It’s 2:30 Friday morning. Lights can be seen inside Canaan House at Fairfield Hills. Voices can be heard. People are moving around inside. It’s the middle of the night, so someone is certainly up to no good. Should we call the police to come arrest trespassers or vandals? No, wait a minute! We know those people. It’s Newtown’s Planning and Zoning Commission.

The Newtown Planning and Zoning Commission convened its July 11 meeting at Canaan House at 7:30 pm for a series of public hearings and discussions –– ten in all –– that would stretch out over the next seven and a half hours.

Early in the evening, the commission dispensed with hearings on a subdivision and a couple of special exceptions for commercial uses. Then there was discussion on three more subdivisions and resubdivisions before more public hearings commenced. The commission took a break for a few minutes at about 11 pm before inviting the public to comment on four more applications. The last two items on the agenda were the two most important: a public hearing on an application to develop 92 housing units on Mount Pleasant Road, which did not get started until after midnight; and another public hearing on an amendment to the zoning regulations that will significantly restrict the development of many of the remaining parcels of open land in Newtown, which started at 1:13 am. The commission approved the controversial zoning amendment in a vote at 2:55 am.

It should be obvious to any clear-thinking person that a public hearing conducted in the middle of the night is not really a public hearing. After midnight on a Thursday, the public is home sleeping. Clear thinking, however, was in short supply July 11 as the Planning and Zoning Commission doggedly drove its way through an overloaded agenda, exhausting itself and the few determined members of the public who had a lot riding on the outcome of these applications.

The regulation change, which was saved for the very last by commission chairman Dan Fogliano, was by far the most controversial of the matters taken up by the commission. Local builders and developers will face new and stringent requirements in configuring residential lots on marginal land under its provisions. While it is a change that is likely to be welcomed by townspeople who want to see the town put the brakes on residential development, it is important enough to warrant a full and fair discussion of its merits at an hour when most of Newtown is not sleeping. Other boards and commissions in Newtown manage to face critics and controversy fairly and openly without resorting to ramming proposals through in the middle of the night. The P&Z should do the same. Ours is supposed to be a government for and by all the people –– not just the insomniacs.

Newtown’s Planning and Zoning Commission meets every other week. In the future, if it cannot get its business done by 11 pm, it should schedule weekly meetings.