So Moved: An Interview With Retiring P&Z Chair Bob Hammersley

PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBERT HAMMERSLEY

Robert Hammersley has been involved in politics one way or another ever since he campaigned for Ronald Reagan at the tender age of ten. He has been a Republican member of Southington's Planning and Zoning Commission for the past ten years and Chair of the Commission for the past six. After he announced that he was stepping down from office due to health reasons, the Outsider arranged to conduct an interview with him, which was held on October 9th. The interview is divided into two parts; the first contains Hammersley's reflections on what he believes the Commission's role in the community should be, while the second, which is more autobiographical in nature, will be published later. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

What does the Planning and Zoning Commission do? And what does it not do?

Planning and Zoning does a number of things. The primary thing it does is create zoning regulations for the town. Through those regulations it works to enhance economic development, and to ensure that the way our town is developed is consistent with the way we want it to develop, considering a lot of different factors, like quality of life issues, or transportation infrastructure.

What Planning and Zoning does not do is take into consideration any impacts of a decision with regard to our tax base. It does not stand in the way of economic property rights that an individual property owner may have. Every property owner has the right to do with their property whatever they would like to, so long as it adheres to our regulations. And that position is backed up by extensive judicial precedent and case law. So when people come forward and say ‘we should stop development’ – well, if they’re adhering to our regulations, you can’t put in a stop-gap and say, you can’t have development here. That would be detrimental to our town’s economic development. I think we’ve made efforts to develop in a way that is beneficial to the town and future generations.

The other thing that Planning and Zoning does – the planning part – is plan what we would like our town to look like in the future. One part of that is the development of a Plan of Conservation and Development, which we are required by state statute to update every ten years. We did our last update in 2016 and we’ve taken several initiatives based on it over the past decade. We are now updating our plan and I think that will be an important part of our legacy. What will our town look like in 2036?

Public input makes its way into P&Z through elections to determine the membership, public comment on the Plan of Conservation and Development, but also at meetings when people come and speak. Does public comment matter to the final decisions? How does it affect them?

Before I answer, let me add that public input is also invited with regard to the adoption of regulations. Planning and Zoning underwent a wholesale reassessment of our regulations earlier this year. As part of that, we invited the public to come and give us their input on what we were doing, input which was shared with everybody.

As for our decisions, I have been one of seven people on Planning and Zoning over the past 10 years and can only speak for myself. Personally I put a lot of weight on public input. I see it as a way to make decisions consistent with what the public wants. During election time we’re all subject to putting ourselves and our record out there, to see if that matches the wishes of the 43,000-plus people in Southington, and I think that it has.

Several years ago I took an initiative with our town staff to provide a greater degree of transparency to all the information that we had for our decisions. We worked at setting up a website providing every bit of information that we have access to as commissioners, so everyone can see it.

One thing about public input that is important to note is that we still have to follow our regulations. We’ve had instances where people say you ‘shouldn’t do this, you shouldn’t do that’. But if the regulations say you can do that, then I, as a commissioner responsible to the town, can’t turn around and say ‘you can’t do that,' if it’s adhering to the regulations.

So the regulations set an absolute framework, and public comments can influence how you paint within those lines?

Yes, that’s a good analogy. That is absolutely how it works.

Likewise, any member of the public can propose a zoning text amendment, which means a change of the regulations. I have encouraged anyone who is interested to come to me, and I will file it on their behalf. So far I’ve not gotten anyone to take me up on that offer.

So all that stuff weighs into it. It is important to represent the interests of our communities and we do our best. The flip side is there are certain things, such as the state’s 8-30g affordable housing statue, that don’t allow us to take into consideration certain inputs that the public provides us. So if the public says ‘I don’t like this, it will reduce my property values’, we can’t consider that in our process. In the affordable applications that I have sat through over the past few years, I have made sure every member of the commission understands that we can’t make that a part of our decision. We have to make our decisions based on public health and public safety, but those are the only two things we are allowed to consider. We have to be careful about stuff like that.

