Groton Open Space Association

Planning Asked To Tighten Water Protection In Rule Rewrite

GROTON — Members of the Town of Groton Planning Commission should do all they can to make sure that the currently progressing rewrite of the town’s land-use regulations provides added protection to the water supply, watersheds and estuaries, Sidney F. Van Zandt said at the commission meeting Jan. 27, 2009.
Ms. Van Zandt, a director of the Groton Open Space Association and member of the Drinking Water Quality Management Plan (DWQMP) committee, made her appeal in a public communication.

The Planning Commission is scheduled to meet in late February or early March with the Zoning Commission, members of the town’s Office of Planning and Development Services (OPDS), and Kendig Keast Collaborative (KKC), the consulting firm that has a contract to rewrite the regulations.

Ms. Van Zandt urged the Planning Commission to ask questions and press for specific answers on water supply protection. This issue has taken on urgency because of Wal-Mart’s plan, apparently abandoned last month, to build a super center near the Groton Utilities drinking water reservoir. The project had the backing of the OPDS, staffed by town employes, but had been rejected in an earlier form by the Planning Commission, a citizens’ group that passes on building applications.

She noted that the DWQMP committee had not issued a final report and she cautioned against premature comment on the report, which she said has undergone many changes from the draft that came out last September. This was an apparent reference to a comment by OPDS Director Michael J. Murphy at a Zoning Commission meeting Jan. 7, 2009. On that occasion, he advised a Zoning Commission member to familiarize herself with the report “so that you’ll know what’s inside as opposed to the perception that the sky is falling.”

Among Ms. Van Zandt’s other recommendations were that:

–developers be required to reveal all planned phases of a development, rather than being allowed to parcel them out piecemeal to commissions, an issue that arose with the Wal-Mart application.

–the OPDS be required to do a background check on every developer proposing a large project “so that we do not have the problems that the towns to the north have had with a Mr. [Joseph] Gentile,” whose megadevelopment plans for Preston fell through following discovery of incomplete background disclosure.

–current regulations allowing up to 70% impervious surfaces for parking lots be improved because they do “nothing but damage our watershed.”

–substantial fines be imposed on developers who begin work before their applications are approved.

Ms. Van Zandt also noted the environmental and economic importance to the community of Eccleston Brook, among other inland waterways leading to salt water estuaries. She said she has learned that in the 1800s water from the brook was pumped from a point off Haley Farm Lane to the Noank Shipyard. At present, she said, the health of the brook is important to shellfish and other marine species that are vital to the fishing industry.

“We need to safeguard our lands and water not only for the enjoyment of those who live here now but also so that we preserve a foundation for our economic future,” she said.