New London denies food pantry special permit
Apr. 23—NEW LONDON — The city's Planning and Zoning Commission decided New London Area Food Pantry does not have enough parking to open a proposed food pantry on Bank Street.
The commission Thursday voted 6-1 against granting the all-volunteer organization a special permit to operate a "food warehouse" at 573 Bank St. One of the primary reasons cited was the applicant was short three parking spots of adhering to parking regulations.
Parking for the food pantry would have been in a lot shared by tenants on the top two floors above the building and Alternative Incarceration Center at 555 Bank St. GAK Properties owns the lot and the buildings.
Scott Ramsy, the president of New London Area Food Pantry, said the building owner invested a lot of money into new construction on the lot and supported the food pantry. He said there was sufficient parking from their perspective.
The commission, however, looks at the uses of a building to dictate the number of parking spaces it needs. In a recording of Thursday's meeting, Commission Chairman Barry Levine said the lot had 48 parking spots when the combined uses at the buildings required 51 spots.
City Planning Official Michelle Scovish added there are a few parking spaces in the lot that were moved during construction and have not technically been approved by the commission.
The food pantry aimed to imitate a small market and let clients use carts to grab fresh produce and other healthy food options for free. By doing so, it would have allowed "client choice," or an alternative to pre-bagging food items that allows people to pick out the items they want.
The alternative, Ramsy said, provides greater dignity to the pantry's clients.
NLAFP has been in the city for 40 years and currently serves the community from the basement of the Opportunities Industrialization Center on Truman Street. It also has a location on State Street with its partner the Hispanic Alliance of Southeastern Connecticut.
Ramsy said the location at Bank Street provided an opportunity to consolidate the organization's two small pantries and partner with Food for the People to bring their services together. He said he is frustrated that his efforts to consolidate services and open a bigger client choice food pantry did not pan out but that will not stop him.
"It doesn't end here," he said, adding NLAFP would continue to identify a location to open a pantry.
Last month, Levine criticized the location of the proposed pantry which would be across from the new upscale apartment complex known as the The Docks. He said the city's 2017 Plan of Conservation and Development strives to lessen the number of social service delivery facilities in the downtown.
Commissioner Ronna Stuller was the lone supporter of giving the organization a special permit. Stuller recalled developers A.R. Building Co., the developers of The Docks, also faced issues with parking when the commission reviewed its application in 2018. She said an arrangement was made for the development to share parking with the commercial building behind it and a dozen street parking spaces were created.
Levine said those 12 spaces per regulations were designated for visitors and Stuller said there are not signs there now that say so.
Stuller said she did not see a parking problem with this application as there are three to four on-street parking spaces in front of the buildings that were not taken into consideration.
"It feels inequitable to me the way we're going about this," she said.
