Smart Growth News

Connecticut

Outer Connecticut Suburbs Absorbing Too Much of State Population

''One of the main drivers of energy use is sprawl – low-density, auto-dependent development patterns that encourage, or often require, more gas and more driving to get to work, shopping or recreational venues,'' says a Hartford Courant editorial. According to Census data, outer-ring suburban towns top Connecticut's list of fastest-growing communities between July 2007 and July 2009.

Disturbed by decades of sprawl impacts – energy waste, air and water pollution, farmland and open space loss, urban infrastructure abandonment and social isolation – some forward-looking state lawmakers and commissioners helped set up ''a nascent smart-growth program,'' but the census data indicate it ''has not yet taken hold.''

As Hartford and New Haven shrank slightly, the editorial notes, Stamford capitalized on its proximity to New York and made the fastest-growing list as the only large city among small suburban towns – East Windsor, Ellington, Somers, Oxford, Ridgefield and East Lyme – some of their growth added by ''active adult'' housing. ''Towns love housing for people over the age of 55, because it means property-tax revenues without school expenses,'' the editorial observes. ''But while keeping seniors in the state is good for the economy, the boom in this sector has done nothing to address the shortage of housing for young people, which is one of the factors that causes so many 25- to 34-year-olds to leave the state.''

With the state ''still chewing up farms and fields, increasing pollution and energy use and creating the need for more infrastructure,'' its Council on Environmental Quality estimates farmland loss at 1,800 acres a year, but others fear it's more. ''This is not the way things ought to be going,'' the editorial concludes. ''The era of cheap and easy oil is coming to an end. We need to repopulate city and town centers and serve them with transit. Some of the state's smart-growth laws are too new to have had much effect, but we need to keep pushing. If the census figures for the next three years don't begin to show a significant shift, this state will be in trouble.''   7/7/2010

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Democratic Gubernatorial Hopeful Ned Lamont Presents City and Transit Investment Agenda

''As a governor, I will fight to revitalize our cities and make them places where people are proud to live, work and raise a family,'' pledged Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont at a press conference in New Haven, unveiling a comprehensive urban restoration plan, informed by social equity and smart growth. ''By focusing on smart development, improving education and giving Connecticut families the tools to build a better life,'' he emphasized, ''we can renew our cities and begin a new era of prosperity for the entire state.''

Speaking outside New Haven's 80-acre Science Park, a former Winchester rifle factory complex turned into a high-tech incubator, the cable TV entrepreneur said, ''Look at the thousands of jobs that have been created here. These are the jobs of the future.''

Best known for his 2006 Democratic primary victory over U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman, who eventually retained his seat as an Independent, notes Hartford Courant writer Christopher Keating, Lamont will be running against former Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy in the Democratic gubernatorial primary this August. In his seven-point Plan to Renew Our Cities, Lamont vows to transform urban education, stand up for local manufacturers, make cities the hubs of the state's transit network, orient new development around transit, reimburse cities for providing vital services, keep cities safe, and help families succeed.   6/8/2010

Resource(s): http://blogs.courant.com/ ; www.nedlamont.com/

Director: Connecticut Depends on Environment, Energy Efficiency and Quality of Life to Attract Business and Recharge the Economy

''If we are going to move forward to a bright economic future,'' writes Connecticut Fund for the Environment Executive Director Don Strait in a New Haven Register guest column, ''we have to attack shared problems, not each other, and the 40th anniversary of Earth Day is certainly no time to start attacking the environment.'' Alarmed by proposals to eliminate or weaken the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and tap the Energy Efficiency Fund for budgetary reasons, he notes that the DEP helps the state attract business. He also reminds Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell that the ratepayer-maintained energy efficiency fund has bolstered the state economy by ''creating and supporting more than 10,000 direct and indirect jobs,'' and reducing both electricity prices and pollution.

Though long-underfunded and hurt by layoffs, while its volume of regulatory duties and work on permits increased, the DEP adopted a LEAN operation-efficiency program 20 months ago, and reduced ''permitting and enforcement backlogs by about 85 percent and 78 percent'' to date. ''We need to build on this success, not stop it in its tracks,'' Strait observed, alarmed that many proposed measures ''would make it more difficult for DEP to do its jobs and take back the precious gains earned through LEAN.''

Cautioning lawmakers against the false choice between the economy and the environment, he tells them that the governor's principles of responsible growth and their own principles of smart growth passed last year provide ''an excellent framework'' for agreeing on priority development projects and ''moving those quickly'' through the current permitting process.

