Mystic market owner says Coogan Farm parking is what worries him
Mystic — The owner of McQuade’s Marketplace explained Friday that he is worried that the approval of a parking plan for the Coogan Farm Nature and Heritage Center could make it difficult for his customers to find parking spots in his lot.
Michael McQuade has appealed this month's approval by the Stonington Planning and Zoning Commission of plans by the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center to create the Coogan Farm Nature and Heritage Center on a section of the farm adjacent to McQuade's. The appeal eventually will be considered by a New London Superior Court judge but it has the immediate effect of potentially delaying the project.
McQuade said that on days when the farm hosts special events, such as weekend weddings, its 42-space main parking lot will be filled, and hikers and other visitors to the farm will seek out the six spots at the end of town-owned Clara Drive. He is concerned about the overflow spilling into his lot at times when his store is busy and his lot is full.
“If I don’t have room for my customers, it will have an impact on the families who earn a living in this business,” said McQuade. “That’s what this is about – parking and just being fair.”
“I’m extremely nervous about this. I don’t want people to go somewhere else,” he added, referring to customers who have to wait for parking spots.
He said the situation would worsen if Clara Drive is eventually extended to Route 27, resulting in the loss of three of the parking spots.
McQuade said he spent two years working with the nature center to come up with a solution. He said he would like to see the nature center have a gravel parking lot with a minimum of 10 spots on the farm property. He said he offered to help pay for the lot.
“I don’t think that a gravel parking lot would impact the project or cost them a lot of money,” he said.
Nature center Executive Director Maggie Jones has said a conservation easement prevents a lot from being built on the section of farm next to McQuade’s.
Jones said Thursday that a contractor was slated to begin work next week on the project. 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 might have to remove any work it completed.
In its appeal, 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.
The appeal also states the 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. Jones has said the Clara Drive entrance is not intended to be the main access to the site, which is off Route 27, where the 42 spots are 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 designed to address concerns by commission members about the number and size of special events 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.
Jones has said the center does not intend to hold a large number of special events at the farm and has agreements to use Mystic Seaport and the adjacent Precious Memories Preschool for overflow parking.
j.wojtas@theday.com
Twitter: @joewojtas
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