BRANFORD, Conn. — Opponents of a proposed BJ's Wholesale Club presented the Branford Planning and Zoning Commission on Thursday with a petition that a resident said was signed by 502 people in town. The town's first selectman also told the panel he has "serious concerns" about the project.

Sound Development Group LLC and BJ's Wholesale Club Inc. are seeking a planned development district for land on East Main Street. The plan calls for a wholesale club with a gas station, plus a commercial building with a sit-down restaurant and two fast-food restaurants with drive-through lanes, according to the commission chair's description of the application.

The chair said the Oct. 29 session was the third night of the public hearing and the first held in person, scheduled after residents asked for an in-person meeting. He said the hearing would not close Thursday and would continue at an online meeting Nov. 5. There, he said, the commission expects to hear from civil engineers whose written testimony was submitted by two environmental intervenors, the Branford Land Trust and Branford Citizens for Responsible Development.

First Selectman Josh Brooks said he was speaking as a member of the public and as first selectman. He told commissioners the decision was theirs to make independently of his views. But he said the project "fundamentally could and will change the character of Branford," and he warned against abandoning the plan the town adopted in 2019.

"Seven years later, we should not abandon that," Brooks said. "And if we abandon that, how would we stop that from becoming the new norm?"

Brooks said the applicants' traffic study projects about 8,500 new visits to an area that now sees about 11,000. He cited $350,000 in new taxes, "by the applicant's own words," and said hiring two more police officers to handle the added traffic would use up that revenue. "In five years, we'll be talking about we need Route 1 to be four lanes," he said.

The resident who presented the petition said it answered suggestions at an earlier session that opposition came only from people near the site. She said 189 of the 502 signers came from the town's second voting district, which she called "a good approximation of people living near the site," and 313, or 62%, came from other neighborhoods. "This could hardly be called NIMBYism," she said.

"If people wanted malls, box stores, fast food chains, they would live elsewhere," another resident told the commission.

Not everyone opposed the plan. A man who said he has lived in Branford for 60 years said that while surrounding towns have much commercial development, Branford has "lagged behind," and "we only see apartments being built." He said the property has "been sitting vacant forever."

"It's time to get some development going in this town besides just apartment houses," he said.

An online petition against the project, titled "Say no to BJ's at Exit 56," describes it as a warehouse club of more than 100,000 square feet with a 16-pump gas station. It says the land is zoned for industrial use.