P&Z Approves Child Day Care Center

By Andrew Gorosko

The Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) has approved a proposal to locate a 5,000-square-foot child day care center in a commercial building that is now under construction at 7 Berkshire Road (Route 34), near Newtown High School.

P&Z members approved the application submitted by Seven Berkshire, LLC/Little Explorers Child Development, LLC at a September 16 session.

The private preschool child day care center, which would operate on weekdays, would contain up to 80 children ranging from 6 weeks to 5 years old.

At a September 16 public hearing, the applicant presented P&Z members with the results of a traffic study, which was requested by the P&Z at an August 19 hearing, in light of a day care center’s potential traffic effect on the heavily traveled area.

Attorney Robert Hall, representing the applicant, submitted photos of motorists’ sight lines in the area near the commercial building.

Traffic engineer Irving Chann, who performed a detailed traffic study for the applicant, fielded P&Z members’ questions about the traffic implications of the day care center, including queries about potential traffic back-ups and parking.

Twenty-four vehicle parking spaces would be designated for the day care center’s use. The children would be dropped off by their parents in the morning and picked up by them in the evening. The center would be open from 7:30 am to 6:15 pm. Children would be dropped off in the morning between 7:45 and 9 am, after Newtown High School has started its classes at 7:30 am.

In approving the application, P&Z members required that the applicant meet the minimum environmental standards that are in effect in the town’s Aquifer Protection District (APD).

P&Z members decided that the planned day care center meets the requirements for a special exception to the zoning regulations in a B-3 (Business) zone. The P&Z decided that the planned use of the commercial building for a day care center is consistent with the 2004 Town Plan of Conservation and Development.

The public school system had wanted to relocate its alternative high school from Newtown Middle School on Queen Street to 2,500 square feet of space in the new commercial building at 7 Berkshire Road. The alternative high school places about 15 high school-age “special needs” students in a small setting for instruction. Newtown High School has about 1,600 students.

The school system had recently applied for a zoning rule change that would have allowed a public school as a permitted use in a B-3 Business zone. But after lengthy discussion on September 2, P&Z members rejected the public school system’s proposed zoning rule change, dealing the alternative high school’s relocation plans a setback.

The P&Z’s prime reason for rejecting the school system’s application was to preserve commercially zoned space for commercial uses, which generate local property tax revenues.

The 7,500-square-foot, one-story building now under construction at 7 Berkshire Road is the fourth of a series of commercial buildings to be built in that area during the past several years. The site lies across Berkshire Road from the high school’s new athletic field complex. The P&Z approved construction of the commercial building in June 2003.