To the Editor:

I’ve previously written that Newtown should investigate whether it is eligible for a state approved moratorium on affordable housing under state statute 8-30(g) while we allow development under our own local plan. Unfortunately, many well-meaning Newtown residents have conflated this moratorium idea with the proposed actions of the Ridgefield Planning and Zoning Commission, who have called for a year-long halt in zoning approvals for a wide range of developments. The Ridgefield plan, IF approved and IF found to be legal by Connecticut courts, is the wrong path for Newtown to take.

A wide-ranging moratorium assumes that a town’s planning and zoning functions are so broken, and are causing such an overwhelming community problem, that the only feasible solution is to call time-out on a critical function of local government and rebuild the rules from the ground level. Not only does such a project require tremendous time, effort, and financial resources, but it paralyzes a main function of the community and introduces uncertainty into every aspect of the local government and economy. All changes to businesses, housing, churches and schools would stop under a Ridgefield-type plan. Shouldn’t such a step at least be a decision of town leadership such as the Board of Selectmen or the Legislative Council, not just a majority of the Planning and Zoning Commission? Even narrowing the scope of any moratorium to multi-family projects may be legally impermissible discrimination against a type of perfectly legal development long governed by both statute and existing zoning regulations.

Newtown’s planning and zoning process simply isn’t broken. Sure, it’s hard to follow for the first-timer, it can be very contentious, and in high profile developments it tends to drag on and on, but by and large, development takes place according to longstanding rules that have stood the test of time. Our Commissions, manned by resident volunteers, many of them with professional training or long experience in their fields, evaluate projects against state and local standards and even provide consideration for aesthetics. Newtown has created special districts for new types of commercial development in new areas. We recently went through a long public exercise to develop a vision statement for the next ten years, our POCD. It’s not perfect, but it’s the result of a community discussion among those who wanted to participate.

I’ve been to many meetings, both as a Commission member and as an interested resident. Our regulations and processes do work, and do ensure compliance, even though some of us don’t agree with some of the outcomes. Is a moratorium going to somehow create a meaningfully different process? I don’t believe it can.

We need something more than a townwide civics lesson, of course. More transparency is always a good thing, as is more and better Commission communication and more resident participation, but grinding the whole thing to a halt because our town is in the midst of economic and demographic change hurts us in the long run. Let’s allow the process to work.

Peter Schwarz

Newtown