The Right Kind Of Development

Two weeks ago we argued in this space that increasing the town’s current 40,000-square-foot limit on retail stores to 60,000 square feet would encourage the wrong kind of economic development for Newtown. Big box stores depend on heavy traffic for their success, and in a town where arterial highways are proving insufficient for current traffic levels, the overriding issue is not economic development but quality of life. This week we focus on the right kind of economic development for Newtown.

Newtown is planning the phased revitalization of the commercial hamlet along the Pootatuck River in Sandy Hook. Much has already been done: the Planning and Zoning Commission created a special Sandy Hook Design District to permit a mix of uses and to allow various “streetscape” amenities and better parking; sewers were extended to the area in 1997; and in 2002 public water lines were extended to serve the area. Area property and business owners have been involved in each step toward revitalization, offering their ideas and suggestions and following up with significant improvements to their properties to enhance the attractiveness and ambience of the village center. Overall, the project will cost about $1.25 million, and more than 85 percent of that cost will be covered by state and federal grants. The town’s share is just $155,000 — a small price to pay to help grow a commercial area rooted in the town’s traditions and history.

This economic development effort has all the hallmarks we should look for when judging the merits of development proposals in other areas of town. It builds on existing infrastructure, it acknowledges and respects its historical and environmental context, it draws on available state and federal resources, it enhances the economic climate for the existing business community, and it promises in time to provide jobs, goods, and services that Newtown actually needs. When we, as a town, consider the economic benefits of commercial development, we should determine to whom those benefits accrue. Will the profits funnel out of town to absentee corporate owners while the traffic funnels in? Are the jobs created jobs Newtowners want?

Every commercial enterprise will yield more in tax revenue than it demands in municipal services, but that should not be the sole criteria for our support of economic development. The property tax revenues collected from Newtown’s top ten commercial taxpayers account for less than a mill in the proposed tax rate for 2004-2005. Newtown needs something more from economic development, and projects like the revitalization of Sandy Hook Center should give it to us.