Land Use Police

Tuesday's Valley News front section offers an interesting portrait in newsworthiness.

Page 1 reports on the continuing police saga in Norwich with Gerard Chapdelaine regrettably caught speaking out of school. Page 2 holds a much more important story for Norwich residents, entitled, "School Board To Discuss Wilder Units." For those who may have missed it, there is an application before the Hartford Zoning Board of Adjustment and School Board for the construction of an 192-unit subdivision behind the Dothan Brook School on Route 5 in Wilder just south of the Norwich/Hartford border. 500 yards north and this would be huge story as a two hundred unit subdivision in Norwich would constitute a quantum leap in housing stock for this town. Instead, the development will be permitted and constructed without any input from Norwich and, but for this post perhaps, largely beneath our collective radar.

What we will notice, once these units are occupied, is the hundreds of additional car trips daily on Route 5 headed to and from the Exit 13 interchange. That traffic will be a factor for every Norwich resident passing through that interchange for the rest of our lives here. I'm not saying the development itself is good or bad. I'm simply noting how odd it is that a police job action few of us will remember twelve months from now trumps a development which will materially alter the lives of all commuters in our town for years to come.

Nowhere in Tuesday's paper can you find mention of the biggest story for Norwich residents. Our Planning Commission, after years of work, has produced new draft zoning regulations and convened a second public hearing to receive public input scheduled for Thursday evening. These regulations will govern every significant change any Norwich land owners wish to undertake on their property for the foreseeable future. The cumulative effect of these regulations will determine the look and feel of our community, influence land values, and define the costs of development for land owners and their neighbors in concrete and permanent ways.

I don't recall seeing any reporters from with the Valley News or Spectator at the earlier public hearing and don't expect they'll be in attendance Thursday either. I don't expect many of you reading this to put aside the hours necessary to absorb the 142 page draft document or troop down to Tracy Hall Thursday evening to discuss them. I'm simply pointing out that big changes are afoot for Norwich residents -- bigger, I dare say, than our police force and with much longer term consequences. Apparently, these changes don't fit the news cycle and probably don't sell newspapers.

Unwelcome news indeed.