing construction project. It would certainly be in Webster taxpayers’ interest to let the town of Thompson’s Planning Board know of their concerns about Webster’s potential roadway damages if such a construction project were to come to pass. 

Pavement damage increases rapidly with higher truck axel loads and actually increases faster than the loads increase. A nine-ton axel construction truck causes about 10 times more damage than a five-ton axel load according to the International Journal for Research in Applied Science and Engineering Technology. With this type of heavy tonnage on Brian Avenue and McGovern Lane, the roads would most likely be reduced to rubble in a very short period of time necessitating new paving paid for by all Webster taxpayers for the benefit of the private investor as well as a real estate tax benefit to the town of Thompson.