Planning and Zoning Commissioners have been thinking about the town's future long enough and hard enough to write a 140-page report on how Ridgefield should be developed and preserved in the next decade.

But when they sought public input on the Plan of Conservation and Development draft on Thursday night, residents who attended still had suggestions to consider.

"It's an awesome report," said Emma Lou Benedict, who chairs the Commission for the Disabled. But she thought there should be a clearer statement of the town's priority on improving accessibility. "It's a population that must not be just forgotten," she said.

The POCD is a document that each town has to update every 10 years and submit to the state. Ridgefield's draft focuses on issues like maximizing the center, maintaining existing commerce, protecting open space, enhancing Branchville to make a secondary town center and improving public transit and walking paths.

Other suggestions voiced by residents at the informational meeting, collected on a poster by Planimetrics consultant planner Heidi Samokar, included:

• considering provisions to charge electric cars
• setting more explicit affordable housing goals
• increasing child-friendly facilities, possibly by building a home base for the Discovery Center or devoting space in upcoming library renovations and
• drafting a clearer statement on the town's open space stewardship responsibilities. 

The Planning and Zoning Commission has been working on the update for the past year and has sought input from all sorts of town groups and officials. From here, the plan will be revised again, taking the residents' comments into account. Then it will enter a 65-day formal public review period, including referrals to the Board of Selectmen and the Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials for comment before proceeding to a public hearing.