By Thane Grauel

WESTPORT — The Planning and Zoning Commission wasn’t ready Monday night to sign off on the plan to redevelop the Parker Harding and Jesup Green parking lots.

Speakers and some commission members felt they didn’t have a clear picture of the entire plan, which seems to be evolving quickly of late. Other speakers and commission members said enough of the delays, the information is out there, a compromise was presented and it was time to vote.

There were some tense exchanges during the 3½-hour discussion, including between P&Z Chair Paul Lebowitz and member John Bolton. Bolton likened the commission’s conduct to “the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.” The chairman called him on that, and after another exchange, said he was “out of line.”

The Downtown Plan Implementation Committee has been working on designs to bring green areas closer to the Saugatuck River at the two parking lots. But bringing Parker Harding up to modern standards has meant a loss of spots in the often-filled lot.

Plans on how to compensate for that have been a point of contention.

And the recently disclosed idea of using a large uphill chunk of Jesup Green for parking — some feel the town green is sacred ground — further furrowed the brows of skeptics.

The plans, however, won recent support from the Flood and Erosion Control Board and Conservation Commission.

The plans were before the P&Z because Public Works Director Peter Ratkiewich, on behalf of First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker, requested an 8-24 review. That’s a state requirement whenever a municipality wants to significantly change the use of a publicly owned property.

Without a positive recommendation from P&Z, the plan can’t move forward.

Tooker didn’t get that recommendation Monday. The commission instead voted to continue the matter to its April 8 meeting.

The first selectwoman began the presentation saying one of her first appropriation requests after taking office was to make improvements to the downtown parking situation.

“So, here we are two years later, at least three or four versions later, dozens of public meetings later, thousands of public comments and feedback later, and we are requesting from you tonight a positive 8-24 report,” Tooker said.

She noted that at the last P&Z meeting on the topic, “you gave us some very specific and very good feedback on what you wanted to see to move this project forward.” The skeptical questions raised about the project by P&Z members last October prompted the administration to withdraw the 8-24 application until the revised, multi-phase plan was unveiled last month.

“We are returning tonight with solutions to that feedback, to your feedback, and we will also put this phase of the project in context of a broader strategy for downtown,” Tooker said.

She said Parker Harding has been a priority for administrations since the 1980s.

“There have been at least four master plans for Parker Harding,” she said. “It’s time to take action.”

She called it the gateway to downtown, “and it is a dangerous, non-compliant, poorly functioning parking lot.”

Representative Town Meeting member Jennifer Johnson, District 9, thanked the people who have been working on the plans.

“This isn’t new,” she said. “And it looks like, through the leadership we have now, there’s a chance that we’re going to do it in our generation. So, it’s up to us to do it right.”

“But in order for us to do it right we really need the public to really follow what’s going on and I really don’t think that that’s happened right now as it relates to Jesup,” Johnson said.

“It seems to me the Jesup vision needs more fleshing out before we really have a community understanding and buy-in to what’s going on,” she said. “Even the map that I think you’ve been showing us, Pete [Ratkiewich], has a date of two days ago.”

She noted that was three days after the P&Z staff report was written about the application.

“The public just really hasn’t had a chance to envision the change to Jesup Green …” she said. “I would strongly urge the commission to pause.”

Kristin Schneeman, another District 9 RTM member, commended the work on replacing parking spots lost at Parker Harding elsewhere, but agreed with Johnson about the speed at which the next phases were moving.

“The first selectwoman started out talking about the number of meetings and public comments that have come in, but that was all on Parker Harding Plaza,” Schneeman said.

“This is the first time people are really getting any kind of look at what would, the complimentary action on the other side of the [Post] road would be, both this new lot and being sort of plunked down at the top of the library, and of the green and now this phase 3, which I don’t think really anybody has seen much of weighed in on,” she said.

Schneeman was talking about a future phase and the potential relocation of the police and EMS headquarters, perhaps freeing up space at the crest of Jesup Road. Future plans also tentatively call for upgrading the Imperial Avenue lot as part of an overall scenario for downtown parking.

“We can never predict anything in life,” she said. “But that seems like a pretty big one to predicate a significant redesign of a very important piece of property in downtown on.”

RTM member Jimmy Izzo, District 3, supported the plan and noted that there were opponents all along when the town was redeveloping Riverside Park several years ago.

“Once it got done, it’s beautiful, it’s used,” he said. “Same amount of parking spots, but it’s beautiful. We’ve reclaimed that waterway.”

“We can have all the meetings we want, OK, it’s going to be the same people coming up with another reason to delay, and delay some more,” he said. “Because that’s what this is all about.”

He said that with the revised application, Ratkiewich and DPIC Chairman Randy Herbertson came back with what was asked for.

“For safety purposes and the good of our community, I totally love this application,” Izzo said. “And I hope you guys will vote in favor of moving this forward.”

When commission members discussed the proposal, a clear majority said they were not ready to endorse it.

“I’m pretty uncomfortable by this,” member Neil Cohn said. “We saw pretty much the same plan for Parker Harding and rejected it last year. It wasn’t just the lack of spots, but that was the biggest issue.”

“Losing green space in really the one special space that we use for our community get-togethers is very sad,” he said. “And I realize in future phases it may be coming back, maybe better, but I’d want to see that all approved and funded and done now before you create anything.”

Lebowitz had several remaining concerns, primarily, it seemed, parking spots.

“Back in October the merchants said please don’t lose parking, please don’t lose the delivery scheme that we have now, and so when we asked you to read us in on your plans for Jesup Green, it was because we hoped there would be an answer to all those problems,” he said.

“What I got tonight was a brand-new set of ‘This is where we’re going.’ Parker Harding and Jesup Green, and then phase 2, phase 3, and then the police lot, etc.,” Lebowitz said. “And I can’t figure out how those puzzle pieces fit together.”

He said if the applicants could wave a wand and fast-forward five years to when it was all done, “I might be sitting here applauding you saying, ‘This was fabulous,’ ” he said. “But I don’t have the vision to see whether this will work for the very constituency that’s important, and that is the merchants.”

Bolton and fellow Republican Patrizia Zucaro were ready to vote in favor. But Zucaro dropped out of the online meeting, Bolton said, because of a power outage.

“It’s put up or shut up time,” Bolton said. “We’re always going to find a reason to dither and look at some other extraneous issue that needs further clarification. There have been surveys. There have been responses. There have been studies. There have been charettes. There have been three different plans, three different hearings, including tonight.

“We’re shifting the goalposts,” Bolton said. “We’re changing the parameters or the rules of the game mid-stream and it’s bad form. It’s really bad form and we look kind of foolish, because why would anyone want to negotiate with this commission?”

He seemed to feel commission members hadn’t listed their concerns clearly.

“Can we at least put some definition to this?” he asked. “We’re starting to look like the gang that can’t shoot straight.”

“Mr. Bolton this is the second time that you have used what I consider to be an unflattering characterization of this commission,” Lebowitz said.

“Nobody here is a gang that can’t shoot straight,” he said. “In fact, just the opposite. Everybody here has an opinion. Just as you are entitled to yours, we all have ours. And each one has spoken at length this evening.”

After Bolton asked for a list of questions commission members still wanted answered, Lebowitz told him they had been detailed over the previous three hours. There was a back-and-forth.

“I believe you’re out of line,” Lebowitz told Bolton.

In the end, the commission voted unanimously to continue discussion of the parking plans.

Thane Grauel grew up in Westport and has been a journalist in Fairfield County and beyond for 36 years. Reach him at editor@westportjournal.com. Learn more about us here.