As town and school budgetmakers assemble the 2015-16 budget line item by line item, they are girding themselves for upcoming hearings on their spending plans, beginning with a February 3 hearing on the school budget. Newtown residents — at least those residents who vote in budget referendums — seem to think their tax burden is heavy enough. They traditionally balk at tax rate increases of anything more than a percent or so. No matter how well crafted or justified school and town budgets may be, they are a hard sell. So we were not surprised to see the eager gathering of local officials at the C.H. Booth Library January 13 to hear the siren call of Robert Santy, president and CEO of the Connecticut Economic Resource Center (CERC), who defined economic development as “building wealth for a community and its residents.”

The session attracted the first selectman, various department heads, members of the Legislative Council, the Fairfield Hills Authority, the Water and Sewer Authorities, the Economic Development and Planning and Zoning Commissions, and even some members of the Booth Library board. The group has a wide variety of responsibilities in town, from bringing clarity to public finances to bringing clarity to groundwater, and yet for each of them the message was the same: “If you do [economic development] right, you will grow the commercial end of your grand list.” In other words, more business and industry in town will ease the burden on residential property taxpayers.

It was a good message for town officials to hear since the promotion of economic development and the growth of Newtown’s tax base are on the list of prioritized goals for Newtown’s future in the town’s long-term Plan of Conservation and Development. To be precise, economic development is goal number 5 on that list. Numbers 1, 2, and 3, however, are: the preservation of the town’s character; the conservation and protection of the town’s natural resources; and the preservation of open space.

Clearly, there are tensions between the town’s “character” and preservation goals and its economic development goals. The sense of the January 13 gathering was that perhaps in the past, Newtown has paid so much attention to the top of its list of conservation and development goals that it has neglected some goals farther down the list. The CERC CEO urged local officials to foster the impression among developers that Newtown makes it easy for projects to get planned, authorized, and completed. We get what Mr Santy is saying — perceptions count for a lot in economic development pitches.

We hope, however, that the land use officials sitting in the meeting didn’t hear something else — that Newtown should lower the bar when it comes the rigorous environmental reviews local agencies have traditionally applied to land use applications. It is exactly that rigor that has given Newtown that character and the open spaces that we all are so interested in preserving. “Building wealth” for the town should not require Newtown to squander what it values most.