Smart Growth

Earlier this month we noted here that the State of Connecticut does not make it easy for towns and cities to economize by taking a regional approach to providing public services. The state lacks the legal framework available to municipalities in other states, where county governments serve regional interests without the expensive redundancies of Connecticut’s go-it-alone home rule tradition for its towns. Consequently, Connecticut receives fewer dollars than any other state in federal economic development funds, which typically flow to broad regional initiatives.

After a year of research and groundwork by a bipartisan panel of private and public sector experts, the Democratic majority in Hartford has introduced legislation to form a state Smart Growth Task Force with the goal of shrinking local budgets and providing property owners some relief from property taxes. It would also enable municipalities to organize themselves in economic development districts, qualifying them for more federal dollars. Aside from cost savings and federal grants, towns and cities will have a chance to share in sales tax revenues flowing from the region under the legislation proposed this week, though even proponents conceded that in the current economic climate, those tax revenues probably would not shift to the region for a year or more.

Conceptually, this legislation makes a lot of sense, though as Newtown’s state senator and Senate Minority Leader John McKinney reminded us this week, it is hard to assess the serious intent of legislators standing neck-deep in red ink as they advise municipalities on how best to stay in the black. He called it arrogance. Comic irony might be a better description. While local participation in economic development regions is supposed to be voluntary, there is likely to be great pressure on individual towns to take part. Towns will need adequate guarantees that the process will respect the interests of all parties involved.

We hope this legislation eventually makes it way into the state statutes, and not just for the economic advantages it offers to municipalities. Its provisions will serve the cause of “smart growth” by removing many of the incentives for a town to develop all its available land in an effort to broaden its tax base to raise revenues to meet increasing expenses. This build-tax-spend dynamic has ruined towns across the nation, resulting in urban sprawl and ultimately eroding local economies right along with the landscape. This legislation, if it can escape the distortions and diversions that special interests introduce to so many well-intentioned laws, offers Connecticut a rare opportunity to push back against the random sprawl of development and to secure for the future the kind of diversity of place that keeps us looking forward to every new turn in the road.