The Upzoning Disaster

To the Editor,

Let’s review the facts. The Newtown Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z), our elected officials, has contrived to pull off a scam on the residents of Newtown.

They created a bogus crisis over aquifer protection and groundwater contamination based on “their” statements at two open hearings that runaway new construction in the targeted upzoning area (2,315 properties) is a threat to the environment.

Newtown Property Owners Assoc. (NPOA) members kept asking the P&Z, what are the numbers of new homes projected to be built in the target area and what is the actual construction rate in the last four years? All we got was double talk!

NPOA members suggested that the actual number of buildable lots was less than 80 lots. The balance of the remaining vacant lots are unbuildable due to problems with wetlands, terrain, and size problems. Chairman Fogliano indicated that the P&Z’s number was hundreds of building lots available for new construction. When NPOA asked for hard numbers, the P&Z refused to give us any specific answers.

NPOA requested specific information a few weeks ago from the Zoning Department and was shocked to find out the following:

1) The P&Z never checked their own records to determine what the upzoning area’s history was. How could they reach a fair decision without the facts from their own files?

2) Their records show that for all 390 new construction zoning permits issued, only 8 homes were built in the  target area! An average of only 2.7 homes per year (2 percent of total construction), over the last three years.

3) With the town averaging 213 new homes built per year over the last four years (Building Dept. statistics), it is obvious that all of the new construction growth is in the 1, 2 and 3-acre zoned area, almost exclusively in new subdivisions. Not in the target area.

The P&Z has refused to enter into any dialogue or discussions regarding their perceived facts and the realities that NPOA has uncovered. There is an enormous amount of additional information, both new and old, that the P&Z never considered and to date refuses to review.

They won’t even consider their own statistics!

Has our political process broken down so badly that a group of our elected committee members can flaunt their power and deliberately pass a regulation that is extraordinarily harmful? Who gave the members of the P&Z the right to play God without being held accountable for their actions?

Even if well meaning, the issues here are too large and too complicated to be decided by input from the general members of the P&Z who lack the education, expertise, and familiarity with all of “their” espoused reasons for the upzoning. These include groundwater contamination, aquifer protection, septic system failure, Health District evaluation, well locations, well water evaluation, water testing procedures, and much more.

Where are the research, expert testimony, testing, and studies that should have been done specifically on the targeted area before the P&Z proposed the upzoning and rushed it to a conclusion?

Our organization, NPOA, has many times requested that the P&Z re-open the hearings and postpone their vote on this issue. The First Selectman, at our urging, has made the same request, which has fallen on deaf ears. Chairman Fogliano of P&Z is treating the 2,315 property owners affected by this proposed regulation as being unworthy of any consideration.

The P&Z, like the colonial British, are making laws, tossing aside constituents’ property rights and acting with total impunity.

Hello, P&Z! Are you listening? Is anyone home? We are not on trial! We have not been heard! We were never properly notified! We think this is worse than taxation without representation! We are “Collectively offended” that Newtown is doing this!

The 6,000+ residents living in the targeted area representing over 2,000 homes demand that the members of the P&Z jointly bring Newtown’s legislative bodies, the Selectmen and the Legislative Council, into the issue.

The short and long term effects of the proposed upzoning regulation have not been properly evaluated. As a huge undertaking for the Town of Newtown, the scope and real issues of the proposed regulation require that serious studies and additional research are needed before any decisions are made to proceed.

If the P&Z members are not willing to withdraw this obscene regulation, they should have the decency to resign immediately and let some other reasonable civic minded people breathe some fresh air into the stagnant atmosphere that currently exists at the Planning and Zoning Commission.

Barry J. Piesner, director

Newtown Property Owners Association

38 Underhill Road, Sandy Hook            June 28, 2000