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Village District is a Powerful Tool
| For several months in a bi-partisan effort, we, Tom Gullotta and Kurt Cavanaugh, have pursued the creation of a town center village district. You might wonder why? To answer that question, travel north from Katz’s to the East Hartford town line. Are you impressed with the architecture, landscaping, and signs? Do you find it beckoning you to park your car and stroll along Main Street? How about that most recent development that houses Chick-fil-A? Several of us on the Council urged the developer to use a building style complimenting a town with a rich traditional architectural heritage. Instead, in our opinion, the town got a retro 1950’s minimalist variation on a strip mall, with flat-roofed boxy buildings that don’t enhance our town’s image. The same is true for the new building at the ‘corner of Sycamore and Hebron Avenue that greets visitors to our Town Center with a flat-roofed box, punctuated by a comical false gable. Now, return to Katz’s and travel south. Note that a two-and-a-half story center chimney colonial sits beside St. James Church; that two attractive Victorians still grace the area before you reach the Gideon Welles House at the corner of Main and Hebron; and that the building south of the library compliments the colonial and other traditional buildings that remain in the Town Center. Look across the street at the building that Kamin’s once occupied and imagine the mass of concrete that will someday spill over from that site past Bollywood’s to swallow Evert’s and the other small retailers in the old Curtis building. A village district will not stop change along Main Street but it will give TPZ a powerful tool to ensure that the architectural mistakes north of Katz’s are not repeated south of that property. That is why we, and some others on the council, want a Village Center designation. Once our town’s historic character is gone, it’s gone forever. |
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