Upzoning And Feeding The Beast

To the Editor:

A little parable concerning Newtown and how we too succumbed to the upzoning beast.

Last week, a Mr Renzulli told us that he has forwarded questions to our P&Z and yet receives no answers. I do not claim to speak for the P&Z, yet I feel someone must address the question that Mr R. has posed to our silent six (the actual board is five, I add however the author of upzoning, our community development director). You see Mr R., many years ago Newtown was invaded by a creature I call the sewer dragon. Mythical to most yet to some this beast is real and in order to save Newtown from certain disaster they felt that sacrifices must be made for the good of the town in order to appease this beast. With no fair maidens in sight the only suitable sacrifice left would have to be something dear to all of us, that’s right, the sanctimonious six offered up to the beast our land rights. And the beast accepted them. I know this will be hard for you to understand, but in time you will come to see that through your sacrifice Mr R., Newtown is free from what that beast had in store for us Newtowners. And we all know what that was.

I know you had desires of profiting from your land investment Mr R. and you certainly had every right to that expectation, so it’s important that you understand the pretense of upzoning. Premise #1 – residential septics contaminate aquifers. Sounds logical yet upon closer examination what does one presume that a failing septic does? A failing septic in fact will usually rise to the surface, upwards for those of you directionally challenged, away from the aquifer. Of all the previous groundwater contamination cases in Newtown what number of these can you attribute to a failing septic? How many contaminated wells can you recall that have been caused by chemicals, chemicals that are most often associated with industry? The remedy for a well contaminated by effluent is in fact a relatively simple one as opposed to a well suffering from other types of contamination. Contaminated by industrial chemicals, MTBE for example, is a very serious matter, in fact, there currently is no remedy, just ask the residents of Appleblossom.

Let’s face it, Mr R., expanding our tax base with industry while quashing the development and improvement rights of private citizens is currently de rigeur. Let us not dabble in the details however.

This is all good news to the health department though. Those are the people who would have been charged with enforcing all those septic regulations adopted by the state. I hope they aren’t offended by the implication that they couldn’t do their job well enough to safeguard our water supply, I know I had plenty of confidence in them. In fact, I was always under the impression that these were dedicated professionals, whose knowledge and capabilities would prevent, through enforcement of existing codes, the contamination of our water supply.

If it’s data you wanted Mr R., supporting upzoning, goods luck. For instance, if one wanted to know that the future projected growth for the areas upzoned, minus upzoning would have been, mum’s the word on that one. How about a quantitative analysis on the leaching capability of the areas upzoned, that actually supports upzoning? Did someone drop a pin? One could go on with quite a list of reasonable questions that might cast doubt on the premise for upzoning. The simplest answer, for your sake, Mr R., is that this beast has been fed and for now is sated so Newtown should be good to go for a few more years, until a new beast comes to town.

James Swift

11 Cedarhurst Trail, Sandy Hook     February 6, 2001