Residents press council to scrap town-center proposal; affordable-housing committee urges majority-affordable plan

Residents and volunteer board members pressed the Town of Middletown Town Council on Tuesday to abandon the current Town Center (Middletown Commons) development proposal and instead pursue a plan that prioritizes affordable housing and preserves parkland, including the Veteran Memorial/POTC field.

The council formally received a recommendation from the volunteer Affordable Housing Committee urging the town to “walk away from the current town center proposal” and to replace it “with one that includes housing with a majority of affordable, low and moderate income units and a public park to serve all Middletown residents,” committee chair Lawrence Frank told the council in a prepared statement he read at the meeting.

Dozens of residents who signed up for the public forum reiterated that theme: speakers including Joanne Thornton, Marilyn Levesque, Gina Orzulak, Christopher Rowe and others told the council they oppose hotels, additional banks and market-rate retail on the 15-acre town-owned parcel on West Main Road. Several speakers asked the council to preserve contiguous open field space that currently supports town sports and community events, and to prioritize housing that local workers and elderly residents can afford.

“I believe the current proposal is an exceptional deal for the developer and a bad deal for the town,” Joanne Thornton said, urging the council to “take the affordable housing committee’s recommendations seriously” and to pursue housing at other town-owned sites such as the Kennedy School property. Marilyn Levesque asked the council to make the public-record request that the development preserve the Veteran Memorial parkland and not “build a strip mall.”

Affordable Housing Committee chair Lawrence Frank told councilors the committee’s recommendation responds to an acute local affordability need: “We should provide the methods and means that allows all the workers, all the workers in this town to lead comfortable and fulfilling lives,” Frank said, noting that the 15-acre site could, in the committee’s calculation, yield hundreds of apartment units if housing — not commercial development — were the priority.

Councilor Christopher Roberts (identified in the public transcript as the councilor who placed the item on the docket) introduced a motion directing the town to withdraw from consideration of the development agreement and to instead develop a proposal emphasizing majority-affordable housing and a public park. The motion drew an immediate legal caution from the town solicitor, who said the specific step of canceling a development agreement raises legal issues and, because it was not listed as an action on the published meeting agenda, could create open-meeting concerns. The solicitor advised that legal analysis of the town’s position related to the development agreement should occur in executive session and that broad action to cancel an agreement was not properly before the council that night. The motion did not receive a second.

Several councilors said they welcomed the committee’s recommendation and the residents’ comments and asked town staff and boards to continue work on housing options. Others urged caution and said the council must follow the solicitor’s advice on process and potential legal exposure.

Separately, the council approved motions to advertise and hold public hearings on proposed comprehensive plan and zoning-map amendments and an overlay district for properties identified as Plat 102, Lots 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 on West Main Road/Coddington Highway; those advertising motions set public hearings for Sept. 16 and Sept. 30, 2025 at Middletown High School. Councilors had pulled the town-center items from the consent calendar in order to allow public comment but then voted to advertise the required hearings.

What’s next: The Affordable Housing Committee’s recommendation has been received by the council. Any decision to cancel a development agreement would require a separate, properly noticed action and—per the town solicitor—likely executive-session legal review before public action. The council will hold public hearings on the proposed comprehensive-plan and zoning amendments for the West Main/Coddington parcels on the dates the council advertised.