Following an architectural review, the Borough of Newtown Historic District Commission on October 16 granted Newtown Hook & Ladder Company, No. 1, a “certificate of appropriateness’ for the new firehouse that the fire company proposes for construction at 12 Church Hill Road.

The commission unanimously approved issuing the certificate following a public hearing.

The volunteer fire company, which serves the borough and adjacent areas, recently received a wetlands/watercourses protection permit for the three acres where the company plans to construct a new firehouse to replace the decaying town-owned firehouse that it now uses at 45 Main Street.

In November 2013, Trinity Episcopal Church members endorsed selling the land to the fire company for firehouse construction. The firehouse site lies generally south and east of the church’s rear driveway.

In May, the fire company acquired a purchase option, which states that the fire company would buy 3.16 acres, with frontage on Church Hill Road, from the church for $500,000, provided that the fire company first receives all required regulatory approvals for its firehouse project.

The construction project would allow the fire company to own its firehouse, rather than continue to operate out of the town-owned firehouse.

The town’s four other volunteer fire companies — Dodgingtown, Hawleyville, Sandy Hook, and Botsford — each own their firehouses.

Local regulatory agencies yet to review the firehouse project include the Borough Zoning Commission, Planning and Zoning Commission, Water & Sewer Authority, and the Police Commission, which serves as the local traffic authority.

Preliminary plans for the firehouse may involve an approximately 14,500-square-foot, two-story structure. The overall price of the firehouse project is yet unclear.

So that Hook & Ladder could effectively make the transition from housing its equipment in municipal quarters to housing it in quarters which the fire company owns, the town would provide an overall $1.5 million subsidy toward the firehouse project.