In case you haven’t been made aware by a friend, family or the town announcement system there will be a public hearing tonight before the Planning & Zoning Commission to discuss yet another zone change in favor of adult businesses.
We should all take the opportunity tonight to thank Planning & Zoning Commission members Paul Roczynski, John Ryan, John Grottole and Kathy Salemi for voting against the creation of new adult zones which would have permitted 6 or more adult businesses to infiltrate residential neighborhoods and for not changing their vote under pressure from the mayor. The people spoke clearly at the last hearing and at least these four were listening.
On tonight’s menu is a proposal to remove the special permit requirement for adult businesses in an I-3 zone making them a permitted use. In combination with our current ordinances that means an adult business can be located anywhere in an I-3 so long as it’s not within 1000 feet of another one.
From the agenda:
TEXT AMENDMENT APPLICATION: To allow adult-oriented establishments as a permitted use with special requirements in the existing Section 503 Industrial III (I-3) zone.
This is the entire substance of the agenda. The actual proposed text is not listed and the special requirements it will presumably include are not described.
The hearing will be tonight at 7PM in the town council chambers. Speak up, and don’t be afraid to offer an alternative.
On a side note I was just going through some of the older news stories on this issue. It appears that as far back as January and throughout this process the Mayor has told the media that there were multiple places in town Mr. Chu could have called home and that she was confident our zoning and ordinances would hold up in court. In fact, her story in each of these reports seems to be that she has confidence our zoning and ordinances will stand up in court.
Flash forward to today. We now know that in fact there was not a single place a strip club could have located under the then existing ordinances when Chu came to town (something the Mayor had to be aware of). Then the Town Council went and removed all the restrictions and implemented an 8 month moratorium, a de facto admission that the administration had zero confidence in the existing ordinances. It also seems odd that she captured the media opportunity to stand sword in hand to defend the residents of the 5 or so residential properties near the roberts street location but was then perfectly willing to sacrifice entire neighborhoods to the I-3A/B-3A zone changes when the cameras weren’t there. I can’t help but wonder if our Mayor is trying to play both sides on this issue.
Why must every action taken in regards to the new adult zoning and ordinances be discussed in executive session. We the people have a right to know what is going on here. As expressed at the last public hearing these new ordinances and zoning changes aren’t supposed to be directly targeted at Masters Club LLC. or Pitkin Street Entertainment, so why then is it proper for the administration to hide behind these two lawsuits in executive session when discussing the changes. It seems clear that someone is afraid of proving Kim Coleman’s assertion that that town is acting in bad faith to be true.
EDIT: Here are the areas in town which are zoned I-3 (according to GIS) making them potential strip club locations. Also, please note that it appears that Prestige Park would be targetted by this change (being the main I-3 zone). It seems tonight’s proposed change may just be a repeat of the last proposal sans North Meadows.
Tags: East Hartford, Kim Coleman, North Meadows, Planning & Zoning, Prestige Park, Special Permit, Strip Club