A Hartford Courant editorial sends state leaders the same message. With Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont recently saying one of his first steps to improve the state's economy would let the DEP accelerate its permitting process further, the editorial calls the current legislative proposals, collected in Senate Bill 453, seriously misguided. ''Clean air and clean water are not bad for the state's economy, they are essential to it. A major part of the state's 'sell' is its quality of life, of which a healthy environment is a sine qua non,'' the editorial stresses. ''Blaming environmental laws for the state's economic woes is scapegoating, missing broader trends that need attention. Let's give the DEP a chance to make its improvements work.''   5/1/2010

Resource(s): www.nhregister.com/ ; www.courant.com/ ; www.ctpost.com/

Planned Metro Center Back on Track in Fairfield, Connecticut

A 33-acre, mixed-use Fairfield Metro Center on the 52nd mile of the 75-mile Metro-North Railroad line from Manhattan to New Haven – long sought by the city to boost its tax base and by commuters to escape the permanent rush hour jams on I-95 – may finally move ahead. According to reports in the Greenwich Times and Fairfield Minuteman, at least the future center's train station will be completed, thanks to a new deal between the state, the town and Blackrock Realty, a firm able to restructure a TB Bank loan and rescind temporary recession-forced foreclosure on its part of the site.

''This has been a long time coming but it will be the catalyst to moving this along,'' said Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell in a public on-site event, commenting on the deal and the prospect of the entire $350 million development. Both she and Blackrock Realty principal Kurt Wittek stressed mass transit benefits. ''We need more facilities to put commuters in trains, to get cars off the road,'' he pointed out, saying he drove from Greenwich to Fairfield on I-95 and saw a 20-mile parking lot on the other side of the highway. ''It's literally smart growth and we're proud to be part of it.''

Under the deal, reached after four months of hard negotiations to re-energize the public-private project, the state Department of Transportation will provide $19.4 million from new bonds, while completing its share of construction – station platforms, a pedestrian bridge and other elements. The town will spend $5 million in previously approved bonds, taking from the developer the responsibility for building a 1,500-space park-and-ride lot and access road, along with drainage work, wetlands and shoreland remediation, soil capping and other details. Blackrock Realty will contribute $5.2 million and give the town about 2.7 acres for the access road.

Fairfield First Selectman Ken Flatto expects the town work – likely to begin in June – to help Blackrock Realty align tenants and launch first-phase construction of the Metro Center. ''It's in all our interest, for our tax base in town, for jobs for the state, for sales tax to see this private part of the site redeveloped as fast as possible,'' he said.

Already approved, the dense center's plan envisions 1 million square feet of offices in five high buildings, including a retail component and a 181-room Hilton Hotel.   4/10/2010

Resource(s): www.greenwichtime.com/ ; www.minutemannewscenter.com/ ; www.globest.com/

Transit-Oriented Development Will Help Hartford Region Accommodate Aging Population and Reduce Carbon Emissions

If the metro Hartford region's 29 towns follow current laws and build 80 percent of their housing as single-family homes away from bus or rail, transportation emissions could climb 22 percent by 2020. If they instead turn to transit-oriented-development in key corridors, emissions would rise just 11 percent. By focusing growth near present and proposed transit – the latter including the New Britain-Hartford Busway and New Haven-Hartford-Springfield commuter rail, says the tri-state (CT, NJ, NY) Regional Plan Association (RPA) in a new report, the region would also meet the increasingly evident demographic demand.

Prepared with assistance from the Cambridge Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the Growing Economy, Shrinking Emissions: A Transit-Oriented Future for Connecticut's Capital Region report points to a prospective influx of aging baby boomers. Over the next few decades, the region will see about 30,000 additional households with occupants at least 55 years of age, while the number of younger households will decline by some 11,000.

''The growth in older households presents a market opportunity for developers to produce smaller, in-town homes close to transit, shops and services,'' the report stresses, with RPA Connecticut Office Associate Planner Amanda Kennedy noting that ''a smart growth approach to planning'' offers municipalities multiple mutual benefits, especially in this time of fiscal crisis. The report, she said, ''is a blueprint for making the right choices to reconnect the urban and outlying communities, creating a vibrant urban hub and realizing Hartford’s potential for regional economic leadership.''

Its modeling for three Hartford area corridors based on transit-oriented development scenarios, drawn up at an RPA and Lincoln Institute workshop last May, the report estimates the corridors would let the average household cut vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by 2,400 a year, reducing its need for a second or third car, and saving it $360 each year. Correspondingly, the region would benefit from emissions 11 percent lower than projected for the sprawling land-use pattern, helping Connecticut reach its statewide target of a 10-percent carbon emissions reduction below 1990 levels by 2020.

Capital Region Council of Government (CRCOG) Executive Director Lyle Wray welcomed RGA findings as likely to strengthen the region chances for grants from the HUD-DOT-EPA Interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities. ''As CRCOG builds its new Sustainable Communities Initiative,'' he said, ''this work accomplished in partnership with the Regional Plan Association and in combination with other recent CRCOG projects on sustainable development should help position the Capital Region well to benefit from new federal investments in livable communities.''   3/17/2010

Resource(s): www.rpa.org/

Connecticut Must Follow Smart Growth Policies in Order to Reach Smart Growth Goals

While the term ''smart'' or ''responsible'' growth has been used in Connecticut policy debates and state law in recent years, ''we still aren’t really doing it – walking the walk, growing smartly,'' writes Hartford Courant columnist Tom Condon. Condon is urging all mayors, council members and planners to read The Smart Growth Manual. Written by New Urbanism co-founder Andres Duany, with fellow planners Jeff Speck and Mike Lyden, this compendium of ways to stop ''urban disinvestment and wasteful suburban sprawl'' shows the state must do much more to reach its sustainability goals.

