State of Connecticut Office of Policy and Management

Municipal Plans of Conservation and Development
Section 8-23 of the Connecticut General Statutes (CGS) requires each municipality to prepare or amend and adopt a plan of conservation and development (POCD) at least once every ten years. As of July 1, 2016, any municipality that fails to adopt a POCD in accordance with CGS Section 8-23 shall be ineligible for discretionary state funding unless such prohibition is expressly waived by the OPM Secretary.

Discretionary state funding includes, but is not limited to, any source of funding that a state agency administers through a competitive process, e.g. the Urban Action Program, Small Town Economic Assistance Program, Brownfields Remediation, etc. Discretionary funding does not include entitlement or formula-based programs, such as the Local Capital Improvement Program (LoCIP), Education Cost Sharing (ECS), Town Aid Road (TAR), etc.
 
OPM maintains the official Inventory of Municipal POCDsby adoption date. Each municipality must notify OPM within 60 days of adoption of a POCD and enumerate any inconsistencies with the State Conservation and Development Policies Plan, as required by CGS 8-23. When notifying OPM through the contact listed below, include a link to the POCD and clearly specify the date of adoption.

 

Whenever a municipality fails to adopt a new or amended POCD within the required 10-year timeframe, CGS Section 8-23(a) requires the Chief Elected Official of the municipality to notify the OPM Secretary and the Commissioners of Transportation, Energy and Environmental Protection, and Economic and Community Development with an explanation. A sample Notice of Expired POCD is provided above and can be mailed to required recipients, copying the OPM contact listed below. 

 

CGS Section 8-23(b) authorizes the OPM Secretary to expressly waive the discretionary state funding prohibition. Waiver requests will not be considered without a Notice of Expired POCD on file.
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·        A copy of the Notice of Expired POCD must be included with each application for discretionary state funding submitted to any administering state agency, until a new POCD is adopted.

·        Concurrent with, or prior to, the municipality’s submittal of each application for discretionary state funding to an administering state agency, the Chief Elected Official of the municipality should submit via email a Waiver Request Letter to the OPM Secretary via  Rebecca.Augur@ct.gov requesting a waiver of the discretionary state funding prohibition.  A new Waiver Request Letter is required for each application for discretionary state funding.

 

The OPM Secretary shall consider the information provided in each Waiver Request Letter and provide a timely written response to both the Chief Elected Official of the municipality and to the administering state agency’s point-of-contact, as to whether or not the discretionary state funding prohibition is waived for the subject application.

 

 
For further information, contact: 
Rebecca Augur, AICP
Intergovernmental Policy and Planning Division
Phone:  860-418-6343