Takes hard look at parking and pedestrian access

By Wiley Wood

With little fanfare and to sparse public attention, the Planning and Zoning Commission adopted a new town plan on Sept. 9. The document, which builds on earlier plans and a community input process that started eighteen months ago, is intended to guide growth and development in Norfolk over the next ten years.

Unusual for a state-mandated bureaucratic exercise, Norfolk’s 2019 Plan of Conservation and Development (as it is formally known) proposes a vision for for the town whose full realization would require restructured relations between the town and various of its private entities, considerable reorganization of its physical plant, and lots of political will. In short, it makes a number of provocative suggestions.

The guiding vision, responding to an often expressed desire to see a strengthened village center, is to transform Norfolk’s downtown area into a “village campus.” The concept implies, among other things, a unified sense of place, easy access on foot between the different parts and clearly presented information about the layout and the location of amenities.

In practical terms, it means ensuring that all the pieces are in place for a person to walk from the south tip of the village green to Shepard Road, and from Maple Avenue to Greenwoods Road West: safe crosswalks, stairs, paths and sidewalks; good signage; and (as important as all the rest) adequate parking, with instructions on how to find more parking if the prime spots on Station Place are full.

Among the suggestions for increasing parking within easy range of downtown is the proposal to make Village Green Street, which runs from the intersection at Route 44 by the Norfolk Library to the fountain at the south tip of the green, into a one-way street southbound. As well as making room for more parking spaces, it would reduce traffic impact on residences.

The town plan, or POCD as it is called for short, also encourages the town to explore an arrangement with the Battell-Stoeckel Estate to allow public access to parts of the Yale campus, particularly along Route 44 and the village green. “It would be nice to have access to both sides of the street,” said Glenn Chalder, a town planner and consultant to the Planning and Zoning Commission who coordinated the drafting of the POCD.

A crosswalk across Route 44 in front of the Wood Creek Grill is given as an instance of how the pedestrian experience in downtown Norfolk might be enhanced. If other issues could be resolved, and if funding permitted, the crosswalk would lead to a pergola at the entrance to the estate and from there up a newly built path north of Whitehouse, leading to a walk through the perennial borders and culminating at the gazebo, where visitors could enjoy the view, before being led back toward the village green. While the benefit to Norfolk and its visitors is clear, the POCD suggests that the Battell-Stoeckel Estate might also benefit from the increased public awareness of its cultural assets and activities.

Other sections of the POCD examine demographic trends (Norfolk’s population is expected to decline in number and increase in age over the next 20 years), bicycle trails, changes to the zoning regulations and fiber optics. “Broadband is the new electricity,” says Chalder, comparing it to rural electrification in the 1930s and wondering whether fiber optic cable might not be delivered to all houses in the sewer district via the sewer lines. Because a plan is nothing unless it is acted on, the POCD recommends that all municipal boards and commissions hold semi-annual implementation workshops. The text is also interspersed with clearly marked action items that define incremental steps toward achieving larger goals.

The spiral-bound Norfolk 2019 Plan of Conservation and Development, whose cover features  an attractive full-color aerial photo of the Arcanum Building and Haystack Mountain by Christopher Little, is available for saleat the town clerk’s office. It is also downloadable as a PDF file from the Planning and Zoning Commission page of the town website, norfolkct.org.