Date: Fri 23-Jul-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

edink-Fairfield-Hills

Full Text:

ED INK: The Fine Print Of The Fairfield Hills Plans

Details of the three development proposals for Fairfield Hills that were

submitted last week proved to be hard to come by for some local officials.

There is only one copy of each of the three proposals on view locally at the

library. First Selectman Herb Rosenthal even found himself without his set of

proposals when he had to surrender them to the town consultant studying the

economic and environmental impact of the three plans. The plans outlined in

these documents, however, have the potential to fundamentally change the

character of Newtown in the next century; they should be made available to as

many people as possible, not just the select few directly involved in

Fairfield Hills planning projects.

With that in mind, starting this week and continuing for the next two weeks,

The Bee will describe at length the fine print in those plans for our readers.

We start this week with the plan submitted by Becker and Becker Associates of

New Canaan. Next week, we will focus on SBC Associates of Greenwich, and on

August 6 we will conclude with a review of plans by Wilder Balter Partners of

Elmsford, N.Y.

While all three of the proposals purport to offer a "mixed use" of the

property and buildings at Fairfield Hills, the prime motivation for each plan

is the development of hundreds of housing units, from assisted living

apartments for senior citizens to upscale townhouses. The proposals are

different enough to offer a good choice of options for the Fairfield Hills

Selection Committee, but in one sense they offer only one option: full

development of Fairfield Hills in the near future.

Two of the three development plans involve the demolition of most of the

buildings at Fairfield Hills and the construction of whole new neighborhoods

of homes in various configurations.

One of the firms, SBC, intends to spend more than $100 million developing the

site in the next few years. Another, Becker and Becker, has tried to win the

town over to its plan by preserving the Fairfield Hills campus as it is, and

by reserving significant space for town uses, including a school for grades

five and six in Cochran House (see related story). Becker and Becker even made

the rounds of local interest groups and modified their plan in response to

what they heard. (Two more buildings -- Yale Laboratory and Bridgeport Hall --

were added to the three already slated for town uses after The Bee expressed

reservations about foreclosing town options for facilities at Fairfield Hills

in future years.) We give them full credit for listening.

There is one other alternative for Fairfield Hills, however, that remains the

most attractive from our perspective: the town purchase of the property. Aside

from providing the town all the land facilities it will ever need for public

purposes, this option frees a key 186-acre property in the heart of town from

the trend we see virtually everywhere else in town: more homes, more people,

more traffic. It is a trend that is already putting strains on the town and

the quality of life here.

In the end we will have to choose. Do we want intense development at the heart

of Newtown, or do we want some breathing room?