The Latest Chapter In The Tech Park Saga

The story of Newtown’s efforts to develop a technology park on land it owns off Commerce Road has long since turned into a saga. The protagonist in this epic tale — Newtown’s Economic Development Commission (EDC) — has sallied forth numerous times through the years with tech park proposals for the 41.8-acre site only to be rebuffed repeatedly at various times by state and local regulations and public opinion. Last week, it suffered its latest setback when the Inland Wetlands Commission rejected the EDC’s latest proposal, saying it lacked key information the commission will need to satisfy concerns about the development’s impact on water quality.

The EDC has at times been bold in pressing some bad ideas, conciliatory in considering some better ideas, and ultimately confident in its consensus on some pretty good ideas. We urge it to now be persistent in following through with the information the wetlands agency requires so this long, long saga can finally come to an end.

Local conservation and environmental officials have always viewed the pristine and environmentally sensitive Deep Brook, which runs along the eastern edge of the tech park acreage, as a kind of damsel in distress in this story. The EDC’s difficulties with the site, stretching back to 2006, can be linked directly to its failure to convince environmental officials that it truly appreciated the threats posed by commercial/industrial development to Deep Brook and the underlying Aquifer Protection District.

Yet early last year, the EDC, in consultation with the Conservation Commission, recast its plan, scaling it back in size and intensity and pulling it back from the most sensitive areas bordering the brook. This twist in the story pleased erstwhile critics of the EDC and its tech park, and it looked like a quick resolution was in the offing.

Last week the Inland Wetlands Commission balked. While the plan had some “wonderful features” designed for environmental protection, according to the wetlands chairman, Anne Peters, supporting information on its actual effects on wetlands and watercourses was missing from the application.

More importantly, the EDC was being coy about its intentions for a critical 18.6-acre parcel on the east side of the tech park site — the proximate area of greatest concern to Deep Brook’s defenders. Robert Rau, former EDC member and chairman, and now key advisor to the group on the tech park, would only say that since the eastern section of the site was not specifically addressed in the EDC application, it should not be of concern to the Inland Wetlands Commission. That land, he said cryptically, would be addressed in some future EDC application.

What the wetlands agency is or is not concerned with is ultimately determined by the state laws that support its regulations and not by applicants, so the commission was correct to deal yet another setback to the tech park.

Having come this far and so close to the key environmental approvals it needs for its development proposal, the EDC should quickly reapply and forthrightly comply with the Inland Wetlands Commission’s requests for information and reassurances about the future protection of Deep Brook. This saga has gone on so long and has come so close to a happy ending that failure to follow through now just might undermine public confidence in the process and close the book on the tech park once and for all.