Twenty years ago, Newtown’s Planning and Zoning Commission implemented an innovative zoning concept to address its goal at the time of encouraging diverse yet compatible uses in Sandy Hook Center while preserving its essential character as a mixed-use hamlet with deep roots in the community’s commercial history. The Sandy Hook Design District (SHDD), as it was called, was an “overlay” zoning district that would introduce flexibility in development and design to the more rigid restrictions of the underlying zoning as a means to encourage economic growth while preserving the character of the place.

The concept has worked well in Sandy Hook over the past two decades. The hamlet looks better than it has in anyone’s memory. Its commercial cohesion through good economic times and bad, aided by the business group Sandy Hook Organization for Prosperity (SHOP), exemplifies the tenacity and grit for which “The Hook” is known. The SHDD has become an important tool for sustaining the business community there.

Overlay design districts have proven popular with Newtown’s land use and economic development officials. They have been employed in Hawleyville (the Hawleyville Center Design District) and on South Main Street (South Main Village Design District) where pop-up special development districts have accommodated a Walgreens pharmacy and the Highland Plaza retail center.

We should note that the so-called “village” design district regulations for South Main Street prominently list in their purposes and intents “the conservation and preservation of architecturally significant or historic buildings in a manner that maintains the distinctive character of the district” — like the distinctive historic qualities of, say, Walgreens or Highland Plaza?

Now, a P&Z hearing, canceled last week and rescheduled for September 3, will consider another use of the South Main Street Design District rules, somehow preserving the historic character of the area with the construction of a 19,097-square-foot concrete-block Tractor Supply store and the demolition of an 1810 home with its associated outbuildings.

The success of the overlay zones in protecting the historic character of Newtown seems to have ended with the Sandy Hook Design District. The consolidation by the Board of Selectmen last year of the town’s planning and land use offices with its economic development offices, all working under one director, makes the pretense of protecting Newtown’s historic character from the pressures of development seem pretty flimsy. Traditional zoning rules, which for decades actually did preserve the character of Newtown, now serve merely as a starting point for design district negotiations between developers and the town’s land use/economic development officials.

Incidentally, the town’s land use/economic development office last week received another request for an overlay commercial design district at Exit 10 on Church Hill Road, one of the most congested and hazardous stretches of road in Newtown. The area is also the very first impression visitors get of Newtown when they come off the highway. Yet the language of the proposed design district regulations, submitted by a Monroe engineering firm, omits the boilerplate platitudes about Newtown’s character or heritage. We suppose it is progress that people have stopped pretending to consider things they clearly are not. We regret, however, that the tradition of preservation and conservation and cherishing the character of place seems to be dying off in our zoning regulations.