To the Editor:

Please join me, and the Newtown Conservation Coalition in calling on Newtown’s Planning Commission, Legislative Council and Board of Selectmen to join our neighbors in Trumbull, Brookfield and now Ridgefield in implementing an immediate moratorium on large, dense housing development applications. Ridgefield’s First Selectman supports a moratorium on high density, high impact applications currently under consideration, and any that might be heading their way, so as to buy them time to better understand the impact such developments will have on the town’s safety, traffic, infrastructure, finances and environment. Ridgefield P&Z will vote on this at their January 7th meeting. While towns like Brookfield and Ridgefield may have waited too long, there is still time to “Hit the Brakes” here in Newtown, before it’s too late, especially with the threat of 117 luxury cluster homes on Castle Hill in the center of town, and the threat of 136 apartments next to the high school.

Residents in both Ridgefield and Newtown have been turning out in record numbers at P&Z (and Borough Zoning) meetings, for over a year now. Residents in both towns have repeatedly implored commissioners to refer these complicated, highly impactful applications to independent third party experts, at the applicants’ expense, because neither the commissioners or town staff have the experience or expertise to understand all of the potential impacts. Ridgefield is finally listening to its residents. Newtown needs to start listening, before it becomes Ridgefield.

Please write to P&Z, BOS, LC and the Borough ASAP. Implore them to hit the brakes on any applications for multifamily residential housing that would create five or more dwellings, and on any requiring a zone change or special exception. There have been four such developments built in Sandy Hook over the past few years, and our roads have only become more congested and unsafe, and our taxes have only gone up.

Dave Ackert

Sandy Hook