By Thane Grauel

WESTPORT — First Selectman Jennifer Tooker has filed an updated 8-24 referral to the Planning and Zoning Commission for the reconstruction of Long Lots School.

Tooker’s request was filed Thursday afternoon and is posted on the town’s website.

She had until Thursday to file the request and still make the Planning and Zoning Commission’s Jan. 22 agenda, which requires 48 hours’ notice, Planning and Zoning Director Mary Young said Wednesday afternoon, before the revised request arrived.

“This project is for a substantial improvement to Town owned property in the Residence AA/A Districts … for the construction of a new Long Lots Elementary School, a replaced and relocated multipurpose field and a replaced and relocated community garden on site,” the application reads.

Tooker asked the Long Lots School Building Committee to prepare an updated plan its Jan. 11 meeting. She she said she had reached what she called a compromise on some contentious issues.

She told the committee a baseball field would no longer be located where the gardens are now, but a multipurpose field would be. The gardens, which she earlier said would be relocated to another town property, would be returned to the Long Lots grounds, though in a different location and perhaps with a smaller footprint.

A site plan schematic filed on Thursday shows the gardens in the same general area, but to the the southeast. At the southwest corner of the property is an area marked “Relocated Gardens (Alt Location).”

Tooker’s earlier 8-24 request was withdrawn earlier this month. That came after Planning and Zoning Commission members voiced concerns at a Dec. 18 meeting. They included a baseball field replacing the community gardens, and the effects on neighbors who had seen a passive, far-less intense use of the nearby land for years.

The Planning and Zoning Commission, under state law, is the gatekeeper for such town land-use proposals.

At the last school building committee meeting, Tooker asked the members to come up with a plan incorporating her new vision of the plan. The committee voted unanimously to ask an architectural firm to do that.

The building committee has not met since, so it appears unlikely it voted on whatever updated plans were drawn up. There isn’t enough time for it to meet before the Jan. 22 P&Z meeting. And it’s not clear if the committee would need to, since the first selectwoman is the official making the request.

Building committee Chairman Jay Keenan could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

In anticipation of the revised 8-24 application being filed for P&Z review Monday, Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice said the Board of Education has invited the Long Lots School Building Committee to provide an update on the plans Thursday night. (The school board’s public session starts at 7 p.m. Thursday at Staples High School.)

Promising there will be “ample time for public comment following the LLSBC update,” Scarice, in a message emailed Wednesday, acknowledged the “ongoing debate” over use of the Long Lots property.

But, the superintendent added, “I want to emphasize the critical importance of this new construction project moving forward in a timely manner without delay.” Failing to do so, he said, “can present districtwide complications.”

The P&Z will meet at 7 p.m. Jan 22, online. The Long Lots project has been placed on the agenda.

Thane Grauel grew up in Westport and has been a journalist in Fairfield County and beyond for 35 years. Reach him at editor@westportjournal.com. Learn more about us here.