Middletown planning board hears strong public concern over proposed West Main/Coddington overlay, but continues review

The Middletown Planning Board on Feb. 5 opened a public hearing on three linked requests that would change the town’s future land-use map and zoning for about 15 acres at West Main Road and Coddington Highway and create a site-specific overlay district to enable a mixed-use project.

Gerard Galvin, attorney for Middletown Commons Town Center LLC, told the board the hearing was “about the zoning ordinance and the comprehensive plan versus the specifics of the project itself,” and said the development agreement between the town and the developer was signed in October 2024. Sean Brown, an administration official, described the item as part of a long reuse and redevelopment effort tied to Navy surplus land and federal BRAC reuse planning.

The developer’s proposal calls for a hotel with an extended-stay component, residential units (with a 10% minimum set-aside for affordable housing), retail space and a municipal/open-space parcel retained by the town. The development agreement contemplates separate 99‑year ground leases for the hotel, housing and retail parcels and anticipates real estate tax, hotel/meals tax and land‑lease revenue to the town; Brown said the town’s rough revenue estimate from the project is about $1.2 million a year.

Why it matters

The proposals would change the comprehensive-plan future land-use designation for the parcels from institutional to general business, rezone the parcels from a public/traffic‑sensitive category to a business zone, and adopt a West Main–Coddington overlay tailored to the development team’s concept. The town’s comprehensive plan and earlier…