The Planning and Zoning Commission was to address Wilton Youth Football’s application to replace Middlebrook School’s natural grass field with artificial turf at its meeting on Monday, July 27, but the hearing has been continued until Tuesday, Sept. 15. It will likely be held somewhere other than the town hall annex because a large crowd is expected to attend.
Commissioners suggested either Cider Mill School or Wilton Library, but the actual meeting place is yet to be determined.
Public hearing
During a public hearing on Monday, the commission took up a request by Mike Lindquist, owner of Wilton Auto & Tire Center at 210 Danbury Road, for a special permit to move his automotive repair shop and used-car dealership to 658 Danbury Road and to renovate and expand the premises.
He plans to add a front office and additional enclosed service bays on the south side of the property, increase parking and put an additional entrance driveway from Danbury Road.
There was some discussion over the parking plan, which had two rows of 15 spaces directly adjacent to one another without any sort of island or divider.
“It would be a lousy precedent for us to set if we accepted a double bay of 15 spots’ length without any separation. I mean, by design, they’d run into each other,” said Commissioner Bas Nabulsi, “and then (we’d have to) confront that as a precedent when somebody’s doing a strip mall.”
Holt McChord of McChord Engineering, who reviewed the site plan, said bays on top of one another are common in used-car dealerships.
“If this was a parking area where you drove around and there was parking here and on that side, you’d have an island that goes along it ... but you could never store or stockpile cars if you did that, because they’d always be separated,” he said.
The hearing has been continue to Sept. 15.