‘Create a vision for the future’

East Norwalk residents can help plan neighborhood

NORWALK — What should the area around the East Norwalk train station look like? That’s the question city officials are asking as they assemble a planning study for the area.

The goal of the study is to “create a vision for the future and help guide recommendations for appropriate uses for the land and scale of marketsupportable development in the East Avenue area surrounding the train station,” a statement from the Planning and Zoning Department reads.

The city will hold a “Choices and Priorities” workshop at 6 p.m. Thursday in the community room at City Hall, where stakeholders can provide feedback on alternative ideas for the area. The ideas were put together using feedback from the March visionsing workshop, which drew more than 70 residents and property owners from the area.

At that session, attendees participated in a variety of activities, which asked them to highlight what they like about their area, what they think needs to be fixed, what improvements can be made and what they didn’t want to see happen.

Consultant Harriman Group, which will be putting together this plan, summarized some of the findings in a presentation.

The presentation showed that those in attendance highlighted they liked having a small community feel, their local small businesses, restaurants in the area, open spaces, sidewalks and the train station itself. Attendees noted that they would like to see less blight and undeveloped properties, infrastructure fixed, fewer gas stations, less traffic and trucks and a reduction in litter.

Participants said they would like better drainage, a grocery store, more open spaces, sidewalks, pedestrianfriendly access to the train station, bike lanes and paths, more parking and traffic control added to the area.

Those participating also said they would not like to see big box/chain retail stores, highrise/dense housing, such as that on West Avenue, and more traffic added to the area.

The final plan will include areas on land use, economic development, preservation/ adaptive reuse, conservation, urban design, public and green spaces, parking, traffic circulation, and infrastructure.

Those interested in attending should email the city’s director of Planning and Zoning, Steve Kleppin at skleppin@norwalkct.org for headcount purposes only.