Groton Open Space Association

Councilor Sheets Asks 1-Year P&Z Halt In Some Watershed Areas

GROTON — Town Councilor Paulann Sheets has proposed a one-year moratorium on planning and zoning applications that would affect watershed land in the Water Resource Protection District and the watersheds of estuaries, embayments and coves.

Ms. Sheets made the proposal at the Town Council meeting May 13, 2008. The matter was referred to the council’s Committee of the Whole. She said later she hopes that the moratorium will come up for discussion at the Committee of the Whole special meeting May 29.

The councilor’s idea that the Council, “as steward of the Town’s natural resources,” should ask the commissions to impose the halt on “most” applications in the watershed areas designated.

She said a moratorium on applications would give the planning and zoning commissions time to participate in the just-launched project to rewrite the town’s land-use regulations. Ms. Sheets said the measure should be imposed immediately to prevent a rush of applications coming in to beat the deadline.

A midwest-based firm of municipal consultants, Kendig Keast Collaborative, has been hired by the Office of Planning and Development Services to recast the regulations. KKC made a short information-gathering visit to Groton May 6-May 9 and said it plans to have a rewrite ready for consideration within a year.

Ms. Sheets said significant development pressure on the watershed of the public water supply and coastal waters has shown the need for improved regulations. She said the planning and zoning commissions have an important role to play in the rewrite, and they won’t time for that unless the flow of applications is suspended.

She said the state Supreme Court has upheld the right of a commission to impose a moratorium during a revision of regulations. In addition, she said that North Stonington imposed in December a nine-month moratorium on all but minor planning and zoning applications. “According to a member of the North Stonington Planning and Zoning Commission,” she said, “it is hard to imagine doing their revision without the moratorium. Although one developer has filed a lawsuit, it does not directly challenge the moratorium on the merits and is likely to be dropped.”

Ms. Sheets said, “The protection of the public drinking water supply is a critical element of the police power which Groton is empowered to exercise; and the the protection of the shellfish economy dependent upon clean estuaries is likewise an important duty of the Town and the Commissions, justifying the moratorium.”

A developer currently is proposing to build a Wal-Mart Super Center in the watershed of the Groton Utilities reservoir and has sued the town over the Planning Commission’s refusal to approve the application.