North Stonington – The Planning and Zoning Commission voted to approve the town’s Plan of Conservation and Development Thursday after more than a year’s worth of work and three public hearings.
Town Planner Juliet Leeming spent more than a year writing the nearly 100-page plan, incorporating feedback from community meetings and a survey that garnered more than 400 responses. The plan lays out detailed ideas that address the town’s chief dilemma – how to preserve its beloved rural character while bringing in economic development.
At Thursday’s meeting, Leeming and members of the commission hashed out the final details of the plan – largely minor edits and clarifications. Changes included rewording the vision statement to better reflect the master planning emphasized in the document.
Since the beginning of the public comment period last month, Leeming said she has incorporated stronger language to support the town’s historic resources.
Some members expressed hesitation at some of the plan’s ambitions, such as bringing in a hotel and promoting “carefully planned” farm worker housing. But Leeming said she wanted to make sure residents’ comments expressed during the public comment period were reflected in the plan.
The plan’s colorful architects’ renderings of future landscaping, farm stands and housing are merely ideas, Leeming said, not plans set in stone.
No one besides the committee members attended the meeting – a sharp departure from the first public hearing, which Leeming said drew about 70 people, and the two continuations that drew a few dozen more.
“The public obviously is comfortable enough with what’s in it to not be freaking out right now,” Leeming told committee members.
Leeming will incorporate the edits made Thursday before submitting the plan to the state Office of Policy Management.
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