I was going to ask next about a highlight of your time on the commission. You previously mentioned the transparency initiative…

I’d like to say one more thing about that, if you’ll forgive me, but I was thinking about it. I cited it as a highlight of my term as member and as chairman over the last six years because it has a lasting effect. Right? It’s true to my desire to provide transparency and accountability, but it has a lasting effect. There are approvals that we’ve done that I’m certainly proud when they come to fruition, but at the same time what we did there, that really has the potential to affect every citizen in town and their ability to access all the information we have.

There’s a link to the page and if you scroll down it brings up, for any meeting, every application that is before us. You can see everything in the packet, it’s all there. There is nothing in addition to what you see, that is everything.

The more you know, the better off you are, and I want everyone to know as much as they can.

Suppose someone is considering running for Planning and Zoning. What is the biggest challenge they need to be prepared for?

Let me turn that around a bit. One thing I try very hard to insure as chair is a level of respect amongst everybody. Not just respect among members of the board, but respect outward, towards the community. I also think that’s a two-way street. The way that we speak and communicate with each other is something that’s important to me, in terms of having a discourse. Let’s have a full discourse and let’s hold it in a respectful way.

In terms of low moments, it’s been those times when that respect has not been present. I don’t relish it, I don’t like it. There have been instances where people are being disrespectful to members of the commission or to members of the public and I’m very sharp about calling them out. We’ve had instances of that over the years, and I’ve consistently sought to uphold respect and the integrity of the process.

Many people are struggling to afford housing these days, and people in town often look to Planning and Zoning as one of the organs of town government that can have some effect on that. What can the commission do, what should it do, to confront the issues of affordability in housing?

The cost of housing is certainly a challenge, particular for the younger generation. I have three kids that are in that mode, 20-somethings just getting started, and I hear their struggles, whether it’s affording rent or a purchase. I get that. I was there too when I was their age.

But I think there are a lot of drivers behind that result. Inflation matters – the cost of construction materials and labor going up. Insurance costs play into it. And the local Planning and Zoning commission has little influence on that. That’s more of a regional issue, a global issue, a Connecticut issue. Look at the cost of electricity in the state. We have one of the highest electrical rates in the country, which I think is a driver of the cost of housing as well. All those things factor into housing costs.

What can we as the Town of Southington Planning and Zoning commission do to affect the cost of housing? Very little, I think. There’s not an opportunity for us to do much. I think the state has tried to create this false impression that the Planning and Zoning commissions of local municipalities are standing in the way of truly affordable housing. My experience is that we have not done that; I don’t think it’s been happening in the past ten years that I’ve been on the commission. I think we’ve been encouraging housing, and the housing plan that we adopted in 2023 actually backs that up. It shows that Southington has a wide diversity of housing options, both in terms of cost and the type of housing: mobile homes, apartments, multifamily units, single-family units.

There was one part of act 21-29 which allowed an ADU –  an accessory dwelling unit. Towns were given the option to opt out of it. I encouraged Southington to opt out of that. The way that the law is written, it says that anyone is allowed to have an ADU on their property up to 1,000 square feet “as a right.” “As a right” means you can go down to Town Hall and file a permit and get it. Ostensibly the purpose is to make it easier to get an ADU.

We opted out of that. One reason I thought it was important to do so was the traffic impact. If you are allowed to have ADU’s in any yard, a 1,000 square-foot unit with cars, and we’re populating the entire town with these, it would compound the traffic problems we already have. Depending on the time of day or year, the problems are worse: during the Apple Harvest the problems get worse, and also at the Spring St and Queen St intersection, we’re going to make that worse. And that has a residual effect on first responders’ response times because they have to navigate around it somehow. So that played into it.

I also didn’t want to see small lots that have substantial building structures popping up all over the place. The best way to do that is on a case-by-case basis. We do allow multifamily housing as a right, that’s allowed. We allow and encourage in-law apartments. We had one we approved this past week for someone whose parents are aging and wants to move them into their house so that they can take care of them. We do allow that and generally are receptive to those things. That’s sufficient for Southington.