Newtown’s Changing Portrait

Our weekly portrait of Newtown in these pages is really just a sketch. It is done quickly, in part, because we have just a few days to get it all down. But sometimes it seems like we hurry in this rendering because the town just won’t sit still.

A statewide population analysis released last week by the Connecticut State Data Center at the University of Connecticut gives a sense of how quickly Newtown is changing, especially against the backdrop of the state as a whole, which is getting older and slowing in its population growth. From 2005 to 2030, Connecticut is expected to grow by 207,472 residents to reach a total population of 3.7 million. That’s an annual growth rate of 0.3 percent, which is far below the national rate of 0.85 percent. This is the trend throughout New England, where the population is shifting to the south and southwest, where it is cheaper, warmer, and often easier to find work.

As Connecticut grows by just six percent over this 25-year period, Newtown will grow by 49.81 percent, according to the data center. Other than five rural towns with populations of just a few thousand each, Newtown is expected to have the highest rate of growth in the state, accommodating a population of 36,160, excluding those living in Garner prison and group homes. Apparently, Newtown is situated in a population hotspot. Two neighboring suburban towns, Bethel and Southbury, are expected to grow in the same period by 49.71 percent and 48.36 percent, respectively.

What this means for Newtown is probably more a matter of speculation than science at this point. The prospect of adding a population the equivalent of Windsor Locks to local neighborhoods, roads, schools, shopping areas, and open spaces, however, certainly portends a period of spiraling demand for every kind of local service and facility, from sewer pipes to high school diplomas. And unless the 12,000 or so people headed our way have an unlimited appetite for paying property taxes, Newtown has a problem.

Clearly, the current population of our town has had its fill of property tax increases, especially when the assessed value of property often has nothing whatsoever to do with the income of the owner or his or her ability to pay. As Newtown’s population ages, as it is expected to do along with the rest of the state, the pain of the property tax bill will be felt more acutely as more people at or near retirement hope to stretch their personal resources as far as they can.

If Newtown wants to avoid a legacy of the kind of discord and frustration seen in this year’s continuing battle over the budget, it has to resolve to face the future though these actions now: maintain a vigorous program of open space acquisition; continue political pressure in Hartford to get state legislators to increase support for local education and to abandon their fondness for unfunded mandates to towns; assemble contract negotiating teams that won’t promise more than our town can deliver; and eliminate waste wherever it exists. And, as always, we should be mindful that whatever progress we make between now and 2030, 2040, or 2050, will be made not as individuals, but as a community.