Yes, how big is Newtown?

We won’t know for certain until the results of the 2000 Census are released in about a year, and by then we still won’t know because Newtown will have had yet another year to grow away from any certainty about its size. The latest US Census Bureau estimate for the town’s population was made in July, 1998, when it calculated that 23,469 persons lived in Newtown. We won’t be surprised, when the 2000 count has been tallied, if Newtown’s population stands at 25,000.

You can still hear people refer to Newtown’s rural character every now and then, though clearly it is just a memory at this point. You could count the town’s remaining working farms on one hand of a mill worker, and the few remaining roads that are genuinely rural now must fall under the protection of the town’s scenic road ordinance to avoid the pavers. It may seem hard to believe now, with all the growing pains associated with becoming a town of 25,000, but one day Newtown will surely look back on the year 2000 as the good old days when there were still a few open spaces.

Regional planners have calculated that based on current zoning practices, the number of dwelling units in town could rise from its current total of 8,357 to nearly 13,000. Apply the current local average of 2.94 persons per household to that total, and Newtown’s population tops out at just over 38,000 –about the size of Southington. As recently as 1995, the state’s Office of Policy and Management was predicting that Newtown’s population wouldn’t approach 25,000 until the year 2020. Yet a strong economy, low interest rates, and a tight housing market in lower Fairfield County have apparently packed 25 years worth of growth into just five years here in Newtown.

So how long will it take Newtown to build out completely? No one knows. If the economy and the housing market stay hot, it won’t take that long to add 13,000 people to our neighborhoods. Imagine, then, the schools with 50 percent more students, the town roads with 50 percent more cars, the playing fields with 50 percent more players, Lake Zoar with 50 percent more boats, and almost everywhere you look, 50 percent more people.

Some people believe that to avoid that kind of future for Newtown, all we have to do is to arbitrarily declare a halt to development. Aside from being illegal, that course is not even desirable. The building trades in Newtown add significantly to the town’s economy, and the town has a legitimate need for new housing stock. There is a need, however, to seriously consider strategies for preserving significant open spaces – and not just land that is unsuitable for building. Purchasing land, as the town may do at Fairfield Hills, is one alternative. Establishing mechanisms for the purchase or transfer of development rights is another.  And we should not rely on the town to take sole responsibility for this effort. As individuals we can support the Newtown Forest Association in its efforts to add to its land holdings through donations and bequests.

In the end, the salient question is not: How big is Newtown? The question is: Are we as a town big enough to act now to preserve the open spaces for future generations? It is not enough to wring our hands year after year in alarm over the rate of Newtown’s growth.  We must commit ourselves now to a specific plan to protect parts of our town from wall-to-wall development.