To the Editor:

In the history of towns, cities, and parks, nothing could be clearer than that building “residences” inside a beautiful community outdoor space does not create taxpayer value; it destroys it. Overnight, irreversibly. The joy, freedom, and natural beauty go out of the place. What profit there is, is for developers. The loss to the community, in all its generations, is both immediate and permanent.

It is no accident that Central Park in New York, the Boston Common in Boston, St. James Park and Hyde Park in London, the Bois de Boulogne in Paris – every park or village green, wherever you look, is part of the town's attraction, for its citizens and visitors.

Developers have always come to such unspoiled public spaces, applying pressures, insisting that some “mixed use” or “limited” rentals would lighten the taxpayers' burden. As it happens, the reverse is true: An attractive outdoor space, always, without exception, not only raises the value of property in the entire surrounding town; it draws people and raises the tax base. The key is that the public outdoor space must be unspoiled. Put residences inside it, and citizens who do not live in that space are no longer drawn to its beauty or its trails. It's gone.

People at EDC, Land Use, P&Z, and, I'm afraid, the FHA (of which I am a member) have long treated Fairfield Hills (which Pat Llodra has rightly called Newtown’s “treasure”) as a piece of contaminated real estate, to be got rid of. Among recent proposals, we had one based on the model of an abandoned, reeking junkyard in Bridgeport known as Mount Trashmore; also, the misbegotten “incentive” of the $1 RFP's, which would lease each of the sites on the campus for 90 years, at $1 a year, on the model of a slum clearance program in Atlanta.

Fairfield Hills is not a slum, or even a blighted area. It is an invaluable, irreplaceable piece of land. There are old buildings, asbestos, normal remediation and demolition costs. It will need a place to eat, conveniences. The reason there had seemed to be so little outside interest in the campus was a widespread impression in the world, that Newtown was not quite straight or open in its dealings, that the fix was always somehow in. Since the catastrophe of 12/14 – and the unbelievably moving and noble conduct of Newtown's citizens and elected officials – the world's impression of the town is something much better, historic, loved.

The people have also managed to protect that element of its reputation, which consists in preserving the integrity, beauty, and legacy, entrusted to us: Fairfield Hills. Now, having voted decisively not to have residences at Fairfield Hills, people are being asked – on short notice, at an inconvenient time of year – to make known their wishes yet again – at two “forums” with a $5,000 well-regarded facilitator (a sort of group therapist) to “guide” discussions. I hope many will attend, and say No again. Maybe it will work this time.

Renata Adler

Member

Fairfield Hills Authority

Hattertown Road, Newtown             December 3, 2014