East Lyme — The town’s denial this week of a developer’s application for more daily sewer flow at the site of a proposed project in Oswegatchie Hills is likely to mean another battle in a nearly 30-year legal war.

Ben North, the head of the town’s Water and Sewer Department, said the town denied Landmark Development Group owner Glenn Russo’s application for 95,000 daily gallons of sewer capacity, which would have been added to the 118,000 gallons a court has ruled the town has to give him, because it needs to protect the right of “ticketholders,” who have the right to connect to the town sewers but haven’t yet.

The Water and Sewer Commission denied Russo’s application Tuesday in a 5-3 vote.

The 95,000-gallon request was reduced from a previous 125,000-gallon request.

“Landmark doesn’t recognize that we have an obligation to other users,” North said, adding that giving Landmark what it asked for would have eaten up most of the town’s remaining sewer capacity.

Russo wasn’t clear when commissioners asked him what he would build if he got the sewer capacity, or how long the new part of the project would take.

The developer, who has a controversial plan to build 840 units of housing on about 40 acres of his 240acre property, said the only thing the Water and Sewer Commission should worry about, legally, is whether sewer capacity is available for a project. It cannot consider zoning matters like the number of units in a project.

Russo and his attorney Tim Hollister are fighting in court two ordinances — a 2019 regulation with strict permitting deadlines, which Russo has called unreasonable and unlawful, and a recent moratorium forbidding larger housing projects from connecting to the town’s sewers. If he takes the town to court over this denial, it will be the third front in the legal conflicts between him and the town.

The sewer moratorium didn’t apply to Russo’s 95,000-gallon request because he applied before the moratorium took effect, Town Attorney Tracy Collins told the commission. The moratorium applies to projects that have 20 or more multifamily or single-family units or that would produce more than 5,000 gallons of sewage daily.

Russo got the application in once he heard of the town’s move.

The town has said it enacted the

moratorium to give it time to investigate what capacity it has left and prevent exceeding the amount it contractually can send to a treatment plant in New London. A $100 million plan to overhaul that facility would be split among the three municipalities it serves, East Lyme, New London and Waterford.

North revealed to commissioners that officials will take the first step for the project, getting proposals from contractors, by the end of the year.

Russo, on Tuesday and in previous meetings, said the town’s numbers are misleading, and that it has much more capacity than it says.

Russo again expressed his grievances with the 2019 regulation, which essentially requires projects to finish in two years, getting all permits in a year. That’s not feasible for any large housing project, Russo said.

Russo also pointed to the fact the town has no zoning districts that allow multifamily housing, giving the town “absolute discretion” over such projects.