The columnist mentions at least a dozen steps Connecticut should take, since few towns are taking the advantage of what’s already legislatively allowed or what they change and pursue on their own. ''Government should be organized to correspond with the physical structure of settlement,'' he quotes from the manual. ''For regional planning to be truly effective, property taxes should be shared among the municipalities.''

Officials also should spread property tax revenue ''equitably'' across the region, coordinate transportation and land-use planning, concentrate development ''in the pedestrian sheds'' of present or planned transit, shun ''dumb growth locations'' for government buildings, discourage development along countryside roads, require shares of ''subsidized dwellings'' in all areas, stop making the car a priority over other modes, ensure easy use of transit, convert parking to ''more productive'' uses; replace policies threatening older schools, adopt ''form-based'' zoning, and build only in areas with plentiful water. ''If we want to achieve the smart-growth goals of clean air, less dependence on foreign oil, protecting farms and forests and reviving cities, we need to use smart-growth policies,'' he concludes.   3/7/2010

Resource(s): http://articles.courant.com/

Stamford Mayor Candidates Favor Smart Growth

As recession hampers Stamford’s intense core and transit-oriented redevelopment and its Democratic Mayor Dannel P. Malloy leaves after four four-year terms, during which he put the city on a clean-energy and sustainability path while making it an international financial center, his successor’s early yet critical decisions will show whether the new administration will build on or diverge from the current vision, reports Stamford Advocate writer Elizabeth Kim.

Comfortably ahead of Green Party candidate Rolf Maurer, both Democrat David Martin and Republican Michael Pavia say they “want a vibrant downtown, smart growth, the preservation of neighborhood and parks, and diversity,” the writer notes, all goals of the current city master plan. But the Republican has also pledged to order a new and more comprehensive 20-year master plan and “zoning that will guide development” in line with market demands. Housing unit-size restrictions should be loosened to spur construction of more one-bedroom and studio units, he said, adding, “If you want to encourage single-occupancy units, you allow a property owner to create more to make it economically feasible.”

His Democratic rival David Martin warned such a plan would result in sprawl and overdevelopment, an issue observers expect to rank high at the final mayoral debate, held on October 29.   10/25/2009

Resource(s): http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/ ; http://www.cityofstamford.org/

TSTC Urges New Jersey Governor to Enact Complete Streets Policy

Not amused by the persistent regulatory gap between design for roads versus sidewalks and bike lanes – the former unlikely to end abruptly in grassy or impassable spots as the others often do – an advocacy coalition led by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign (TSTC; New York, New Jersey and Connecticut) urged Democratic Governor Jon Corzine to enact a Complete Streets policy to reduce car dependency and make mobility safer, especially for pedestrians, 121 of whom have already lost their lives in traffic accidents this year, a 33 percent increase from the same period last year.

With Governor Corzine facing a tough re-election battle against his Republican challenger Chris Christie, the TSTC is calling on him to ensure Complete Streets is joined by the smart-growth New Jersey Future group, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, Environment New Jersey, the New Jersey Chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), and Disability Rights New Jersey. Crediting the governor for improvements ensured so far under his 2006 initiative to invest $74 million over five years in pedestrian safety, including $15 million for the Safe Routes to School program and $5 million for the new Safe Streets to Transit program, TSTC Communications Associate Steven Higashide and NJ Future Policy Analyst Jay Corbalis noted in a joint post on their web sites that even if there’s “no guarantee that better streets infrastructure would have prevented the deaths of any of the 121 people” killed while walking this year, the routine transportation planners’ concentration on drivers, with needs of others just an afterthought, results in “incomplete streets that create dangerous conditions.”

Speaking on behalf of the six-group coalition, TSTC Executive Director Kate Slevin said, “New Jersey has made strides in recent years towards a more balanced transportation policy, but these (fatality) numbers prove that the state still has a long way to go before our roads are safe for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers.” Others corroborated the urgency of action. “For a variety of reasons, a lot of people are walking, biking, and taking mass transportation in New Jersey, yet we are still building and upgrading streets with no sidewalks, no crosswalks and no bike lanes,” pointed out NJ Future Executive Director Pete Kasabach. “This has to stop.” And AARP New Jersey Chapter volunteer transportation advocate Janine Bauer stressed, “Older people deal with the effects of incomplete streets every day, and make up a disproportionate share of pedestrians killed by cars in New Jersey. The needs of seniors and other pedestrians must be taken into account when streets and highways are built and repaired.”   10/13/2009

Resource(s): http://www.tstc.org/

Connecticut Housing Advocates See Great Potential in Livable Communities Act

Though Republicans in the U.S. Senate and conservatives elsewhere may oppose the Livable Communities Act, modeled partly on the HOMEConnecticut program and introduced recently by Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Democratic Chairman Christopher Dodd, reports Hartford Courant writer Don Stacom, Connecticut advocates for affordable housing, transit-oriented development and smart growth are hopeful, with Partnership for Strong Communities Policy & Communications Director David Fink considering it ''manna from heaven'' that will help link housing, transit and environmental policy, and New Haven Democratic Mayor John DeStefano Jr. calling the relationship ''essential to the nation's long-term economic prosperity.''

