Conservation and Development—

2004 Town Plan Now Available Online

By Andrew Gorosko

The completed 2004 Town Plan of Conservation and Development is now available for public review on the Internet.

The adopted town plan is available at the town’s website, www.newtown-ct.gov/. Until now, a preliminary version of the town plan had been posted on the Internet.

The newly posted version reflects the various content changes that were made by the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) when it approved the final version of the plan recently. The town plan took effect on March 1.

The plan’s text is complemented by a series of maps that illustrate the planning concepts expressed in the town plan.

The town plan is posted on the town website in the Adobe Acrobat PDF graphics format. Computer users are able to download a copy of a graphics file reader in the PDF format via a hyperlink posted on the town’s website. PDF graphics files are both scalable and printable.

Community Development Director Elizabeth Stocker, who serves as a land use planner for the P&Z, said the electronic version of the town plan will be a resource for the public. Printed, bound copies of the document are available at the town land use office at Canaan House at Fairfield Hills.

The P&Z spent more than two years formulating the town plan. The decennial advisory document is intended to guide local growth and land conservation as the town approaches 2014.

Town planning consultant Harrall-Michalowski Associates, Inc (HMA), of Hamden started work on the project in late 2001. The firm has managed the town plan update, plus related planning projects for the P&Z.

The town plan lists a long series of planning objectives for a range of municipal departments in describing ways to accomplish the document’s goals. Individual town agencies are expected to annually update the P&Z about their progress in accomplishing the document’s 180 basic objectives.

The underlying theme of the town plan is expressed through its “vision statement.” That statement holds that a prime local goal is the protection and enhancement of the town’s picturesque, rural, historic New England setting and attributes. The architecture and landscaping of all local properties should be designed to protect the town’s image as a rural and historic town, it adds.

During the coming decade, town agencies will work together to maintain a suitable variety of housing, taking into account residents’ varying lifestyles and economic circumstances, while providing and developing equal recreational activities and facilities for all residents, according to the statement. The vision statement adds that the town will work to protect open space areas, farmland, trails, aquifers, wetlands, and other environmentally sensitive areas. It holds that local public education will continue to excel in quality and efficiency.

Also, “Newtown will succeed in attracting commercial businesses at a rate equal to its growth [rate], and the design of the town’s roads and [its] traffic patterns will enhance business development, while minimizing traffic congestion for the residents,” it adds.

Municipalities decennially revise their town plans to address changing conditions in planning for the coming decade’s growth and land conservation. A town plan serves as a conceptual framework to guide the P&Z in its decisionmaking on land use applications. P&Z members often cite whether a particular land use application conforms to or diverges from the tenets of the town plan when approving or rejecting that application.