Newtown’s Economic Development Commission hosted a discussion last week on its favorite topic: how to increase the commercial tax base in Newtown. Town and borough officials were there, planning and zoning commissioners were there, and even the police chief attended. The EDC was urged to sharpen its focus to market specific properties, especially in Hawleyville, at the Curtis Corporate Park in Sandy Hook, and in the impending expansion of Commerce Park on state land earmarked for Newtown.

We expect the renewed focus on economic development will initially take the form of an update of the EDC’s 1999 strategic plan of economic development. The commission would do well to take its lead from the new Town Plan of Conservation and Development both in content and form. In establishing strategies to promote economic development in town, that document has called on the EDC to take very specific steps: to foster and nurture entrepreneurial enterprise, to attract new businesses and keep existing ones, and to leverage existing resources for the town’s economic advantage while respecting the town’s historic assets and natural resources.

Any effective strategic plan for economic development needs to concentrate on the particulars — of wooing a certain corporation, of resolving specific frustrations of local business people, of advocating a business climate that serves the town at every level, not just its tax receipts.

The promiscuous promotion of commercial development at the expense of the town’s quality of life is not a good strategy for a town that is facing significant traffic problems and is struggling to preserve its environmental integrity in the face of unprecedented growth. The EDC’s recent request to the Planning and Zoning Commission to waive its rules concerning wetlands and steep slopes in commercial areas is not the path to a better Newtown. Local commissions need to work in concert and not against each other if any of our development goals are to be met.

Also, we have to come to understand that residential development is not economic development as the EDC has twice declared (for the Liberty at Newtown housing complex in Hawleyville and for the proposed Toll Brothers condos in Sandy Hook). Crafting an economic development strategy has to be more sophisticated than merely calculating tax revenues.

With as much as 1.8 million square feet of potential commercial development scattered around Newtown — excluding Fairfield Hills — the Economic Development Commission has lots of work to do in the coming years. The Legislative Council is looking for its guidance on possible tax incentives for relocating businesses. The Planning and Zoning Commission will need advice on rezoning suitable areas for commercial development. And all of Newtown will depend on its leadership and vision of the Economic Development Commission for securing for the community a prosperous future and a better life. In these important tasks, the commission has our support and best wishes.