The $4 billion bill, the writer reports, envisions two grant programs to help towns and regions work out long-term development plans integrating land use, economic development, housing and transportation, and separately, to expand sidewalks and bikeways, reclaim brownfields, and attract private residential and commercial projects near train stations.

HOMEConnecticut, the writer notes, also offers planning grants for high-density development zones near transit, but Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell's budget office has suspended the program because of the budget crisis.

The first two towns to seek the grants, Wallingford and Old Saybrook, both want to provide more housing for moderate-income workers, including their own employees, with the former also hoping to redevelop a largely underused stretch of properties near its rail station as a complex of businesses, restaurants and apartments.

Senator Dodd said his bill would help spur such projects nationwide, the writer adds, also quoting Transportation for America Director James Corless.

''Americans,'' the director stressed, ''spend nearly two-thirds of their income on the combined costs of housing and transportation and are looking for affordable options to live closer to their jobs, school and amenities.''

More on the bill at www.ctpartnershiphousing.com. -- Hartford Courant   8/18/2009

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Columnist: No Smart Growth in Post Office Closure Plans

With Connecticut and many other states having 1,000 Friends groups that promote smart growth, perhaps it's time for a national 1 Million Friends of America ''to encourage the federal government toward more compact and environmentally sound growth policies,'' observes Hartford Courant editorial writer-columnist Tom Condon, long troubled by the federal habit of locating ''offices and agencies in the wrong places,'' and now disturbed by the possibility of closing 13 post offices in the state, all in or near its four largest cities: Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport and Stamford.

He acknowledges that the U.S. Postal Service ''is deeply in the red and must cut costs'' throughout the nation, but wants offices in central and residential locations to be left alone.

To exemplify their benefits, the editorial writer cites the West Hartford post office on LaSalle Road, one of the 13 listed for possible closure in Connecticut.

''I live within walking distance of this branch, and so do thousands of other people. That's the point. It's in a town center. People can either walk there or combine a trip to the post office with other errands,'' he points out. ''Putting a post office, a library, a town hall and a lot of other things in the same place cuts down on needless car trips. It promotes walking and personal contact. That's why it's smart.''

Closure of the La Salle branch would force many to drive several miles to the Shield Street office, in a mostly industrial area with few residents.

''It's sometimes hard not to think that the feds are trying to increase automobile use, to keep the highway industrial complex in high gear,'' he writes, mentioning a 2006 Washington Post series on massive relocation of federal workers, including 30,000 military and civilian Pentagon employees from Washington, D.C. and Arlington to southern Fairfax County, notorious for crowded roads but short on transit.

''This is stupid on many levels, not the least of which is that it fails to take the advantage of the $10 billion-and-counting federal investment in the D.C. Metro transit system,'' he stresses, asking, ''Why not put the federal offices near the federally funded Metro lines?''

Back to the closure issue, he agrees that the Postal Service needs to weigh many factors, but hopes it won't overlook his point.

''All I'm saying is throw smart growth into the mix. If the post office saves a few bucks by closing the LaSalle road branch, but causes more energy waste and pollution, we the people have gained nothing,'' he writes. ''If the federal government is trying to wean us from foreign oil and slow greenhouse gas emissions, as the last few presidents have averred, start with the post offices.'' -- Hartford Courant   7/12/2009

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Transit Housing Starts Gaining Momentum in Connecticut

After a good start in Massachusetts, ''housing near transit'' -- in a dry professional phrase, ''transit-oriented development'' -- is gaining momentum in Connecticut, reports Hartford Courant writer Don Stacom, spotlighting two National Development's (ND's) apartment complexes in Newton and Medford, Massachusetts, and plans for similar ones readied or considered by Wallingford, Berlin, New Haven, North Haven and Enfield in his state, all along the proposed New Haven-Hartford to Springfield, Massachusetts commuter rail line.

Built two years ago, he writes, Newton's up-scale Arborpoint, just across from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Green Line subway station, rents 80 percent of its 180 luxury apartments to professionals, affluent retirees and others able to pay roughly $2,000-$2,500 a month, with the other 20 percent reserved for low-to-moderate-income earners.

Its second stage just opened, Medford's mixed-use -- live, work, play, shop, dine -- Station Landing, with a skywalk to MBTA Orange Line trains, features 460 apartments, 127 condos, office space, stores, restaurants and a 50,000-square-foot Boston Sports Club.

''We surveyed our residents about why they live here, and many said the most significant reason was access to public transportation,'' said ND Managing Partner Ted Tye. ''At Station Landing, they can walk to the gym in the morning, get on the Orange Line and go to work in Boston, then come home and go to restaurants or bars right here.''

That's what the prospective New Haven-Hartford-Springfield rail promises Connecticut municipalities with its stations, especially if helped by state grants from the HOMEConnecticut program, which also allows developers to build more densely in exchange for keeping 20 percent of their apartments or condos for residents making up to 80 percent of the community's median income.

