Purpose Of The Master Plan

Is Misunderstood

To the Editor:

It appears to me that some people in town misunderstand the purpose of the master plan for the Fairfield Hills campus. The creation of the master plan is required by the Planning and Zoning Commission under the regulation “Fairfield Hills Adaptive Reuse Zone.” As the regulation states, the reuse of the campus will be controlled under the “special exception” rules governing the conduct of the commission in any proposals for reuse. Public hearings are required under the special exception rules and will give citizens ample opportunity to voice their opinions during the process of approving or disapproving proposals for reuse.

The need for a plan is essential to start the process for reuse. The plan that the voters have before them in the August 12 referendum is a good starting point. Some of the criticism of the plan that everything in the plan is cast in stone is patently false. A considerable amount of effort was made to ensure that the plan is flexible. The plan has some elements with which people will disagree. Once adopted the plan can be modified at any time to deal with changing needs of the town. The current plan is the product of the third advisory committee to deal with this subject over the past several years. How many more committees will we have to study the issue before we have a plan that makes everyone satisfied?

Without coming out and saying so, the editorial in last week’s issue of The Bee leads to the conclusion that the voters should vote against the master plan. You state that the voters should be presented with a list of options that either favor or disapprove of different aspects of the plan. I don’t agree with you that this approach constitutes planning.

Let the process that is now in place move forward and vote in favor of the plan on August 12.

Sincerely yours,

Richard L. Sturdevant

6 Westwood Terrace, Newtown                                  August 6, 2003