Town Leaders Using Multiple Tactics To Preserve Open Space

By John Voket

It has been almost two years since First Selectman Herb Rosenthal introduced a multifaceted initiative to begin strategically blocking residential developments while acquiring open space to be enjoyed by many generations of Newtown residents to come. And this week marked the latest victories in an ongoing campaign that has, to date, seen more than 150 acres throughout the town gifted, bought, or protected from the onslaught of residential development that has nearly doubled this 300-year-old community’s population in the past quarter-century.

Last Wednesday, Mr Rosenthal sought and received the unanimous approval to purchase development rights on nearly eight acres surrounding a residential home on Mt Nebo road. The first selectman explained to the council that securing a $360,000 development easement would allow the longtime residents involved to remain in town, and allow them to still add on to their modest existing home.

But taking a bigger picture view, by blocking development on the remaining tract and factoring in other small adjacent developable parcels, the action blocked the future construction of a potential five- to six-lot subdivision.

As recently as last Monday, Mr Rosenthal announced to fellow selectmen William Brimmer, Jr, and Joseph Bojnowski, that Toll Brothers, Inc, a major local residential developer requested to give the town 15.29 acres leading to and along the Pootatuck River near the confluence of Deep Brook, one of five natural and pristine trout breeding watercourses in the entire state.

The selectmen unanimously agreed to accept the offer and begin the process of moving that latest acquisition through the local channels towards eventual acquisition. This has been the course of this relatively recent program, which only began the acquisition processes in earnest about a year-and-a-half ago.

It was at that time that the council agreed to budget $2 million for the acquisition of Laurel Trail, an 18-acre parcel leading up from the shore of Lake Zoar, and Eichler’s Cove and Marina, constituting another ten acres that is planned to be fully operational as a recreation site for town residents by next summer.

At the same time, the Board of Finance and council endorsed an additional $10 million in the town’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) to be doled out at $2 million-a-year increments to support the strategic land acquisition process. Since then, Newtown has acquired a conservation easement and development rights on the Fulton property currently owned and occupied by the family of Robert Fulton, Jr, a renown adventurer and inventor.

That $1.3 million investment out of the first year’s $2 million allocation was combined with a donated portion of the Fulton property, which had long been used by neighbors for hiking and passive recreation. By combining the open space with the property where the development rights were acquired, however, the town permanently restricted any further development on almost 30 acres.

Working closely with State Rep Julia Wasserman, the town received another critical tract of nearly 33 acres of open space that will become a permanent buffer along another leg of the Pootatuck below a future subdivision and extension of the Commerce Road industrial park.

Another important acquisition in the Dodgingtown area of 30 acres owned by the Raynolds family in the area of Shepard Hill Road will couple onto a huge tract of protected forest land creating a contiguous open space extending from the end of Sugar Hill Road across Shepherd Hill Road and onto the Newtown Forest Association parcel to the south.

With less than $4 million of the allocated $10 million spent, there is no telling how many more hundreds of acres the town will be able to protect and block from development, but at current market rates standing at more than $200,000 per acre for building lots, the town and all its conservation-minded residents are already well ahead of the game.