Jan. 17--NEW MILFORD -- If area towns and FirstLight Power Resources want to settle on a plan to manage the shoreline around Candlewood Lake, they have to first agree on whether FirstLight will charge people money for the use of the shoreline.

"You know in real estate it's 'location, location, location,' " New Fairfield First Selectman John Hodge said Wednesday at a meeting on the proposed shoreline plan, held at Town Hall here. "In this case, it's "fees, fees, fees."

Hodge and other officials said the only answer they'll find acceptable is no fees at all charged to the people who live around the lake. Instead, Hodge said, FirstLight itself should pay the cost of administering the plan.

"Have at it," he said to FirstLight representatives at the meeting.

Wednesday's meeting was the opening attempt by FirstLight and the five towns surrounding Candlewood Lake to resolve their outstanding issues concerning the shoreline plan.

FirstLight owns the five hydroelectric power plants along the Housatonic River and the big lakes in the region formed by three of those plants -- Candlewood Lake, Lake Lillinonah and Lake Zoar.

The utility, and its predecessor, Northeast Generation Services Inc., or NGS-- have been under order from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission since 2004 to come up with a plan to regulate development on the shorelines of the lakes, as well as sections of the shoreline along the Housatonic River in Litchfield County.

The plan will probably have the most impact around Candlewood Lake -- the largest and most developed of the three lakes, and the one that suffers most from recreational overcrowding on busy summer weekends.

By controlling development, the plan could limit some of that overuse. That, in turn, would limit pollution and improve the lake's water quality.

FirstLight inherited the proposed plan in 2006, when Northeast Utilities -- NGS's parent company -- sold the power plants.

The utility has had to face two years of criticism for the idea of charging lake residents money to cover costs of administrating the plan.

"They're extravagant," said William Davidson, chairman of the Lake Lillinonah Authority. "You're building a corporate model here. You should be looking at the least costs, not the most costs."

James Ginnetti, FirstLight's executive vice president for external affairs, acknowledged Wednesday the proposed plan, as written by NGS, is more complicated than it needs to be and the fee structure too costly.

"We should be running this on a shoestring, not a gold plate," Ginnetti said at the meeting.