East Haddam planning panel hears push for larger downtown hotel, flags water, wastewater and funding questions

The East Haddam planning agency reviewed its master plan and downtown development options on the agenda, with members and public commenters urging a larger hotel footprint and raising questions about water, wastewater and funding.

At the meeting the chair said the master plan remains conceptual and will be refined before it goes to town meeting; VHB’s final phase-one report is expected by the end of the month and the agency plans to begin phase two work, including drafting form-based code and coordinating with the Connecticut Department of Transportation.

Why it matters: members and developers said a small, 17-room inn is unlikely to support ground-floor retail or cover costly infrastructure improvements. Finance representative Jeff outlined state funding programs and said the agency must identify grants or loans to cover projects that may include a river crossing for water and upgrades to wastewater systems.

Planning consultant Tommy Boston described form-based code as a design "palette" that still prescribes where buildings sit, how they relate to streets and maximum heights. "You're looking at it from a financial perspective," Tommy Boston said, adding that a building with three or more stories is often necessary to make ground-floor retail financeable.

Jeff told the panel he had scanned state funding programs and noted one flagship source — the Small Town Economic Assistance Program (STEAP) — appeared temporarily unavailable online during his check. Jeff said he is engaging elected officials and staff to pursue funding once the master plan and project proposals are ready. "I typed a prompt into Google Gemini AI and 10 seconds later, this report came out," Jeff said, noting the draft still requires many person-hours to convert into an application.

Public commenter Bob Casner, representing Economic Development, pressed the group to investigate bringing public water across the river (possibly from Haddam), noting a water main currently tees near Williams Park. He said a water crossing that drills under the river could cost on the order of a million dollars. "It was a million dollars to drill in pipe," a commenter said during discussion of utility costs.

On wastewater, members and speakers reported the town plant was designed to a roughly 50,000-gallon-per-day capacity and currently operates under 50% of that capacity; they cautioned that hotel peak flows and concurrent showers can create short-term stresses and that temporary storage or sequencing measures may be required. The meeting record noted the system's sequencing-batch-reactor design can be operated to hold and treat flows, but further study was recommended.

Members discussed incentives and tools to make projects viable. The agency recently adopted a tax-increment financing (TIF) policy and said it would use TIF negotiations or tax abatements to help a developer absorb high upfront infrastructure costs. The chair said grant-writing support from consultant BHB and VHB would be used to pursue appropriate state and federal programs, including drinking-water or clean-water funding sources.

The agency also addressed procedural items: it received two new appointees from the Board of Selectmen (including a member named Daniel and Scott Brown) to send to town meeting for confirmation, and it approved an invoice of $4,850 to consultant BHB for work on the master-plan effort.

The meeting concluded with a motion, second and vote to enter executive session to discuss real estate matters, with the chair inviting recording secretary Matt Conroy and select staff to attend. The agency moved into executive session following the vote.

Next steps: VHB's final phase-one report is expected at the agency's next meeting in May; members said they will refine the master plan language to preserve flexibility before town meeting and pursue funding and engineering studies for infrastructure needs.