Westbrook Zoning to Consider Hospital, Lee Expansion Proposals

On Tuesday, Feb. 28, the Westbrook Zoning Commission will open the public hearing on a proposal to add emergency medical clinics as an approved use in the TIC-65 Zone on Flat Rock Place. Middlesex Hospital has proposed the zoning text change to pave the way for proposing construction of a new hospital-affiliated emergency medical clinic on Flat Rock Place. Hospital management has already signed paperwork to purchase two parcels of land on Flat Rock Place for this purpose. Plans call for the hospital to relocate its existing emergency medical clinic in Essex to the new site.

Also on the agenda at that meeting is consideration of the proposed Lee Company project that would expand the Lee Company corporate campus on Pettipaug Road. The zoning application, if approved, would permit construction of a new 73, 626 sq. ft. Building 9, a two-story addition to the existing Building 3, a 9,960 sq. ft. garage/storage building, and other facilities including parking lots and lighting on the 14.2 acre parcel bounded by Route 153 and Pettipaug Road.

The Westbrook Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Commission last month voted to approve the Lee Company’s regulated activity permit for the project. The IWWC voted permit approval after hearing from both the applicant’s and the town’s engineers that the site’s drainage patterns would direct water run-off away from Cold Spring Road. Speakers at the IWWC public hearing had expressed concern that drainage from the development could direct unwanted surface water into their neighborhood.