To the Editor:

If you think about what our town will be like in 75 years (I chose that because it’s beyond many of our lifetimes and reduces self-interest biases), we know it won’t be a “destination town” (Newtown Plan of Conservation and Development).

It is doubtful it will be an agricultural community, a manufacturing center, a research center, a medical center or an educational center. We’ve reached for those things over the past 75 years, yet there doesn’t appear to be any broad-based move in those directions. Our approach to the Fairfield Hills property, for example, tells us that we’re willing to pay extra to maintain a significant public property at public expense to avoid major economic development and to maintain our current residential identity.

None of the more generalized economic uses have “taken off” except for “residential.”

Newtown, in my estimation, will likely remain a residential community with small commercial uses serving its residents. That’s only one person’s outlook. But if we accept that we’re headed for a residential/family-oriented future, we should be planning for it now. We know that communities grow.

The issue for Newtown is the direction in which it will grow. Without a direction, whatever it is, we risk our vision being overtaken by events only as they occur — having to balance and argue over and over about whether some proposal brings in enough tax dollars and local employment to justify compromising our hopes and dreams.

If we accept that vision, we can do things now to foster it and to avoid things that will stymie it. Since there are finite resources for road building, both physical and financial, we can promote things like mass transit (we can’t just keep building roads) and commuter parking. And we can try to reserve land around those future facilities to help commuters.

If that’s the long-range plan, short-range decisions, like those the Planning and Zoning Commission routinely makes, are more easily made — “does this proposal move us toward or away from/for Newtown’s goals?”

The current proposal for a relatively large truck-centric facility at Exit 9, whatever it’s called, in my view, moves us away from what we expect Newtown to be. Others — those more interested in economic development than the quality of life in our town — see things differently. They see a different future for Newtown if they see any at all. But they might be asked “what’s your vision for Newtown?”

If the answer is “economic development” or “growing the tax base,” they have no vision for the town. They and others without direction would see Newtown drift into its future.

The current proposal fits in only if there are no goals in mind other than “economic development.” Unless there is some point to this proposal that’s compatible with Newtown’s aspirations, then it works a disservice because it limits what we can do in the future to shape our own community. If this proposal is accepted with no guiding star, we lose control of our town and set it up for outside developers to determine our future.

Don Mitchell

Newtown