A Newtown resident has filed an application with the Planning & Zoning Commission asking members to consider a six month moratorium on the acceptance of applications concerning warehouses and distribution centers.

This makes Newtown one of the latest communities across the country with individuals or groups working to minimize or separate the development of industrial warehouses and distribution centers — some taking up the space of multiple city blocks or football fields — from proximate residential neighborhoods.

Donna Trimarchi, who previously was an intervenor opposing a recently rejected application by Wharton Equity Partners, LLC, for a Special Exception to the M-2A zoning regulations to build a 344,880 square foot warehouse at 10 Hawleyville Road, is the individual making the request — technically an application.

The application, which according to a legal notice was filed with the town’s land use department on July 8, is asking P&Z for a text amendment to 8.18.101 of the zoning regulations, to allow for the moratorium.

According to the application, the reason is to give P&Z time to “properly evaluate a request to amend the Newtown Zoning Regulations, with a goal toward maintaining and protecting the public health, safety, convenience and property values of the residents of the community.”

The intent is that the P&Z has determined that warehouses and distributions centers “have the potential to impair the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens, and that a temporary, limited moratorium is needed in order to properly develop restrictions and standards for the implementation of these uses.” If accepted by the P&Z, no applications for warehouses or distribution centers would be accepted for public hearings from the date of adoption of the regulation, and expiring six months after that date.

Land Use Director George Benson said that it is up to the commission to decide whether temporarily amending the regulations to allow for a moratorium “is prudent.” He said the commission would “have to look at the legality” of a moratorium.

Trimarchi said she filed the appeal as a member of the Newtown Neighbor Alliance. The group hopes that the moratorium will “help protect the town from this type of warehouse coming into town again.”

The group has pored through local regulations concerning warehouses and distribution centers, and Trimarchi said that Benson “has been very helpful with some ideas we’d like to implement” in the extra time the town will have to review warehouse-related regulations during the moratorium. The moratorium will stop applications concerning warehouses from coming in while the review of other regulations is occurring.

“We hope to partner with the zoning commission on this,” said Trimarchi. “We’re looking to make Newtown better.”

Some items Trimarchi said the group is looking to modify include “changing the definition of a warehouse.”

“We’d like to see it be for buildings designed for long-term storage, not for a 76 bay door truck terminal,” said Trimarchi.

Business hours are also a large concern, and the Newtown Neighbor Alliance would like to see them modified away from allowing warehouses to operate 24/7, so that “people who live nearby can enjoy their homes.”

The group wants to see allowances for distribution centers “removed completely.” Increased setbacks are also a goal; Trimarchi said that current regulations require a business to be 150 feet from the road, but a parking lot only needs to be 25 feet away from a neighboring home and any structures only need to be 75 feet away from neighboring homes.

“We’re trying to help preserve home values,” said Trimarchi. “It’s most people’s largest investment in their life. If the town can keep a business 150 feet away from the road, why not do the same for a home?”

Trimarchi said that having these items adapted into the regulations “will make Newtown a stronger place to live” and a place “people will want to move to.”

“George and I feel with a six month moratorium, we’ll be able to get all that done in that period,” said Trimarchi. “We’re hoping to work with P&Z to get these through.”

A public hearing on the application is set for 7 pm, Thursday, August 4, in the council chambers at the Newtown Municipal Center, 3 Primrose Street.

Similar efforts to at least temporarily halt the development of such facilities have been gaining traction.

From neighboring South Windsor to San Bernardino, California, and in communities from Michigan to the suburbs of Chicago, residents have teamed with environmental and even social justice organizations to minimize or eliminate provisions allowing the hulking structures and their related truck and vehicular traffic, noise, and related pollution.

The prospect of unmanageable traffic and the unknowns related to the prospective tenancy of the proposed Wharton Equity Partners development in Hawleyville prompted a majority of local zoning board members to deny a special exception request. In this case, the developers have opted to not appeal the Newtown zoners’ denial through court action.

Associate Editor Jim Taylor can be reached at jim@thebee.com.