What had been large farms north of the Wilbur Cross Parkway have become housing subdivisions in recent years, and office parks have replaced fields, officials said Friday.

New firehouses are planned for Red Bush Lane, Bic Drive and Baxter Lane, Chief Louis LaVecchia said, although construction is still several years away.

The standard that has been in effect for 100 years is that fire stations should be no more than one and a half miles apart, he said. But some of our stations date to when 90 percent of Milford residents lived along the shore. That isn't true any more.

Lexington Green, with more than 300 houses, was completed in the early 1990s, Community Development Director Robert Gregory said. The Great River Estates added nearly another 300 houses four years ago and two large office parks were opened near the parkway in the 1980s.

Obviously the development that is going on now is going on in north Milford because that's where the land is, the city official said. It's not the Mason-Dixon line, but you generally have newer houses on the north side of town and older ones in the south.

LaVecchia said the proposed Red Bush station would serve the busy Boston Post Road commercial area, including the Westfield Shoppingtown Connecticut Post mall, as well as the homes surrounding it.

We need a new station on Bic Drive because we serve that area now from the West Shore Fire Station [on Naugatuck Avenue], and we'd like to be a bit closer than that, the chief said.

Two new hotels and a power plant have opened in the Bic Drive area in recent years, and the road is an access point to Interstate 95 and to the city's industrial area, officials said.

The new fire stations are on the city's capital improvement plan, Mayor James L. Richetelli Jr. said, but with no funds attached. We're looking several years down the road, he said.

Along with the two new stations, Engine 5 on Kings Highway and Engine 6 on Melba Street would be replaced by a combined facility near New Haven Avenue and Baxter Lane, officials said. Gregory said that when the Milford police moved from what is now the Superior Court to new headquarters on the Boston Post Road in the 1980s, it didn't affect response times. They are on patrol all the time; it doesn't matter where the headquarters is, the community development director said.

LaVecchia said the fire department's response times, already good enough to win a Class 1 designation from a professional standards group, will only improve when manpower and equipment are closer to population clusters.

Woodmont Warden Richard Austin said he'd like to see Engine 5 remain open to serve his borough, but things change. I was sad when the Fanny Beach School closed, too, but it had to happen.

Frank Juliano, Milford bureau chief, can be reached at 878-2130.