Stratford zoning board balks at approving fire HQ

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Stratford board balks at approving fire HQ

By R.A. CLEARY, Correspondent
Wednesday, August 21, 2002- STRATFORD -- The Zoning Commission voted Tuesday to put plans for a new fire headquarters the subject of debate for more than a decade on ice because renderings of the building are short on details.

The commission unanimously tabled plans for the $7 million, 26,000-square-foot fire headquarters, to be built on Main Street, north of the current station.

Members of the panel said they put off action because plans did not specify the building's height or other dimensions.

The new structure would extend to Cemetery Lane, on the south side of a People's Bank branch. The structures now on that site would be demolished. Cemetery Lane would be widened from its current 12 to 14 feet to 28 feet.

There are no plans for the old fire headquarters. The traffic light in front of the current station would be moved, replaced and modernized. A traffic light with pedestrian buttons would be installed at Main and Cemetery.

Prior plans for the station included room for the Emergency Medical Service, now located at police headquarters. But the current plans do not included space for EMS, said Zoning Administrator Gary Lorentson.

Meanwhile, the town withdrew a controversial application to build a 44-space parking lot behind Eli Whitney Elementary School to ease parking congestion there.

The Whitney application was withdrawn in a letter to the commission from Town Manager Michael Feeney.

Feeney said the Building Needs Committee, which was the applicant, had received a petition protesting the lot from residents of Chickadee Lane, from which there would be access to the lot.

Feeney said he did not know the number of residents who signed the petition. "I assume there were more than 20."

The committee decided to reconsider the plan.