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As my time of service to the Town of Colchester in this position draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on, “What have we really accomplished in the past two years?” Please note the “we” in the previous sentence as nothing can be accomplished alone. Our town is truly blessed to have caring, committed, professional, and extremely intelligent staff, along with residents who also care and have a vast amount of knowledge, experience, and ideas to share and work with in partnership with our staff. So, what have all of us together
accomplished?
After many years of discussion and attempts, volunteers and the Town partnered together to put into place plans and processes to develop a Colchester Dog Park. Ably led by Keith Kelley, this group developed and received approval for its plans, was instrumental in leading passage of an amendment to an applicable ordinance, and is now over halfway to raising the funds to begin actual construction of the park. Likewise and again after several years of discussion, the Cody Camp Foundation broke ground just this past summer for a new baseball field at Jack Jackter Intermediate School. Designed and funded by volunteers and in partnership with many Town staff, what a fitting tribute to a child whose passion was baseball.
Participants from many groups and organizations came together in a land use summit to begin the process for our new Plan of Conservation & Development, as well as to identify priorities for the town in relation to land use. Top of the list were the Right-to-Farm ordinance which was passed at Town meeting just this past week and extension of water and sewer to the business park zone at Routes 85 & 11 for which we received notification this month that we have received a grant to fund planning of that access. Important to Colchester is our open space and use thereof. Through a partnership with the Colchester Land Trust and the leadership of CLT president Lisa Hageman and member Chuck Toal along with Adam Turner, our Town Planner, the town was able to add 31 acres of prime open space adjacent to the
Elizabeth & Ruby Cohen Woodlands for our residents to enjoy.
With new processes implemented in our planning and code enforcement offices, work continued on implementing our current Plan of Conservation & Development when the business park and mixed use zoning regulations were approved. We have our first mixed use development now going through the process which will hopefully break ground soon. Additionally, we have been meeting with developers interested in the business park areas; you’ll soon see the results of the ground work that we’ve spent two years laying. In fact, one of them will be coming forward within the next month! We’ve also worked with the owner to add to the Stop & Shop area and with Dunkin Donuts to add a second store on Linwood Avenue – both projects are in varying stages at this point.
We identified two corridors on which to focus during this time – Lebanon Avenue and from Linwood Avenue to the funeral home on Main Street. You can see the results beginning to take form. After almost a year of planning, Federated Church has begun their renovations. The Old Firehouse will be completed within the next couple of weeks. Approvals were obtained from the DOT and plans developed to return the state owned asphalt in front of the Chevrolet dealer to grass; however, because of the growing season, that work will not take place until spring. Plans were developed with a team of interested individuals for Lebanon Avenue and submitted to the State Department of Economic and Community Development for a grant. While we were not chosen to receive that grant, DECD recommended that we submit the
application for a different grant which has been completed. We are awaiting news of that decision.
There’s much more, but I can’t fit it all in this week! Watch next week for the final installment. And, don’t forget that municipal elections will be held on Tuesday, November 3rd. Be well.
Previous Selectman Notes can be viewed at
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