Interview with Bill Voelker

Bill Voelker is the town planner for Cheshire, Connecticut who has also been a guest lecturer in an upper level planning class at CCSU in the Spring semester, 2010. The following questions and answers were a follow-up to that lecture--with questions composed by Michael D'Amato.

Question: Do towns typically have design standards for their Industrial Zones, --things such as road width and building height?

Answer: Street widths are common for all zones. They usually vary according to type of road, not zoning district. Local roads have classifications according to function. These include local, collector, or arterial streets. These are sometimes related to the development density created by the zoning district, but collector and arterial roads are constructed and maintained in order to facilitate nodal distribution throughout the community and to access the state highway system.

Local roads are just that. They are designed for neighborhood travel and to access collector and arterial roads.

Building height, setback, and similar standards are usually contained within local zoning regulations. Other design criteria related to architectural detail and building appearance are usually contained with design guidelines. The town of Simsbury has a pretty good set online and you might also want to look at the ones I recently looked at from Jamestown, Rhode Island, also available online.

A Capitol Plan: An Important first Municipal Plan for an American City

by Justin Reich
Known now as the Noble Plan, the basic plan for Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States was devised by Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, a French-born American engineer, architect, and urban designer. L’Enfant was a Major under the direction of George Washington during the Revolutionary War. When Washington became President he asked the Frenchman to construct a new capital for a new nation. Washington wanted a European feel like that of the 17th century French in Italian architecture, “The primary influence, as suggested, was the late French Baroque, with its tradition of broad axial relationships, symmetrical balance, and superimposed on a grand scale”(Finding Lost Space: Theories of Urban Design By Roger Trancik p. 157).

Pierre-Charles L'Enfant's 1791 plan for the city of Washington is one of the great landmarks in city planning. It was, designed from its inception to serve as the framework for the capital city of the new nation beginning in the year 1800. The proposal of broad radiating avenues connecting significant focal points, its open spaces, and its grid pattern of streets oriented north, south, east, and west is still the plan against which all modern land use proposals for the Nation's Capital are considered.

Interview with Francis Pickering of CCRPA

by John Boren

The lack of funding or statutory requirement for linking regional and local planning in Connecticut results in scant involvement by regional planners in the process of drafting town Plans of Conservation and Development. This comes out in the following interview with Francis Pickering, from the Central Connecticut Regional Planning Agency (CCPRA).

Question: What coordination is required between the CCPRA and New Britain (or any town in the region for that matter) when the city is drafting a new Plan of Conservation and Development?
Answer: No coordination is required. The region voluntarily strives to take local POCDs into account when drawing up its regional POCD. CCRPA has not reviewed the New Britain POCD. We expect that New Britain’s planner will present the plan for discussion to our Comprehensive Plan Committee (CPC). Please note that this discussion will be informative only—we have no authority to compel alterations to any plan or ordinance.

Question: What is the level of involvement of the CCRPA with New Britain and its drafting of a new POCD?
Answer: CCRPA has not been involved in New Britain’s POCD process.

Question: How would you describe the role of the CCRPA in this process, i.e. mostly advisory, major decision-making entity, etc.?
Answer: Not applicable—we have not been involved in this process. Given state budget cuts, CCRPA does not have the resources to engage in such a complex and lengthy process as the adoption of a new POCD. There is simply no funding provided for such work.

Question:How does the regional planning agency's specific plan of development differ from that of its member towns?
Answer: Comparing our regional plan with our municipalities’ POCDs would be an extremely time-intensive task. We do not have the resources to do this. All I can suggest is that you compare the documents yourself.

Final remarks:
I am sorry I cannot be of more help, but the lack of financial support and statutory authority in Connecticut for the regions undercuts our ability to work change. We simply do not have the power of other states’ counties or regional governance such as Portland’s Metro.