Angered By Upzoning –

Property Owners Launch

Campaign To Win Seats On P&Z

By Andrew Gorosko

The Newtown Property Owners Association has started a political organizing drive for the November 2001 municipal elections, in a move to unseat Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members who favor “upzoning,” and replace those members with people sympathetic to the association’s viewpoint.

At an association meeting, Monday, November 13, at Newtown High School, attended by about 100 people, representatives of the Green Party explained how citizen groups can politically organize to elect people to local government agencies.

The property owners association is an ad hoc group which formed last winter in opposition to upzoning. Its members say upzoning decreases affected properties’ market value.

Association members are supporting an administrative appeal in Danbury Superior Court brought against the P&Z by six plaintiffs who claim that upzoning, through its upgraded minimum zoning requirements, hurts property values and hinders the ability to develop affected property or to expand existing development. The lawsuit seeks to overturn upzoning.

In September, P&Z members unanimously approved upzoning, a sweeping plan which upgrades the zoning designations of an aggregate area greater than 2,500 acres, affecting approximately 2,315 properties, almost 2,000 of which have dwellings on them. Upzoning increases minimum zoning requirements and decreases potential residential construction densities. Upzoning is intended to protect groundwater quality, in general, and to preserve the drinking water quality of the Pootatuck Aquifer in south-central Newtown, in particular. Upzoning is intended to prevent the need to expand the municipal sewer system.

Green Party organizer Tom Sevigny of Canton told association members the Green Party is a coalition of people who have become frustrated by democracy slipping from their hands. Mr Sevigny added the party is an international, grassroots organization through which members seek to effect positive political change.

Green Party organizer Dr John Battista, a New Milford physician, urged association members to mount a full slate of candidates for the next elections. Each person on a slate knows different people, expanding the slate’s reach in terms of vote-getting, he said. Fielding a full candidate slate gives legitimacy to an election campaign and creates a support network for all candidates on the slate, he said.

Local people interested in running for office could seek the endorsement of the Danbury chapter of the Green Party, Dr Battista said. The party has ten tenets that it considers in endorsing candidates for office.

The Green Party seeks to have the public regain control of governments, Dr Battista said. The association can seek out local ethical, hardworking people who could form the nucleus of a local Green Party, he said.

“You have an incredible advantage here. You have a hot issue,” Dr Battista said of the association’s opposition to upzoning.

“The odds of you winning your local elections, if you organize, are very, very high,” he said.

Political activism can be an amazingly powerful factor in terms of what happens in a town, Dr Battista said.

Barry Piesner, an association director, said that electing people to office, such as the P&Z, can come through any political party, and does not necessarily have to come through the Green Party.

Mr Piesner said Anthony Klabonski became the first association member on the P&Z last summer.  Mr Klabonski filled a Democratic alternate member’s vacancy created when Democratic alternate Lilla Dean was elevated to a regular membership, which was created by the resignation of Democratic regular member Michael Osborne.

Mr Piesner noted that many people seeking local elected office run unopposed. Mr Piesner said he does not understand the local Republican Party’s thinking when it failed to run a candidate for first selectman in the November 1998 elections.

 “We have to find a better way to get people elected who are concerned about you and me,” Mr Piesner told audience members.

“The people who passed this [upzoning] regulation were not concerned, one iota, by people who were affected by this,” he said. None of the P&Z members who support upzoning live in the area that it affects, he said.

The political landscape of Newtown will not change unless the association works to make it change, he said.

Mr Piesner charged there are serious flaws in the P&Z’s functioning, adding that the agency is “out of control.” The association must make sure P&Z members who support upzoning are not reelected to office in November 2001, he said.

Six of the eight P&Z members’ terms will be up for election, including regular members Daniel Fogliano, Heidi Winslow, and Lilla Dean; and alternate members Robert Poulin, Robert Taylor, and Anthony Klabonski. Regular members serve four-year terms; alternate members serve two-year terms.

Association director Edward Lundblad said the future work of the association involves removing from office P&Z members who support upzoning.

Besides electing new people to seats on the P&Z, the association is investigating possible structural changes to the town government, through the Charter Revision Commission.

One association member suggested that the town charter be changed to create a mechanism to remove P&Z members from office.

Beyond the upzoning issue, the town’s potential acquisition of the state’s 185-acre Fairfield Hills core campus poses “enormous issues” for the town, Mr Piesner said. He said he expects the town will buy the property. “It’s huge project and it has a lot of potential uses,” he said.