Trumbull looks to the future

The Town of Trumbull is developing a new Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD) amid changing priorities.

Trumbull is required by state law to update its POCD every 10 years and has embarked on the process of developing its new one ahead of the expiration of the plan adopted in 2014. In the time since Trumbull last adopted a POCD, the town has developed new priorities and leadership as the state’s economy enters new territory.

“I can remember just a mere 12 years ago sitting in this room when we were doing our last plan of conservation and development,” said First Selectman Vicki Tesoro during a Town Hall meeting on Nov. 29. Tesoro recalled that she was a town councilor during the prior process and stressed how much the municipality has made use of the prior POCD during her tenure.

“It’s really important that you’re all here to be part of this process, ask questions, share information,” she said. “This is all about our town and how we can make this great town even better.”

Frank Fish, a principal at urban design and consulting firm BFJ Planning, led attendees of the meeting through an approximate timeline for the plan’s development and joked about his experience with the work, including the POCD Trumbull adopted in 2004.

“As you might be able to tell from the color of my hair, about 20 years ago I worked on another plan for the very same town of Trumbull,” Fish said. “So we’ve been familiar with the town for a long time, but I did want to just point out that it’s very important that we get this plan underway and actually concluded, we hope, next year because state law does require that a plan of conservation and development be done very 10 years.”

“It’s a plan and it’s a vision for the future of the town,” he added. “It’s going to be very dependent on your input, what you have to say on the surveys and in the workshops. It’s not a police power like zoning is, but there are certain things that can be expected to follow the plan, and zoning is one of them, as is your capital budget.”

Thomas Madden, an associate principal at BFJ Planning, urged the audience to provide their input. He described having previously spoken to high school students and their parents and noted that hearing their desire for students to be able to walk to school – a desire which was counteracted by parents deciding to drive children to school due to existing heavy traffic – perpetuated a problem that changes to traffic and zoning laws could solve.

“If you look at best practices in the municipality itself the best practices are constantly changing. From environmental standards to sustainability standards to how schools are run, and Covid threw a huge monkey wrench into a lot of stuff. We’ve had to reevaluate how we actually run as a municipality,” Madden said.

Madden also pointed to tree line regulations and the town’s residential nature as being somewhat deemphasized in newer discussions, replaced by a focus to avoid strict development patterns and create zones that can guide future growth and meet growing housing needs. Fish stressed that the plan must be forward thinking and engage local students, since they will be deciding whether they want to stay in the town in 10 years’ time when the plans’ effects are most fully felt, both in an economic sense and the physical sense as any trees planted as part of the plan will only have just begun maturing by that point.

Michelle Gilman, a project planner from BFJ, highlighted the town’s changing demographics, which track with trends across Fairfield County as the population grows older and more diverse, in order to inform their decisions.

BFJ planner Eshti Sookram explained a game plan for soliciting input which included both a visioning session with attendees and the launch of a Social Pinpoint page, an increasingly popular means of seeking resident input. All materials from meetings pertaining to Trumbull’s new POCD along with surveys residents are urged to take can be found at this address: https://www.trumbull-ct.gov/1009/Plan-of-Conservation-and-Development.

The next public workshop is planned for Jan. 18 at 7:00 p.m. in Trumbull Town Hall.