Following review at a December 5 public hearing, Planning & Zoning Commission (P&Z) members have unanimously approved a set of rule changes concerning lots in the Hawleyville Center Design District (HCDD) zone, the chief change being reducing the minimum HCDD lot size from one acre to one-half acre.

Voting in favor of those changes were P&Z Acting Chairman Jim Swift, Corinne Cox, Barbara Manville, Dennis Bloom, and David Rosen.

The P&Z created HCDD zoning in 1999 to foster the creation of a neighborhood business district that includes mixed-use activities typical of a village center. The HCDD zone is intended to promote businesses that will serve the surrounding neighborhoods and to a lesser degree, accommodate services compatible with the zone’s proximity to Exit 9 of Interstate 84.

Hawleyville Volunteer Fire Company, No. 1, whose firehouse is located at 34 Hawleyville Road (Route 25), was the applicant for the zoning rule changes in connection with the fire company’s intention to sell some land that it owns to NEMCO, a development firm that is constructing a gas station and convenience store/cafe at 26 Hawleyville Road. That project is planned for the 0.7-acre property where the Hawleyville Deli once stood.

NEMCO wants to buy from the fire company an approximately 2,600-square-foot section of the 0.773-acre property at 30 Hawleyville Road. That 2,600-square-foot section lies east of 26 Hawleyville Road.

In the past, the fire company bought the 0.773-acre site from the Housatonic Railroad, which owned a building there that formerly held the Hawleyville Post Office as a tenant. The dilapidated building was demolished several years ago.

Attorney Robert Hall, representing the fire company, said that by changing the lot specifications for the HCDD zone, as requested by the fire company, and by reducing the minimum HCDD lot size from one acre to one-half acre, it would allow the fire company to sell some land to NEMCO but still meet the minimum HCDD lot size requirement at 30 Hawleyville Road.

By increasing the size of its 0.7-acre property at 26 Hawleyville Road site, NEMCO would make its commercial property more accessible and practical for its intended use.

Without reducing the minimum lot size in the HCDD zone from one acre to one-half acre, a sale of some of its land at land at 30 Hawleyville Road by the fire company would increase its remaining land’s non-conformity with the HCDD zoning rules.

Cliff Beers, president of the fire company, told P&Z members that the fire company acquired 30 Hawleyville Road in the event that the fire company had an opportunity for expansion. Most of that land is now used as a parking lot, but the approximately 2,600 square-foot section that the fire company would sell to NEMCO is currently not in use, he said.

Besides decreasing the HCDD minimum lot size, the rule changes reduce a HCDD lot’s minimum width at street frontage, reduce its minimum front, rear, and side setback distances, and increase its maximum percentage of structural coverage.

In approving the HCDD rule changes, P&Z members agreed that such changes are consistent with the 2014 Town Plan of Conservation and Development. The changes take effect on December 28.

In February 2019, P&Z members unanimously approved a project known as Mitchell’s Hawleyville Station for a site at 26 Hawleyville Road, immediately north of the Housatonic Railroad’s rail freight line. The complex will include a 3,277-square-foot building to serve as a gas station, convenience store, and 20-seat cafe. The structure will be built in the style of the old Hawleyville train station, which formerly stood next to the Housatonic Railroad’s rail line.

In September 2018, NEMCO had sought and received P&Z approval to revise the HCDD zoning rules to add as a permitted land use a facility which combines a gas station, convenience store, and cafe.

The facility will have four self-serve double-sided gasoline pumps situated beneath a 2,500-square-foot freestanding canopy. A diesel-fuel pump will be situated separately.