The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Elmcrest reports to be reviewed
2nd public hearing on plan set for Thursday
PORTLAND — The still-evolving site plan for the Elmcrest property will be the subject of a second public hearing Thursday.
A team representing developer Daniel R. Bertram presented the site plan to the Planning and Zoning Commission early last month.
The plan provides the most detailed vision of the proposed mixed-use proposal which Bertram hopes to build on the 14.7-acre former hospital property on the southern corner of the Main Street/Marlborough Street intersection.
Thursday night’s meeting will take place in the Donald W. Gates Auditorium at Portland High School beginning at 7 p.m.
The initial meeting on the site plan was in the Mary Flood Room at the Portland Public Library. But the fire marshal was not happy with the number of people who crowded into that meeting, so a decision was made to move it to the high school, land-use administrator Ashley Majorowski said Tuesday.
BRT/DiMarco Group had been expected to present a revised site plan Thursday. But instead, the commission will review the reports submitted by the members of a review team assembled by the town.
Rochester, N.Y.,-based DiMarco Co. is handling commercial development on the site.
Members of the Development Division Team include Fire Chief Robert A. Shea, Building Official Lincoln White, Town Engineer Jeff Jacobs and Mary D. Dickerson, the town’s economic development coordinator, and consulting engineer Terri Hahn.
Time ran out before the team could present its reports following the Nov. 4 hearing. And so, on Thursday they will present their reports and respond to questions from the commission, Dickerson said.
The team will go through the reports step by step. Then, BRT/DiMarco personnel are expected to outline a number of proposed changes to the site plan developed following the initial presentation last month.
Those changes include revising the rear buffer and installing a sidewalk on Perry Avenue, which borders the property on the east, Dickerson said Tuesday.
Each modification could have impacts the developer wants to explain in detail, Dickerson said. The goal is to ensure that any changes that are made “will be in compliance with the commission’s regulations,” Dickerson said.
Changes can also have practical impact. Efforts to save some of specimen trees on the site or move the rear buffer could have an impact on drainage, for instance, she said.