Time For A Town

Manager/Planner

To the Editor:

Newtown is in major transition, and I for one don’t like the direction we are going. I grew up on Long Island back in the 50s with winding country roads and open space much like Newtown is today. My old home town is now wall-to-wall homes, strip malls, and industrial parks and between the county and local property tax it has one of the highest tax rates in the country. I didn’t move to Newtown to see it turn into another Nassau County, L.I.

The justification for building an industrial park on Commerce Road is based on the belief it’s going to help reduce taxes. Not only is it not going to reduce taxes, it may actually increase them. The following questions have to be answered before we invest any tax dollars on this project.

1. Do we have a pool of unemployed technical people to meet the needs of these businesses?

2. Can the existing roads handle the additional traffic (ex Church Hill Road)?

3. Are there empty seats in the school classrooms to absorb more students?

4. Are municipal services equipped and staffed to accommodate more people without increasing their budget?

One of the main concerns about this project is the proposal to run a road from Wasserman Way through Fairfield Hills, which is one of the most pristine pieces of property in Fairfield County, to Commerce Road. In one breath we are asked to find millions of dollars to buy land to slow up residential building in town to preserve our beautiful countryside, and then we talk about running a road over one of the most beautiful trout streams in town and through open fields to the back side of Commerce Road.

Recently, the P&Z approved a 54-unit, age-restricted condo complex, which is the kind of expansion the town needs for the following reasons.

1. This cash-flow-positive complex places no financial burden on our school system, which represents approximately 70 percent of our present taxes. It also places minimum demands on our municipal budget as there will be minimal use of services like the town park, ball fields, etc. After factoring out what services they will be using, each unit could be adding as much as $4,000/unit to the town coffers for a total of $216,000 per year—a sum which would cover the cost of educating approximately 20 students per year.

2.  Since this is an age-restricted community, there is a good chance that some of these residents will join local organizations that rely on volunteerism, such as the library and the Newtown Lions Club. As it is, with property taxes increasing out of control, many of our senior citizens are moving away to more tax-friendly states.

If a town manager could spend his time initially polling the residents of Newtown to determine what direction the majority of the townspeople want to go and then make recommendations on the kinds of expansion which would best meet the needs of all of us, this would be a great return on our investment. Every day we listen to the half-truths, spin, and finger-pointing that comes out of Washington, D.C., and Hartford; we don’t need that in our own hometown. We care too much about our community and have too much invested in it to allow special interest groups to lead us down the wrong road. I hope Newtowners receive a response from those proposing this new industrial park on Commerce Road and explain to us how this is going to improve our quality of life.

Frank Gardner

6 Surrey Trail, Sandy Hook                                     February 27, 2006