Fairfield Hills Master Plan Review Complete: Recommendations To Follow

By Kendra Bobowick

“Our work is done!” Master Plan Review Committee member Deborra Zukowski said Tuesday morning following the group’s regular meeting Monday night. Short of presenting its final document of recommendations to the Board of Selectmen, the advisory group has completed its charge of reassessing the master plan for redevelopment at Fairfield Hills.

“Yes, it’s true! The full report has been finalized,” wrote member Paul Lundquist in an e-mail this week. His group will present its 122 pages of summary reports, appendices, and affiliated documentation to the selectman during an October 3 meeting.

“We have had our heads to the grindstone” for weeks in an effort to complete the lengthy report, Ms Zukowski explained. “I honestly feel we did the best we could.” Each group member provided unique talents, she said, and the public participation was also valuable.

“We came up with what we felt was the best balance from what we heard from the community and what we learned from investigation,” she said.

One of the “biggest things” was the public facilitator Rosa Zubizarreta. “She was phenomenal,” said Ms Zukowski. The facilitator in past months coordinated public think tanks, working volunteer sessions, and community forums, while also listening closely to the review committee conversation and capturing key points of discussion. “Without Rosa I don’t think we could have pulled this together as well as we did,” she said.

When the group came together in the summer of 2010, “Fairfield Hills was a contentious issue and we took our charge seriously.”

Describing the report, she said, “It gives voice to all of the public.” A 16-page narrative, the document “reflects the voices of all interests.”

Her group’s process included organizing working groups of public volunteers, open community forums, and a townwide survey completed by more than 1,000 residents. The group’s interaction with the community was thorough, she explained.

“This report goes out of its way in a painstaking manner to say ‘We heard you; we heard you; and we heard you, and put it all together.’”

“That said, we had to interpret [public] information and put it in context with the information we gathered,” said Ms Zukowski, who hopes readers take the time to at least read the four-page executive summary, the 16-page report, and “at least recognize that we heard those who said something for us to hear.”

The key report looks at all issues and “tries to let the reader know our process and what we went through for the final recommendation,” she said.

Speaking to that point Monday before going through the document one more time for reviews, Ms Zukowski had said, “We are trying with this document to explain our reasoning — including public input. It’s everything.”

Although unable to reveal the specifics of the group’s recommendations prior to presenting their work to the selectmen, Ms Zukowski said that the pages included “a perspective on housing,” which has been one of the most contentious issues debated regarding the campus’s future reuses. Themes covered in the report include economics, recreations, arts, municipal needs, open space, commercial aspects, “town control over the property, as in lease versus sell,” and discussions about the campus as a destination location.

She added that her group calls for a vision — a mission statement — and a culling of cohesive themes. Although her group has “framed out themes, they need more thought.”

The group’s final report outlines recommendations in process and implementation, which would include public engagement and communication.

They “stayed away from politics,” she said. Regarding the Fairfield Hills Authority’s future role, she added, “We didn’t touch it.”

The group looked at aspects of economics, commercial, recreational, housing, leases, land sales, and more when reviewing the existing master plan for the Fairfield Hills campus redevelopment, the site’s relationship with the town overall, Newtown’s economic potential and constraints, public preferences for site use, optimizing the centrally located acres as a destination, place for recreation, municipal and cultural uses, and more.

Lundquist Comments

“We would love to have members of the public in attendance to learn first-hand about our recommendations,” Paul Lundquist said via e-mail, regarding the October 3 meeting

 Offering an overview and also commenting on considerations for public input, he wrote, “The report includes our recommendations regarding supported uses for the Fairfield Hills campus, potential development themes and ongoing process recommendations within the context of the Fairfield Hills Master Plan. Our recommendations were strongly influenced by our public engagement activities and very closely reflect key results from the townwide survey.”

Regarding the 122 pages in the report, he said, “We, as a committee, wanted to be sure that we could provide a full accounting of the discussion and deliberation process that went on across all of the key issues.”

Describing the long process, he wrote, “This is the conclusion of an incredibly exhaustive and informative process. We worked very well together as a committee, and while we enjoyed some healthy and vigorous debate on a few issues, we think in the end, our review process includes actionable long- and short-term recommendations and also accurately reflects the ‘voice of the community.’”

Since the town purchased the more than 180 acres in 2001 and did initial site remediation, infrastructure work, field construction, and building demolitions and renovations for the Newtown Municipal Center, other plans to develop outside investors, developers, and tenants for the more than 80-year-old buildings have failed. The review process, which was something stipulated in the original 2005 master plan, has taken place during the last year.

The Master Plan Review Committee members, some of which have since moved out of town, include Chairman Michael Floros, Mr Lundquist, Robert Maurer, Michael Mossbarger, Ben Roberts, Nancy Roznicki, Alan Shepard, Gary Steele, and Ms Zukowski.