Sandy Hook Design District Guidelines Slated For Public Hearing

 By Andrew Gorosko

A revised set of proposed architectural and landscape design guidelines for the Sandy Hook Design District (SHDD) zone in Sandy Hook center is scheduled for a public hearing at an upcoming Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) session.

The hearing is slated for 7:30 pm, Thursday, December 21, at the town offices at 31 Peck’s Lane. The hearing will be a continuation of a P&Z hearing held last summer, which focused on the SHDD design guidelines then proposed by the town’s three-member Design Advisory Board (DAB). At that session, some Sandy Hook Center property owners and business owners said the proposed guidelines seemed overly complex, burdensome and potentially costly to implement.

The guidelines would affect commercial development and redevelopment in the SHDD zone.

The 29-page set of guidelines currently proposed by the DAB addresses a broad range of site-related topics including site planning, setbacks, pedestrian access, parking, vehicular traffic, public spaces, landscaping, landscape buffers, site amenities, walls, fences, illumination, street lighting, curbs, sidewalks and fixtures.

 Building-related topics include building heights, rooflines, roofing materials, appearance, building size, building scale, entrances, exterior materials, wood, brick, stone, paint, stain, doors, windows, storefront windows, applied materials, fixtures and signage.

The SHDD zoning regulations, which were created in 1995, are intended to encourage a diversity of compatible uses in Sandy Hook Center to enforce the district as a historic, mixed-use hamlet functioning as a neighborhood commercial hub, which is also attractive to visitors.

Those SHDD zoning regulations emphasize the value of the pedestrian scale, historic quality, and natural resources of the area. The regulations seek to encourage mixed-use development that locates dwellings near employment, shopping, and services. The SHDD regulations are flexible rules intended to encourage the creation of public walkways, bicycle paths, shared off-street parking lots, and landscaped public spaces.

The SHDD design guidelines would be an adjunct to the SHDD zoning regulations, serving to describe the P&Z’s aesthetic preferences for development and redevelopment in the SHDD zone.

The guidelines are “intended to be used as a tool to assist property owners and developers in planning their restoration (projects)  and new construction projects,” according to the DAB.

 “Sandy Hook is the only place in Newtown where it is possible to preserve what is left of a small town commercial center…We have the opportunity to encourage development that reinforces this unique sense of place for new retail, entertainment, recreational and commercial uses,” it adds.

 The DAB’s key objectives in the proposed design guidelines include:

* Encouraging a diversity of appropriate and compatible uses.

* Preserving and enhancing the historic and architectural character of Sandy Hook, as well as locally significant features, distinctive buildings, and vistas as seen from within the SHDD zone.

* Preserving and enhancing the Sandy Hook center streetscape.

* Improving vehicular movement.

* Promoting pedestrian circulation.

 In its SHDD design guidelines proposal, the DAB provides extensive detail, including photos and graphics, on the preferred forms of development, redevelopment, and building rehabilitation in the SHDD zone.

The SHDD design guidelines proposal is available for public review at the town land use office at 31 Peck’s Lane and also at the town clerk’s office at Edmond Town Hall at 45 Main Street.