North Stonington - The public hearing on the draft Plan of Conservation and Development continued Thursday night at Wheeler Library, where a couple of dozen residents and officials came to hear and offer praise and criticism.

A draft of the nearly 100-page document, completed last month by Town Planner Juliet Leeming, was the result of about two years of work and dozens of meetings that solicited residents' input on their vision for the town.

The self-explanatory themes of the plan - conserving the town's natural beauty and rural character while bringing in economic development - manifested in some of the comments Thursday.

Resident Brian Rathbun said that even open-space and conservation plans may be overstepping, interfering with an aspect of the town that he treasures.

"Not every open space needs to be trails. Every little piece of land has a purpose. There might be something special on that land that you haven't even seen," he said, later adding, "We should not turn North Stonington into a park for strangers to walk around."

Rathbun also said that while the plan addresses the town's affordable housing issue in some of its plans for development - the affordable housing stock falls well below the state's mandated 10 percent - he said the development plans should reflect the town's history. Affordable housing is nice, he said, but he suggested such businesses as a shooting range, saying, "That's how I remember North Stonington."

"Remember that the owners of the land want their privacy and to be left alone. Some of us still want to hunt, we want to fish, and to remain private. That's why we own the land," he said.

Tim Pelland, who sits on the Affordable Housing Commission, later noted that affordable housing must still remain a top priority so that the town is not vulnerable to "predatory" developers who, under state statute, can bring in affordable housing that ignores zoning regulations in towns that do not meet the minimum housing stock.

"We are open game," he said.

On the development side, resident John Olsen noted that in responses to a survey Leeming sent out earlier this year, a "large number of people that wanted these initiatives … didn't want taxes to rise."

He noted that there are typically three ways to fund development - "disproportionately" raise taxes, apply for grant money, or bring in enough business to offset property taxes.

He suggested that preserved land be used for fundraising purposes and not just sit dormant as open space. He said he would encourage the uses of "for-profit activities" on land set aside by the town so that the Plan of Conservation initiatives would be self-funded.

The plan includes, for the first time, colorful architect's renderings of plans for the town - a farmers market in an old gas station, landscaping at a former restaurant site - and Leeming has said that the specificity sets the plan apart from previous iterations.

Still, one resident asked that the public hearing remain open before the plan is finalized. The commission voted to continue the hearing to its next meeting Dec. 5.

"These are huge topics, and I beg you to take the time to go over them and to hold this hearing open as long as you can and to listen to any more comments that come in," Madeline Jeffery said.

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