Wallingford, the writer reports, has already written its HOMEConnecticut-required high-density district code, Berlin and New Haven have applied for grants, and North Haven and Enfield will likely follow suit.

Wallingford Town Planner Linda Bush expects its planned mixed-use transit village at a density of 26 units per acre in an underused six-block downtown section near the station to enliven the area, promising to make sure that the new buildings match its character.

''This is more tax base and more feet on the street for our existing central business district,'' she told the writer, noting that the affordable units will go to firefighters, police officers, board of education employees and others earning less than 80 percent of local median income.

Connecticut's nonprofit Partnership for Strong Communities Policy Director David Fink points out that housing near transit makes each more attractive and benefits both developers and residents.

''Having transit within a half-mile helps housing -- the developers can charge more for their market-price units, because the tenants don't have to spend so much on transportation. Maybe instead of two cars with insurance and registration, now you need only one,'' he said. ''And housing helps transit. Those people in those homes tend to ride the train, and that's fare-box revenue that saves money for taxpayers.''

More on ND projects, including Station Landing development at http://natdev.com and www.stationlanding.com. -- Hartford Courant   7/6/2009

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Gov. Rell Signs ''Complete Streets'' Bill

''Walking and bicycling are more than healthy lifestyle choices -- for many Connecticut commuters, they are the way to get to work,'' said Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell as she signed Senate Bill 735, An Act Improving Bicycle and Pedestrian Access, stressing that the new law dovetails with her administration's ''emphasis on smart growth and transit-oriented development, which calls for communities that make it easier for people to get to work, home and shopping without having to drive.''

Creating also an 11-member Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board, the law requires the Connecticut Department of Transportation (ConnDOT) and any municipality to spent at least 1 percent of their annual highway and street construction, restoration, rehabilitation or relocation on ''facilities for 'all users' -- including bikeways and sidewalks with curb cuts or ramps.''

The nonprofit Tri-State Transportation Campaign (TSTC -- New York, New Jersey and Connecticut Metropolitan Region) applauds Democratic Representative Thomas Kehoe and Senator Donald DeFronzo for championing the measure, commonly known as a Complete Streets bill, and Governor Rell for its quick enactment, but also calls for another move.

''It is now up to ConnDOT to fill a gap in the bill, the removal of a provision from the original legislative draft that would have predesignated CMAQ (Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Program) and Highway Safety Improvement Program funding for Safe Routes to School, Safe Routes for Seniors and Safe Routes to Transit programs,'' says the TSTC on its web site. ''If ConnDOT made it departmental policy to fund these programs, it would show that change can happen from within the agency, and not only as the result of legislative and executive directives.'' -- Tri-State Transportation Campaign, Connecticut Office of the Governor   7/4/2009

Resource(s): www.ct.gov/ ; www.tstc.org/

Gov. Rell Directs State Agencies to Ban Fleet Vehicle Use Two Days Per Week

To reduce state costs and fleet fuel consumption, Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell directed all agency heads to implement ''a travel ban for two days per week'' on all fleet vehicles, except those ''truly necessary'' for law enforcement, basic services and emergencies, with a Hartford Courant editorial commending her for the directive and a January move to cut the fleet by 20 percent over the first half of this year, but also wondering ''why the state owns any vehicles that aren't 'truly necessary' for state business.''

So far, about 10 percent of the more than 4,400 vehicles under the Department of Administrative Services control ''have been turned in and, mostly, sold at auction,'' the editorial says, pointing out that each car considered ''a perk'' and used mostly for driving to work should by turned in, and that the 20-percent reduction should be expanded to University of Connecticut vehicles and to Department of Transportation trucks and other motorized equipment, or to a total of some 12,000 vehicles.

''It takes 87 filling stations to keep them going,'' the editorial notes, a problem caused partly by sprawl, which forces more service and maintenance driving.

To change the development pattern -- dominant since the 1950s -- and set the example, the state should locate more agencies and buildings ''in town centers near transit stops'' and strengthen incentives for its workers to use transit.

Dismayed that the Easy Street van pool service finds only 262 state employees among its 4,500 riders, the editorial concludes, ''If all state agencies were part of a broad smart-growth strategy, perhaps over time we wouldn't need as many state or personal cars.''

Click here for the governor's directive. -- Hartford Courant   5/21/2009

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Newington Seeks Smart Growth Solution to Revitalize Downtown

''I look at downtown and it is very similar to how it was when I was a kid,'' said Newington Mayor Jeff Wright at a town hall meeting held by Newington Residents Who Want Downtown Revitalization (NRWWDR), telling attendees that the $1.1 million downtown tax revenue is too low, that lack of improvements could increase vacancies, and that the remedy is smart growth -- a mixed-use, walkable and livable district, complete with condos, shops and restaurants.

Advised by developer Bob Weiner -- one of a team that built the successful $250-million Blue Back Square complex of 59 luxury condos, 48 loft-style apartments, some three dozen stores and restaurants, and about 222,000 square feet of medical and other office space at West Hartford Center -- Mayor Wright said he and Town Manager John Salomone chose the municipal parking lot to start long-term downtown transformation.

