The Fairfield Hills Master Plan:

Out-Pull The In-Fill

As the Fairfield Hills Master Plan makes its way toward a public vote –– perhaps as early as this month –– both advocates and opponents of the plan are increasing the intensity of their efforts to influence public opinion on the issue. As it has been from the beginning, the prospect of commercial development at the 189-acre campus has been at the center of the debate. The current version of the master plan, discussed and amended by the selectmen and under consideration by the Legislative Council, has provisions for commercial development at Fairfield Hills that are neither as benign as advocates assert nor as onerous as opponents allege.

Earlier this year the Board of Selectmen backed away from a plan that would have sold off most of the buildings left standing at Fairfield Hills after extensive demolition, favoring instead commercial leases that would preserve the town’s options for the use of those buildings in the long term. This was a good step that will promote the continued utility of some of the striking brick buildings, especially around the entry plaza of the campus, without forever precluding their municipal use.

The plan is still weighted, however, with a proposal for the “in-fill” of new commercial buildings at the core of the campus to be constructed if marketing the existing buildings proves successful. Four 50,000-square-foot buildings worth of “in-fill” are shown in the plan. This particular provision of the master plan would push the Town of Newtown –– through the agency of its Fairfield Hills Authority –– beyond the adaptive reuse of some of its existing physical assets well into the business of marketing commercial development on town property.

We have examined in this space before the dubious benefits of economic development. The town’s top ten taxpayers generate only about one mill in revenue. To try to “make Fairfield Hills pay its way,” as some have suggested, would require a lot more than 189 acres, and every inch of it would have to be devoted exclusively to commercial use.

The 200,000 square feet of potential “in-fill” at Fairfield Hills is going to be a difficult temptation for a Fairfield Hills Authority to resist. The unelected and largely unaccountable authority, under the enabling legislation creating it, would derive its working capital from the proceeds of leases. The more proceeds, the merrier the authority. And with the master plan itself subject to amendment without consent of the townspeople, there is no telling where temptation would lead future authorities, councils, and selectmen.

Newtown has to remember that there is plenty of space locally for commercial development that does not happen to sit squarely in the middle of the scenic Fairfield Hills. Hundreds of thousands of square feet of commercial space is patiently awaiting new tenants at the SCB Office Park and the former Newtown Manufacturing building on South Main Street, at the former DeVivo Industries facility on High Bridge Road, the former Grand Union on Queen Street, and now at Kendro Labs on Pecks Lane, which will be empty by the end of the year. Add to this the development potential of the new Curtis Industrial Park off Toddy Hill Road, the Batchelder property on Swamp Road, a large tract of commercial land near Exit 9, and the 34 acres to be appended to the town’s own commercial park on Commerce Road once the Fairfield Hills deal goes through.

Does the Town of Newtown really want to put itself into competition with the local business men and women who are trying so desperately to find tenants for these properties? We think Newtown should be supporting their efforts, not competing with them at Fairfield Hills. We would hope that by the time the Fairfield Hills Master Plan makes its way to the voters this summer, all references to commercial “in-fill” at the campus will be “out-pulled.”