Date: Fri 10-May-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Chew-growth-strategies

Full Text:

with cut:Regional Planner Outlines Strategies To Manage Growth

B Y K AAREN V ALENTA

One of the best tools for controlling the aesthetics of residential

development is an open space subdivision law, according to a regional planner.

Jonathan Chew, executive director of the Housatonic Valley Council of Elected

Officials, said Newtown is one of the few HVCEO members that doesn't have such

a law already in place. Six towns - Bethel, Brookfield, Bridgewater, New

Milford, Ridgefield and Danbury - already have it in one form or another.

"Arthur Spector (former chairman of the Planning & Zoning Commission in

Newtown) wrote a draft proposal for one in the early 1980's but apparently

couldn't get anyone else interested," Mr Chew said. "What a difference an open

space subdivision law could have made in Newtown had it been in place for the

past few years."

Under existing regulations, Newtown can require a developer to set aside about

10 percent of the land for open space when a subdivision is approved. Under

the open space subdivision regulation recommended by Mr Chew, the size of each

approved lot also could be reduced slightly to provide more open space. A

two-acre lot, for example, might be trimmed to 1.75-acre or 1.6-acre. The

resulting open space is used to create a buffer zone along the road to shields

the subdivision from the view of passers by.

"People want privacy with a capital P," Mr Chew said. "Use the open space

alongside the road as an extra green. The primary purpose is for cosmetics -

not for animals or greenway - just for the aesthetics."

An open space subdivision law is good for three-acre zones and two-acre zones,

Mr Chew said.

"It's not a radical change in the size of the building lots - you hardly

notice the difference," he said. "But you need to start with big pieces of

land because once you are below an acre, the land won't support a septic

system that is guaranteed to work forever."

Open space subdivision is a subset of cluster housing, Mr Chew said, but he

dislikes using the term cluster housing because it often carries the

inaccurate connotation of "affordable housing."

"Ridgefield started planning years ago, making sure there is open space. They

have a cluster ordinance which they use," Mr Chew said. "One example is on the

border of New York state, a new very expensive subdivision - not affordable

housing at all, just done well. It's a cluster development with beautiful,

expensive homes - and with much more than 10 percent of the land set aside as

open space."

Mr Chew said that residents are more likely to accept the concept of the open

space subdivision when they know that it has already been done in Connecticut.

"Newtown stands out in not having done this," Mr Chew said. "A host of towns

have done it for years."

Another technique which has been used in some towns is transfer of development

rights (TRD).

"With TRD, a developer buys a piece of property near the center of town and

another in an outlying area," Mr Chew said. "The developer transfers the

development rights on the outlying property to the property in town where he

is allowed to develop, for example, one-third acre lots. He doesn't have to

give up ownership of the property in the country, but it cannot be developed."

The town of Sherman has a land trust which also has helped with the growth of

open space, Mr Chew said.

He explained that when a farmer or other landowner wants to subdivide a

property into building lots, some of the lots are donated to the land trust.

This charitable donation provides a tax shelter which reduces the impact of

the capital gains tax on the sale of the other building lots. The result is

almost the same for the property owner as if the entire property was divided

and sold for building lots.

"There's altruism in it, but the owners still get the money to give to their

heirs," Mr Chew said. "It comes out almost the same as if they divided the

land up and sold the whole thing."

State laws protecting streams and rivers serve as a basis for how much change

can take place in residential development, he said. Streams are classified as

"A" or "B" streams by the Department of Environmental Protection. Only "B"

streams can accept effluent from sewage treatment plants.

Most streams in Newtown are classified as "A" streams, prohibiting their use

as recipients of effluent. If high-density cluster housing is built on land

that won't permit individual septic systems, the development would need a

small package sewage treatment plant and one big leaching field instead.

"The hook on this is that the 15 or 20 homeowners are linked together into the

septic field," Mr Chew said. "Then you must have a homeowners' association

with minimum standards set by the state. If anything goes wrong, and the

homeowners' association can't fix it, the municipality is stuck with it. In

that case, cluster housing can become a liability."

An open space subdivision avoids this problem by not employing high-density

cluster development, he said.

"It's moderate (cluster development) and doesn't rock the boat too much."

Mr Chew said Newtown has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of real estate

which residents now are clamoring to preserve.

"What will it look like eventually under the existing planning and zoning

regulations? It will look like everywhere else," he said.

Mr Chew said he believes a building moratorium "of limited duration" can be

imposed while a town attempts to study and address a problem and put new

legislation in place. The problem has been the size of the task.

"It's always awkward to have to do something new in a municipality," he said.

"People are reluctant to take on a project like this which might balloon up to

consuming 10 percent of your time."

Develop one simple open space ordinance," he recommended. "Hire one person who

would be in charge of this process. Otherwise what you are doing is triage. If

this already had been done, Newtown would have an awful lot of green still

available."