He noted that it won't and shouldn't be another Blue Back Square, reports New Britain Herald writer John Fitts, but a modest ''foundation for a lot of future development,'' which could include taller buildings, with office space and condos on the upper floors.

With Town Planner Edmund Meehan projecting the lot-overhaul cost at about $1.8 million and Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell helping the town obtain $1 million from the state Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD), the Downtown Revitalization Committee agreed on a project that includes paving, drainage work, sidewalks, traffic calming features, bike racks, dumpster relocation, and a phased increase of car spaces from 390 to 900.

There is a vacant half-acre private property within the municipal lot, but the city will buy or take it by eminent domain if necessary.

The project still needs approval from the Plan and Zoning Commission, the Town Council and the state DECD, the writer observes, with Mayor Wright hoping the work can begin by the end of July.

More on the Blue Back Square in West Hartford at http://bluebacksquare.com. -- Herald   5/9/2009

Resource(s): www.newbritainherald.com/

EPA Smart Growth Workshops Scheduled for Hartford

Having chosen the Hartford-based Capitol Region Council of Government (CRCOG) as one of the three winners of U.S. EPA's 2008 Smart Growth Implementation Assistance (SGIA), valued at some $45,000 in technical expertise for each winner, EPA's Development, Community and Environment Division (DCED) has now engaged three national leading-edge firms for its May 14th and 16th Hartford workshops on mixed-use development, mixed-income housing and ''green'' construction techniques -- Burlington, Vermont-based Terra Firma Urban Design, New York City-headquartered Jonathan Rose Companies, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-headquartered Wallace, Roberts & Todd (WRT).

The EPA, the CRCOG and their partners invited area residents, developers, business people and others to the sustainability workshops, reports the Hartford Courant, quoting DCED Senior Policy Analyst Danielle Arigoni.

''This project represents the convergence of so many issues that are of critical importance to Connecticut's residents: better energy efficiency in homes, lower housing costs, and greater choices in transportation,'' she said. ''It lays a road map for towns and cities as they seek to create more housing options for young workers, aging households and families.''

At the first workshop, Terra Firma principal Julie Campoli -- whose recent book, Visualizing Density, includes aerial pictures of more than 250 neighborhoods by photographer Alex MacLean -- will help participants envision the practical advantages and convenience of compact development.

At the second workshop, experts from Jonathan Rose Companies and Wallace, Roberts & Todd -- one firm specializing in community-fabric repair and adjacent land preservation; the other, in eco-disciplinary planning and design -- will review development alternatives for several potential sites across the region.

Details of EPA's Smart Growth Program, CRCOG activity and the three firms' expertise at http://epa.gov/dced/index.htm, www.crcog.org, http://eterrafirma.com, www.rosecompanies.com, and www.wrtdesign.com. -- Courant   5/7/2009

Resource(s): www.courant.com/ ; www.crcog.org/index.html

Raid on State Community Investment Fund Could Cripple Smart Growth Efforts

Created by the 2005 Community Investment Act to fund ''land protection, farm viability, historic preservation and affordable housing'' programs, the Community Investment Account, which distributes most revenue from an additional $30 in town deed-recording fees -- collecting $26 of each, with $4 left locally -- is crucial for public needs and shouldn't be sacrificed as the state tries to cut costs and narrow its budget deficit, writes American Farmland Trust (AFT) Connecticut Director Jiff Martin in a Hartford Courant guest opinion, cautioning that a raid on the account ''will cripple the state's smart growth effort.''

Such a raid, he observes, ''will permanently eliminate services and programs that the state would never otherwise pay for and which municipalities can hardly manage alone.''

Although with the drop in real estate transactions, the account has shrunk ''to a projected $14 million this year,'' the AFT director notes, ''it still provides the only source of funding for planning grants to restore mills and historic properties, technical assistance to towns to develop affordable housing, pre-development loans for nonprofit developers of affordable housing, agriculture business promotion, municipal planning grants for land preservation, and rehabilitation of urban greens and community gardens.''

Distributed quarterly, these monies ''have also leveraged unexpected levels of federal and private funds'' and given state agencies ''uncharacteristic flexibility and reliability,'' with more than $33 million over just three years awarded to 130 municipalities for ''time-sensitive land transactions, construction projects and planning,'' and with purchase of development rights on eight farms saving 1,022 acres so far.

''In these challenging economic times, leaders at every level must make difficult budgetary decisions. However, it would be immensely shortsighted to raid the Community Investment Account,'' Director Martin stresses, pointing out that many of its unspent funds ''are obligated already for land deals that have not yet closed or grants that have not yet concluded.''

