On December 5th, I attended a meeting of the West Hartford Zoning commission.  How many of you have heard of a Zoning commission?  A few perhaps but probably not many of you.  I certainly didn’t know much about a Zoning commission before December 5th.  This post is the story of what happened at the Zoning Commission meeting.  After this you will hopefully learn a little more about Zoning.  (Full Disclosure, I can’t remember every detail about the meeting, but this is the general gist of what happened)

My first thought was that the meeting would last about an hour, and that there wouldn’t be that many people showing up. Maybe, I thought, I might be the only member of the public to attend this public meeting.  Not so.  The meeting lasted 2.5 hours, and attendance was robust.

There are 5 members of the Commission and three alternates which meet on the first week of every month at 7 pm.  They started by reviewing the minutes of the previous meeting.  Next they entered a proposal submitted by a  local synagogue, Young Israel of West Hartford, to build a portable trailer on their property into the record.  The Board voted to hear the proposal at the next meeting in January.

Next came the public hearing for three proposals for special use permits.  The first proposal they considered was an application by Northwest Catholic High School to change the surface of their playing fields from natural grass to synthetic turf.  The athletic director, principal, and contractor made their presentation, saying that the changes would help with drainage of stormwater.

After the presentation, Commission members peppered them with questions. One asked what would happen if the school was sold sometime in the future to an entity which had no use for the fields?  Would the surface be turned back to natural grass so there wouldn’t be a risk of deteriorating material leaking into the ground?  Other members asked similar  questions about whether the synthetic turf would contaminate the ground and the stormwater as the material aged and crumbled.  There was discussion as to whether any other future modifications would have to be presented to the commission, or whether they could be addressed at the office level.  The contractor replied that he would be open to regularly inspecting the field.

After a few more questions, the Board thanked them and moved on to the next item on the agenda.  That was a proposal by Kingswood Oxford School to install fencing and build new dugouts on its varsity baseball field.  The athletic director said how the fence was needed in order to prevent balls from going onto the road.  There were less questions on this proposal, with just one Commission member asked whether the new dugouts would have advertising on them.  He hoped there wouldn’t be because it wouldn’t look good aesthetically.

The final proposal was about adding a Drive-Through to a Starbucks that was about to be built.  Engineers helping with the Starbucks construction explained how their design would manage traffic flow leading into the drive-through.  An interesting thing they pointed out was how due to the residents across the street being on a hill, they evaluated what someone at eye level would see across the street and determined that they wouldn’t have the Starbucks completely obstructing their view.  The members asked questions on how their design would ensure that traffic wouldn’t get backed up.

After the final proposal was presented, the Zoning Commission voted on the three proposals.  For the Northwest Catholic proposal, they voted in favor of it, but said that the school would have to test the surface regularly and notify the town about the results. They voted in favor of Kingswood-Oxford’s proposal without any modifications, and voted in favor of the Starbucks Drive-Through without modifications.

Have any of you ever dealt with a Zoning Board?  Do you have any questions?  Comment below.  I will have a follow up post on my thoughts on the meeting.