EXETER — Any developer, even if it’s the State of Rhode Island, must get planning and zoning approvals, members of the Planning Board said Tuesday night.

Planning Board member Francis P. DiGregorio said that a special meeting of the Town Council last Thursday was crowded with state officials presenting their plan to build a state fire training academy on part of the former Ladd Center property off Route 2.

“They showed the plans at some length,” Town Planner David W. Schweid reported to board members who hadn’t attended the special council meeting. “The plans and the actual proposal for the fire training facility looked great.”

But instead of leaving a set of plans with him, or making arrangements to meet with planners about the proposal, state officials took the plans with them.

Schweid pointed out that Scott Kettelle, Exeter’s director of emergency management and a member of the Rhode Island Fire Education and Training Board, which is planning the academy, had urged state officials to submit project plans to the Planning Board.

Planning Board Chairman James Michael Abbott said the council voted that any reasonable proposal should go before the Planning Board. State officials left without indicating they would do so, he said.

“The reason we feel so strongly about it,” DiGregorio said, is because the town’s only major aquifer is directly under the site.

“Our comprehensive plan, and now our Vision for Exeter process, is going to rely on a mixed-use village concept,” DiGregorio said, “and there’s only one place that can happen, and that is right by the Ladd School.”

Board member Susan Littlefield suggested they ask the Town Council to insist that plans be subject to the usual Planning Board scrutiny.

Planning Solicitor Peter D. Ruggiero said a letter from the planners would help the council decide how to proceed if construction starts without the necessary approvals.

Schweid suggested a wait-and-see attitude.

DiGregorio also said that the state had given some of the Ladd Center land to the Veterans Cemetery and some to the Nature Conservancy, without going through the proper process. “That’s an illegal subdivision,” he said.

Ruggiero said that the extent to which the state is subject to local jurisdiction should be decided by the courts. “That’s the reason why you still have litigation.”

The board questioned whether Exeter was the best place for a fire academy.

“The aquifer is critical to the future of the town,” DiGregorio said. “We have nothing against the fire academy itself; we’re concerned about the state using this land. Every time you put something there, it’s that much more risk to the aquifer. If they won’t give you the reports, there must be a reason why.”

dnaylor@projo.com