More about the act and about a Connecticut Housing Coalition campaign for its survival, respectively, at www.ct.gov/doag/cwp/view.asp?a=1366&q=320938 and www.ct-housing.org/Community%20Investment%20Act%20flyer%201-5-09.pdf. -- Courant   3/8/2009

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Connecticut Residents Urged to Restate Support for Transit, Complete Streets

With public impetus spurred by the Second Annual 1000 Friends of Connecticut Smart Growth Conference and the regional Tri-State Transportation Campaign (TSTC) last November, legislation to boost transit and ensure complete streets is ''on the right path'' in the state legislature, writes TSTC senior planner and Connecticut coordinator Ryan Lynch, citing a key provision that from any funds the Department of Transportation (ConnDOT) and municipalities receive ''for construction, resurfacing, restoration, rehabilitation, or relocation of highways, roads or streets, a reasonable amount shall be expended to provide facilities for all users including, but not limited to, bikeways and sidewalks with appropriate curb cuts and ramps.''

Though championed by Joint Committee on Transportation Chairs Representative Tony Guerra and Senator Don DeFronzo, and by other influential lawmakers, the TSTC state coordinator observes, the legislation ''still faces an uphill battle.''

Noting concerns that ''the legislative language will be watered down to make the inclusion of complete streets optional with little to no oversight of the 'opt out' process,'' he encourages residents to restate their support for transit and complete streets at public hearings, through online testimony, and in messages to lawmakers.

1000 Friends of Connecticut also counts on further public involvement for the legislation, summarizing the four bills on its web site as follows:

• ''SB 1093 -- AA Providing for Funds for Municipal Matching Grants for Demand Responsive Transportation for Elderly Persons and Persons with Disabilities. This bill provides funding for the municipal matching grant Dial-A-Ride Program.
• SB 735 -- AA Improving Bicycle and Pedestrian Access. This bill enhances non-motorized transportation alternatives that promote healthy lifestyles, encourage smart growth and reduce congestion. This bill will aid access to transit for walkers and bicyclists.
• HB 5640 -- AAC The Improvement of Public Access to Transit Stops. This bill would provide funding for pedestrian access to transit stops.

In addition, HB 5895 provides funding to establish a bus route between the north and southwest areas of Hartford.''

For details and events see www.tstc.org and http://1000friends-ct.org. -- Tri-State Transportation Campaign   3/6/2009

Resource(s): http://blog.tstc.org/ ; http://1000friends-ct.blogspot.com

Proposed Bills Would Help Connecticut Towns Cut Costs Through Regional Cooperation

Fiercely independent though increasingly burdened by the costs of their often-separate police, fire, school and other services, reports CTcentral.com news writer Hannah Vahl in the Middletown Press, Connecticut's 169 municipalities need regional cooperation to help them through recession and become sustainable over the long term -- an ultimate goal of several bills pushed in the state legislature by House Democratic Speaker Chris Donovan, Democratic Representative Brendan Sharkey and members of his Smart Growth Task Force.

The centerpiece of the package, now in the Planning and Development Committee, the writer reports, is a proposal to return part of the state's $3.5 billion annual sales tax to towns on a regional basis as an incentive for combining services to cut their costs.

Other proposals aim to make the state's 15 regional planning associations work on issues beyond their current focus on federal money for their regions; qualify regions that work together as federally designed economic development districts, to help bring in more federal economic development funds; encourage towns to sign agreements that would free them from competition for commercial projects and facilitate regional tax revenue sharing for such projects; and promote both regional collective bargaining by unions and cooperation among boards of education on curriculum.

Although towns like Essex or Deep River share some services with their neighbors, the writer observes, in other jurisdictional matters they prefer to decide alone.

''We don't like an outside entity dictating to us what we are going to do,'' stressed Essex First Selectman Phil Miller. ''We like self-determination.''

Deep River First Selectman Dick Smith noted that local officials are ''looking all the time for ways to save money,'' but placed little trust in regionalization, saying that the state should rather help towns by rolling back some costly mandates.

''Half of the reason (the town) costs so much to operate are all the mandates,'' he argued. ''It cracks me up that now they think the answer is to regionalize.''

Representative Sharkey pointed out that participation in any regional-level work would be strictly voluntary, but also that cooperation amounts to survival.

''This is a system of government that worked really well in the 1700s but is not necessarily the most efficient way of doing government in the 21st century,'' he said of jurisdictional fragmentation and the cooperation phobia. ''Duplicating services and competing against each other for a grand list of growth is inefficient, and it leads to really bad decisions about how you grow your town. Unless we do something about it soon, we are not going to recognize the state. It is going to become an economic cul-de-sac.'' -- Middletown Press   2/16/2009

Resource(s): www.middletownpress.com/

Editorial: Legislation Could Bring ''New Day'' for Connecticut Smart Growth

Still ''behind the curve on smart growth,'' Connecticut boomed mostly in sprawl -- ''ill-planned, low-density, auto-dependent, single-family residential or strip mall construction on what had been forest or farmland'' -- and though the public belatedly recognized the sprawl-imposed infrastructure and service costs, air and water pollution, energy use and social isolation, it may finally see a new day, says a Hartford Courant editorial on ''sweeping legislation'' just proposed by state Democratic Representative Brendan Sharkey and others in his bipartisan public-private Smart Growth Working Group.

