McQuade's Marketplace appeals approval of Coogan Farm Nature and Heritage Center
Mystic — The entity that owns McQuade's Marketplace has appealed the approval of plans by the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center to create the Coogan Farm Nature and Heritage Center on a portion of the Coogan Farm.
The appeal of this month’s approval by the Stonington Planning and Zoning Commission will eventually be considered by a New London Superior Court judge and has the immediate effect of potentially delaying the project.
A portion of the 45-acre project is adjacent to the McQuade’s Marketplace parking lot and plans calls for six parking spots to access a farm trail at the end of Clara Drive. That trail leads to the farm buildings off Route 27.
Nature center Executive Director Maggie Jones said Thursday that a contractor was slated to begin work next week. She said the center’s attorney now will determine what part, if any, of the project can begin. If a judge overturns the approval, the nature center could have to remove any work it completed.
“This could potentially have a severe impact and delay the project,” she said, adding the center also risks losing its contractor.
McQuade’s cited several technical deficiencies with the commission’s approval and charged that the special use permit and site plan that were approved were invalid, unenforceable and not supported by the evidence in the record.
It also states the nature center application failed to include the off-site parking required for all the proposed uses on the site and used offsite public/private parking to meet the requirements. It asks a judge to reverse the commission’s decision.
Instead of the six spots along the street, Jones said that in conversations with McQuade’s, the supermarket had requested that there be eight spots on the farm property next to the trail.
She said the Clara Drive entrance is not intended to be the main access to the site. That is off Route 27, where there are 42 parking spots - 15 more than required.
When the Planning and Zoning Commission approved a special-use permit for the project earlier this month, it attached eight stipulations to its approval, including one that is designed to address concerns by commission members about the number and size of special events that the DPNC could hold there. The commission agreed that no third-party private events, such as weddings, will be allowed on the property until the nature center returns to the commission with clarification about its plans for special events.
Last fall, the nature center held the grand opening for the project. The ribbon-cutting culminated a 2½-year effort by the center and the Trust for Public Land to raise $4.1 million in public and private money to buy the property and create the heritage center.
The nature center plans to renovate the Coogan farmhouse into a welcome center/retail shop, classrooms and meeting spaces and offices. The small, white barn across the driveway from the farmhouse will be turned into classroom and exhibit space. A gathering plaza will be created between the two structures, and a 42-space parking lot will be constructed in the lower field.
The 2-acre Giving Garden was redesigned, and an adjacent outdoor classroom will be created. A post-and-beam pavilion, called the Hamm Pavilion and Outdoor Classroom, will be constructed next to the stone foundation known as the Paddock. A bicycle/pedestrian trail was constructed from Clara Drive through the property to Route 27.
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Twitter: @joewojtas
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