Expanding The View At Fairfield Hills––

State Set To Convey

38 More Acres To Town

By Dottie Evans

The State Commissioner of Agriculture is set to convey to the Town of Newtown two parcels of land included in the original 800-acre Fairfield Hills property for administrative costs only.

The vote is set to take place before the end of the current legislative session –– by June 4 at the latest –– and according to State Rep Julia Wasserman (R-106th District), it is virtually a “done deal.”

One parcel is 34.44 acres and the other is four acres. Both are included within the more than 298 acres that were set aside in 1998 for agricultural use, and neither parcel abuts the 189-acre Fairfield Hills campus that the town is about to purchase from the state.

A stipulation on the conveyance states that the land may be used for open space and recreational purposes only and that it may not be leased or sold. If any of those conditions were violated, it would revert to the State of Connecticut.

“This has been one-and-a-half years in the works,” said Rep Wasserman, who testified in favor of the conveyance alongside State Sen John McKinney (R-28th District).

“Fairfield Hills is the pearl of Newtown,” Mrs Wasserman said in an interview May 23.

Although she regretted that the two parcels could not have been part of the Fairfield Hills campus purchase as well as the 37-acre Commerce Road parcel that has been slated for development, she said the transfers could not have been achieved in any other way.

“This is the way I’ve had to work, acquiring different parcels at different times and not all at once. After all, I can’t get a bad reputation for being greedy,” Mrs Wasserman said in a wry comment.

Acquisition of as much of the entire Fairfield Hills property for the use of the Town of Newtown has been a longtime goal for Mrs Wasserman.

“I think of it as bringing home the bacon,” she quipped.

34.44 Acres Abuts Commercial Parcel

Although the larger parcel containing 34.44 acres lies across an old road from the 37-acre Commerce Road parcel that the town has set aside for economic development, Mrs Wasserman said she hoped the proximity of an open space piece to a development piece would eventually inspire town planners and architects to think creatively.

“They could cluster the businesses and make room for parks that might connect with the open space parcel,” she said.

“The beautiful thing is that this land abuts the railroad right-of-way, which could serve as a conduit for [vehicular] access, a future traffic artery,” she said.

The land being conveyed is currently leased by a farmer who also maintains a small vegetable garden on the property.

“The tenant will be allowed to finish his lease and use it for haying,” she added.

The most visible part of the 34.44-acre property is a sloping meadow leading into a mixed forest of pines and hardwoods. On the southeastern border of the woods, wetlands rim the forest and an underground sewer line crosses the property through town-owned open space alongside Deep Brook.

At the western edge of the parcel, there are a couple of small boarded-up homes and other outbuildings from the time that the property was operated as an agricultural resource for the benefit of the state-owned Fairfield Hills Hospital and its inmates.

It is also possible that the buildings might date from a time even before the 1928 purchase of Fairfield Hills, when the fertile fields that once comprised Sherman’s Square Mile were owned and farmed by longtime Newtown families.

Four Acres Expands Deep Brook Access

The four-acre parcel being conveyed to Newtown is located behind and to the northwest of the 19-acre property where the Reed Intermediate School now stands.

It connects the strip of open space land along the southern side of Deep Brook to property that abuts Old Farm Road now dead-ending behind the school just short of Mile Hill Road.

Its topography is deeply sloped down to the brook and it is heavily wooded.

The property to the east is owned by the State of Connecticut.

At first glance, it would appear that the primary benefit of this parcel would be the fact that is extends the acreage already dedicated to open space along Deep Brook.

A total of 21.66 acres has already been conveyed to the town on both sides of the waterway, for recreation and protection of watershed.