To the Editor:

Some recent articles and letters about Sunrise’s revived proposal to build an assisted-living and memory-care complex on the narrow strip of land between the Princeton Shopping Center and Terhune Road have emphasized the desirability of extremely fire-resistant construction. Others have endorsed approval of the project without apparent realization that it is intended for assisted living and for memory care rather than for more generally defined senior housing. In previous letters to Town Topics I have expressed my own concern that the shape and size and location of the lot make any kind of residential use far less than optimal because of inevitable proximity to and disturbance by activities at the shopping center. Those reservations remain, and I also recently… and belatedly … reacted to the fact that the tentative plans show that apparently at least 80 percent of the main portion of the lot would be covered by either buildings or pavement. Counting the area of the unused panhandle portion of the lot that reaches down toward the park would artificially lower the covered-area percentage somewhat, but such a calculation is not germane to what the project would do to drainage in the area. Whoever is to be responsible for determining whether the project is approved is probably already fully aware of this limitation, but I suggest that those not directly involved who have been expressing support for approval make some allowance in their enthusiasm for the rather dramatic change it would bring about in the asphalt-to-greenery ratio on that strip of locally elevated land. To a novice in hydrological matters, it appears that virtually all the rain that is now absorbed within the boundaries of the lot would be deflected to adjacent roads and properties to possibly serious effect on road and basement flooding.

John Strother

Grover Ave