Housing Proposal Should

Wait For FFH Plan Review

To the Editor:

On March 5 and 6 I had the opportunity to participate on the Fairfield Hills Microcosm Council. Seventeen participants were selected at random by the Fairfield Hills Master Plan Review Committee and asked for their input in regard to the current disposition of the Fairfield Hills property. My fellow participants on the council were honest people with sincere, unselfish intentions.

Around the time I was invited to participate on the council and before the first meeting on March 5, an editorial appeared in the February 25 edition of The Newtown Bee entitled, “The Fairfield Hills Kabuki Dance.” Because I had been offered what I thought was a unique opportunity to be an advocate for preserving the parklike grounds of the Fairfield Hills Campus for community and municipal purposes, I tried to remain hopeful that the democratic process was alive and well; that I was not going to be used in the “artifice of a public debate” as described in the editorial. I attended the two Microcosm Council meetings and “Open Community Discussion #1” held at the Town Hall on March 16 with the conviction that participating was the right thing to do regardless of what I had read in the editorial.

Soon after attending Community Discussion #1, I was surprised to learn that on the very day I attended Discussion #1, Mr Struna submitted a proposal to the Fairfield Hills Authority from Merchant Equity Group to redevelop Cochran House into 160 apartments. I now have to acknowledge the editor’s prescience.

It is my understanding the Fairfield Hills Master Plan Review Committee still has an additional “Open Community Discussion #2” and a “Town Survey” to complete before presenting their recommendations to the Board of Selectmen. I am disappointed that the Fairfield Hills Authority and the Legislative Council would not allow the Fairfield Master Plan Review Committee to finish soliciting input from the Newtown taxpayers before considering a housing proposal of this magnitude. Placing an apartment building at the Cochran House site would destroy the nature of the campus, increase traffic in the area, and affect the baseball teams’ abilities to use the nearby baseball field.

The task of the review committee has not yet been completed — it is still in progress. I ask the members of the Fairfield Hills Authority, the Planning and Zoning Commission, and the Legislative Council to let the Fairfield Hills Master Plan Review Committee finish their task and present their recommendations to the Board of Selectmen before considering the current proposal for housing at Cochran House.

Respectfully submitted,

Melinda Reynolds

19 Cemetery Road, Newtown                                       March 21, 2011