Exploiting Environmental Issues

To The Editor:

The Newtown P&Z proposal for upzoning is no axiom but rather an exploitation of the environmental issue and the people it affects…

It ignores population diversity issues, and casts an undo hardship upon thousands of properties with nonconformance and delivers zero benefit to the two stratified drift aquifers. It only addresses residential development. Hello?

It ignores existing and needed infrastructure (sewers and public water) which is truly the long term answer to protecting the environment.

Many towns plan for growth while Newtown opposes it and that’s not the kind of persona this town needs. While towns like Ridgefield struggle with affordable housing for young and old, Newtown’s P&Z seems posed to worsen the situation while knowing it exists.

A P&Z whose modus operandi is to stop residential development creates excessive regulations which depart from or go beyond its charter of health and safety. Such is the case with a driveway regulation that requires the same line of site as a public road and other such regulations which are designed to give P&Z latitude to deny applications.

A P&Z which treats residential development as a priori evil cannot and will not arrive at an environmental policy that does not first ask the question: Will this stop development? Rather than, will this really help the aquifer or the environment?

The result here if one looks at the proposal is much zoning and no long-term planning. Trying to throttle development with regulation will never deliver the same result as a couple of ticks up in interest rates. This upzone proposal goes beyond what the CT DEP would even put on a wish list (sewered and public watered properties to two-acre zone) or what public water companies would condone and would even make the Sierra Club’s beloved Ku-Ku blush.

Perhaps it is time to remove the burdensome task of planning from zoning and establish a planning commission who can dedicate its time to the needs of the community and complies environmental issues. The future cannot be fitted out with failed policies such as sewer avoidance and advice from coalitions whose origins are anti-development and wish to never change. It will be far too expensive for all.

Rick Haight

99 Church Hill Road, Sandy Hook        March 1, 2000