By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — In its last major test before a crucial Planning and Zoning Commission hearing next week, a plan to add parking at Jesup Green to compensate for spaces lost at the redesigned Parker Harding Plaza, won approval Wednesday from the Conservation Commission.

The plan to add 44 parking spaces at Jesup Green, part of a revised, more comprehensive project for downtown parking, won unanimous backing from the conservation panel.

The proposal advances to a P&Z hearing on the “8-24 municipal improvement” application filed on behalf of First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker “to expand the parking adjacent to Jesup Green and to transform the Parker Harding parking lot layout, resulting in a net parking increase …” The meeting will take place online via Zoom at 7 p.m. Monday, March 25; for details on accessing the meeting, click here.

Last October, the 8-24 application to redesign the Parker Harding lot — at the time, not directly linked to the broader plan including Jesus Green — was abruptly withdrawn from P&Z consideration after an initial round of pointed questions from zoners.

The proposal, recently revised by the Downtown Plan Implementation Commission to include additional parking at Jesup Green, won approval from the Flood and Erosion Control Board earlier this month.

The Jesup Green plan was reviewed by the Conservation Commission because some grading is necessary to accommodate new parking spots near the Westport Library, Town Engineer Keith Wilberg, who presented the plan, said after the meeting.

The grading “triggers a conservation review” since the property falls within the town’s Waterway Protection Line Ordinance, he said. The WPLO, part of the Town Code, makes “provisions for the care, preservation, maintenance and use of wetlands and watercourses in Westport,” according to the Conservations Department’s website.

The commission also reviewed the plan’s impact on water quality, Coastal Area Management regulations and the natural habitat because several trees will be removed. The number of trees to be removed, however, is likely to be fewer than initially planned, Wilberg said. “The plans were to remove them but I think they can be saved. They are worth saving,” he said.

The parking plan is also on the agenda for the Tree Board meeting at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, March 21, in Room 201 of Town Hall. 

If the Planning and Zoning Commission approves the 8-24 application for the project, then the Jesup Green portion of the project will go to the final design phase, Wilberg said. Then necessary permits will be procured and the project will be put out to bid.

“The construction will probably not get underway until next year,” Wilberg predicted, especially if the bids are not awarded until the fall. Construction might be postponed until the spring of 2025 to avoid work during the winter. 

“The intent always was to address Parker Harding downtown and to increase parking wherever we can get it,” Wilberg said of overall plans to upgrade downtown parking.

The first part of the project — reconfiguring the Baldwin lot on Elm Street — was completed in 2022. 

But initial plans to redesign the Parker Harding lot sparked months of debate, with downtown merchants and residents criticizing the loss of parking spaces and elimination of a cut-through road from Main Street to Post Road East.

As a result, Tooker paused the plan last June, and two months later, unveiled “a compromise plan” that restored the cut-through road and some of the lost parking.

But after that plan won quick approvals from the flood and conservation panels, it was greeted with skeptical questioning from P&Z members last October — prompting the proposal to be withdrawn until a revised, more comprehensive project including Jesup Green was introduced in February.

The problem with lack of parking in downtown Westport is not new — the issue was featured in a 1987 article in the New York Times.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman and has taught journalism at New York and Southern Connecticut State universities.