Region: Stonington zoning board approves Mystic Seaport hotel plan
Zoning board votes 3-2 in favor of $12M project at site of Latitude 41
Mystic — In a 3-2 split vote Tuesday night, the Stonington Planning and Zoning Commission approved plans by Mystic Seaport Museum to demolish its Latitude 41 restaurant and construct a three-story building with a restaurant and boutique hotel closer to the Mystic River.
The commission made the decision on the $12 million project after a three-hour public hearing during which Seaport representatives outlined their plan, the Eastern Connecticut, Greater Mystic and Ocean Community chambers of commerce spoke in favor of it and a few residents expressed concerns about traffic on Route 27 and the 41.5-foot height of the hotel.
Commissioners asked numerous questions about windows, parking, traffic impact, lighting, flood elevation and other issues.
In the vote on the five separate approvals needed for the project, commission members Lynn Conway and Ben Philbrick voted in opposition, saying they were concerned about the height of the hotel, its impact on views of the Mystic River and that it did not conform with the town's Plan of Conservation and Development. Members Gardner Young, Fred Deichmann and Chairman David Rathbun voted in favor of the project.
After Conway said the hotel would have a negative impact on the surrounding neighborhood, Young disagreed, saying, “You're getting rid of an ugly restaurant and putting up a beautiful hotel.”
The project calls for a 26-room hotel and a 160-seat restaurant with banquet space that would accommodate 250 seats, as well as a guest cottage. Plans also call for a pool and outdoor patio with seating overlooking the river and an existing dock.
The hotel/restaurant would be built by the Greenwich Hospitality Group, whose principal, Charles Mallory, a former member of the Seaport's board of trustees, developed the Stonington Commons project in Stonington Borough. It will be called the Delamar Hotel.
Plans call for the demolition and construction to begin in 2021, with an opening in the spring of 2022. Latitude 41's lease runs through the end of this year. On Tuesday, the Seaport's project team showed access to the site via a shared driveway from a parking lot that would serve the adjacent Mystic River Boathouse Park, which remains in the planning stages.
There will be eight valet parking spots along a circle in the front of the hotel, with the rest of the parking across Route 27 in the large museum lot. The project’s traffic engineer stated the hotel/restaurant would generate 12 more cars entering or leaving the property onto Route 27 per day, even though the restaurant would have fewer seats and require less parking than Latitude 41.
The first floor of the new hotel/restaurant will be 2 feet above flood elevation, compared to the current situation in which Latitude 41’s basement and restaurant both lie in the flood plain. The basement of the 55-year-old building floods frequently. The new building’s elevation also will meet the 2-footabove flood elevation that is expected to be required by the state and would accommodate a 20-inch rise in sea level predicted for the area by 2050.
In a letter the town received Tuesday, the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection again expressed a number of concerns involving placing residential units in flood zones and allowing a non-water-dependent use on the property.
It said careful consideration should be given to placing a hotel with guests in a floodprone area and said the town needs to develop a plan to evacuate guests if needed. Development of such a plan was one of the nine stipulations the commission attached to its approval. The museum already has an emergency management plan that could be amended to include the new building.
During the hearing, museum President Steve White told the commission that the project was one of the results of the museum’s strategic planning process designed to determine how best to use its assets to contribute to the future of the museum and enhance its financial stability. He said the hotel would be an attraction in the destination tourism market.
In an attempt to modernize Connecticut’s first-inthe-nation “Red Flag” law, lawmakers are proposing a bill that would broaden who can request that guns be removed from people deemed a danger to themselves or others.
“As effective as our law has been, it’s not as robust as we have seen in best practices in other states,” said Rep. Steven Stafstrom, a Bridgeport Democrat and co-chair of the Judiciary Committee. “These are critical changes in order to make this law work better for us and for the state of Connecticut.”
In 1999, Connecticut became the first state in the country to pass a “red flag law.” The statute allows certain officials to ask the court to remove firearms from those who could harm to themselves or others. Other states have followed suit over the past two decades, as mass shootings have proliferated across the country. Ten states adopted red flag laws following after the Feb. 14, 2018 slaying that ended the lives of 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.
A 2017 Duke University study found that, between 2009 and 2013, Connecticut’s red flag law prevented at least one suicide for every 20 gun seizures.
“What we’ve done is look specifically at the other states that have passed risk warrant statutes in the past several years and look at the best practices for those and try to combine them into a bill that updates the existing law we have on the books,” said Stafstrom.
Almost 2,000 risk warrants were issued in Connecticut between when the law was enacted in 1999 and August 2019.
Stafstrom’s bill would make several updates to Connecticut’s law. First, it would expand the eligibility of those who could ask the court for a risk warrant. Currently, two police officers or a state’s attorney can seek a protective order. In Stafstrom’s proposal, one officer could make the request, as could a household or family member, or certain medical professionals like physicians or psychologists.
Another change would limit a person in crisis from obtaining a firearm. Stafstrom said the current law provides a mechanism for the court to remove guns that a person already owns.
“But what about for the person who says, ‘I’m going to go out and buy a gun and kill myself?’” Stafstrom asked. “If somebody is shown to be an imminent risk of harm to themselves or others, just because they don’t currently possess a gun doesn’t mean they won’t go out to try to acquire one and use it.”