Politics & Government
Residents Offer Opinions for Development of Route 140 Corridor
In a workshop Thursday evening, some 60 East Windsor residents heard plans and offered suggestions for the economic development along the Route 140 corridor.
The Town of East Windsor Planning department sponsored a Visual Preference Survey at the Scout Hall Thursday evening on the topic of the development of the Route 140 corridor. About 60 residents, a combination of public officials, business owners and interested townspeople turned out to participate in the workshop conducted by Planimetrics, a consulting firm out of Avon.
In advance of the meeting, the attendees were given poker chips and asked to cast their vote on the category topics for the meeting. Out of four choices: Uses, Layout, Buildings, and Streetscapes, participants overwhelmingly voted for Uses and Buildings.
Using a slide presentation, Planimetrics representative Heidi Samokar showed dozens of photographs of the different possible uses for properties along the corridor. Participants scored their preferences on a form and were asked to write a comment about their feelings of each of the uses.
Samokar said that visual cues were far more powerful than mere discussion.
“A picture tells a million words,” she said, “not a thousand, a million,” said Samokar.
The results were varied, as was expected with a large group. Among the uses receiving the most favorable ratings were small retail, light industry, sit-down restaurants and mixed use buildings featuring retail and residential apartments.
“Smaller buildings and spaces are easier to turnover,” a resident said of the attractiveness of small retail use.
Larger office spaces received many favorable responses and some negative response. Those in favor noted that it would bring in people who would shop at other businesses in the area, and eat at local restaurants.
Increasing the tax base was a popular theme of the evening. The general consensus of the room was that attractive development which used the least amount of town services would be the ideal scenario.
First Selectman Denise Menard said she'd like to see medical facilities, and that East Windsor had an attractive location in between Hartford and Springfield. Though there is competition for this kind of development in Enfield and South Windsor, the medical industry is poised to continue to grow and offer opportunities.
Selectman John Burnham was very direct in his opinion on growing the tax base.
“We need large buildings that produce the greatest revenue and create a number of jobs and have the least amount of need of town services and police,” he said, “three story buildings is a good start, four stories is even better.”
There was near universal sentiment against increased residential development, both in terms of single family homes, and multi-unit developments. The general opinion was that the corridor be focused on commercial and industrial development. The expansion of the sewer lines had the aim of commercial development, not opening the area for more subdivisions. Open space was also viewed as incongruous with the design of the corridor.
Aesthetically, there was agreement that the developments follow a “New England” style look. Dormers and pitched roofs were popular, as were properties with natural landscapes. The crowd reacted negatively to those buildings which were, “too urban or California architecture,” in the words of one resident.
Planimetrics collected the written responses and a report is to be generated and provided to the Planning Department. The town hopes to use the results in assisting to drafting the zoning regulations for the corridor and in the long term guide the development of the corridor in alignment with the public's sentiments.