The master plan, a work in progress since 2000, is now in the hands of the common council’s planning committee chaired by Phyllis Bolden. Tim Stelloh of the Norwalk Advocate reports:
Since last month’s election, three new members were added to the committee. Democrat Amanda Brown and Republicans Kelly Straniti and Andrew Conroy replaced former Chairman Matthew Miklave, a Democrat, and Nicholas Kydes, a Republican.
Before then, council members wrestled with revisions that included how the plan defines affordable housing and how it addresses industrial projects in residential neighborhoods.
The second point was spurred by a contested plan for a South Norwalk fuel depot submitted by Gault Inc.
Walter Briggs, the Planning Commission member who spent several years drawing up the Master Plan, said he hopes the committee can send it to the Common Council for approval by early next year, when city officials take up the capital budget.
But it’s not clear whether that will happen. Timothy Sheehan, executive director of the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency, said the three new council members “are starting from ground zero” with the plan.
At previous committee meetings, council members spent a good deal of time trying to rewrite the draft. The Rev. Phyllis Bolden, the committee’s new Democratic chairwoman, said that will no longer be the case.
“He was Matt and I’m Phyllis,” she said of her predecessor. “I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a redevelopment specialist. I’m not going to pretend that I am. I’m a preacher, and I don’t see any problems with speaking plainly. I’m not going to make things more complicated than they are.”
The problem with the master plan moving forward has little to do with the plan itself. Democrats have chosen to make the plan a political football, so naturally the adoption of the plan played out like there was an offense and defense on the field, running out the clock, and doing end-arounds. The end-arounds are the problem. making things less complicated, that is a good thing.
source: Advocate, With new members, panel hopes to speed work on Master Plan ,By Tim Stelloh, December 6 2007
