Residents Seek New Committee on Development

DEEP RIVER – Thirty-one residents recently petitioned for a town meeting to be scheduled for the creation of a committee to study the development of the town center.

The petitioners also want the development of the town center be stalled until the new committee has formulated a comprehensive development plan for the center.

The petition comes only weeks after the Planning and Zoning Commission approved a 3,744-square-foot Cumberland Farms convenience store with three self-serve gas islands with two nozzles each.

The commission is reviewing an application for a 9,900-square-foot Walgreens pharmacy with two drive-through prescription lanes. The application includes a land swap.

A land swap approved by the town several years ago allows Turnpike Properties to build the Walgreens at the former Deep River Inn property while the former LaPlace’s furniture store would be demolished for Turnpike Properties to build a shared parking lot on town-owned land.

Planning and Zoning Chairman Jonathan Kastner said Turnpike Properties submitted a revised parking site plan at the July 26 continuation of the Walgreens public hearing, which removed four spaces on the Elm Street side closest to town hall.

“The original land swap involved the LaPlace’s and town property,” Kastner said, adding it did not involve the town hall property.

The Cumberland Farms would be located across from town hall while the Walgreens and a shared parking area are proposed for the lots south of it.

The recent Connecticut Supreme Court decision in Morris v. Congdon, 277 Conn. 5675 (2006) provides that a town meeting must be called upon application of 20 or more inhabitations.

The petition calls for a town meeting to create a “duly designated town agency” that would create a “plan for the comprehensive development of the center of the town prior to the time that any special permit be granted by any land use agency or any other town official for commercial development within the Town’s central business district.”

First Selectman Richard Smith said that Town Attorney Jane Marsh believes the petitioning residents cannot legally take away powers from the Planning and Zoning Commission and advised the town not to act on it.

John Kennedy claimed that Marsh phrased the request as a “moratorium,” which was not specifically stated in the petition.
Deep River Zoning Enforcement Officer Kathie Jefferson said some residents at the July 19 hearing alleged the Planning and Zoning Commission has an out-of-date plan for conservation and development but claims this is not true.

Kennedy wrote a letter to Kastner that, “the town of Deep River currently has an out of date plan of conservation and development, which is required by state statue to be updated every 10 years. Our town plan was last completed in 1992.”

According to Connecticut State Statue Section 8-23 “at least once every ten years, the commission shall prepare or amend and shall adopt a plan of conservation and development for the municipality.”

John Rappa, a principal analyst at the Connecticut Office of Legislative Research admitted in a June 27, 2006, report that “the law does not require any state or regional agency to monitor whether municipalities are updating their plans every ten years.”

Kastner said a substantial amendment was made in 1997 for a greenway provision and that “qualifies even though it wasn’t a complete update.”

Linda Krause, executive director of the Connecticut Regional Estuary Planning Agency, said the agency has been offering feedback to assist the committee as it prepares a new draft.

“There are time frames for applications, but they will go back to working on the plan for conservation and development when time allows,” Krause said.

Kastner said the committee has written up the draft, is awaiting feedback from town committees, and hopes to send it to the town for approval by this fall.

“I think it (the new draft) will be more specific than the previous plan, especially regarding the downtown area because there has been no pressure on downtown except in the last five years,” Kastner said.