The result of the group's yearlong work, the legislative package focuses on regionalism, cooperation and other smart-growth measures as indispensable for cutting government costs and increasing state competitiveness.

''A core problem with the present system is that it almost requires sprawl,'' the editorial points out. ''Towns have to pay for education and other services, and virtually the only way they can raise revenue is the property tax. So the incentive is to develop all available land, whether the development is appropriate or not.''

In contrast, the proposed laws would let towns ''voluntarily form economic development regions'' -- eligible for federal funds -- sharing commercial tax revenue, and engaging ''in regional collective bargaining, land-use planning, purchasing and other activities.''

Envisioning distribution of a share of sales tax from the region as a state incentive, the proponents also aim for model smart-growth zoning regulations, geographic information system (GIS) mapping, and a streamlined brownfield remediation system.

Although ''it won't be easy to overcome years of distrust between towns and the state,'' the editorial hopes for the best.

''With local budgets strained and the state heading for a major deficit, it is essential to reduce the cost of government,'' it stresses. ''If we the people can make government more efficient and save farms, reduce car trips and clean the air in the bargain, we should.'' -- Hartford Courant   1/27/2009

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Report: Quality of Connecticut Rail Service May Reverse Ridership Gains

In concurrent steps toward better transit in traffic-plagued southern Connecticut, Governor M. Jodi Rell's citizen-based Connecticut Rail Commuter Council (CRCC) warned that rush-hour overcrowding, poor maintenance and inadequate parking at the Metro-North Railroad line between New Haven and New York City may reverse the 8-percent ridership gain in the past two years and hurt the state economy, and the governor told the Department of Transportation (DOT) to convene a task force, including the CRCC and regional planning agencies, to recommend parking solutions for both the New Haven line and the Shore Line East, between New Haven and New London.

''The economic fates and fortune of this state rely on Fairfield County, and Fairfield County relies on the quality of service on Metro-North. If it becomes too unpleasurable, people will move away,'' said CRCC Chairman Jim Cameron, having sent the council's 2008 report to the governor and the DOT.

The governor echoed his concerns.

''Parking is a significant part of my larger public transit vision. That broader vision includes planning for transit-oriented development, station access, bicycle and pedestrian options and connections with bus service,'' she said, also announcing a $4 million bond issue for a second parking garage at Union Station in New Haven.

The CRCC report, notes Greenwich Times reporter Martin B. Cassidy, acknowledges that the arrival of some 300 new M8 railcars by next year will improve service and travel condition, but worries about proposed design changes and construction delays for the New Haven Railyard to cut its price, tripled over three years, from $1.2 billion to $849 million.

''If we've learned anything from the maintenance of the existing fleet, the money for the new cars will be wasted if we don't assure we have the proper shop facilities to care for them,'' observed Chairman Cameron, saying he is ''a little angry at the Legislature and the governor for nickel-and-diming this project.''

He also had some strong words for the DOT for lack of parking at New Haven Line stations, most of which have up to five-year waiting lists, and for the planned relocation of an aged 800-space garage at the Stamford station to make room for a large mixed-use project.

''I don't know why we're talking about encouraging people to use mass transit when the DOT isn't doing anything to increase parking at the stations,'' he said, and turning to the Stamford move, added, ''They cannot go out and swap the real estate where the parking lot now exists for commuters to develop a mall if it means parking for the 800 people is going to be moved any significant distance. I'm not against transit-oriented development, but kicking 800 people out of their parking spaces doesn't benefit anybody.'' -- Greenwich Times   1/21/2009

Resource(s): www.westport-news.com/; www.ct.gov/governorrell/site/default.asp

Citing 1949 Housing Act, Editorial Urges Caution When Using Federal Funds to Fight Sprawl

Federal recovery funds should fight sprawl and spur smart growth in Connecticut and nationwide, says a Hartford Courant editorial, cautioning against repetition of the mistakes of the 1949 Housing Act, which sought to eliminate slums and covered two-thirds of ''urban renewal'' costs, but caused large-scale demolition of historic neighborhoods for apartment towers and civic buildings, and -- together with the equally misguided federal decision to run the new interstate highways through downtowns -- pushed cities into a long decline only recently stopped or reversed.

If the massive public investments ''are to do more than create temporary construction jobs, they ought to be part of a sensible plan,'' the editorial points out, echoing New York Times columnist David Brooks' call for a ''larger social vision.''

Since the outgoing administration lacked such a vision, the editorial observes, President-elect Barack Obama's readiness ''to get money out for 'shovel-ready' projects could preclude proper planning on the federal level, thus punting the problem to the states.''

Convinced that a ''shovel-ready'' criterion isn't sufficient, the editorial wants the money to be spent ''to strengthen town centers and connect them with modern transit.''

Seeing the state's Conservation and Development Policies Plan -- organized around ''growth management,'' or smart growth -- as a possible framework for infrastructure investment, the editorial expects the federal money to help revitalize already built areas, improve transportation options, and save ''open space and other environmental, cultural and historical resources.'' -- Hartford Courant   12/14/2008

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Opinion: Drastic Spending Cuts May Not Be Best Action to Fight Deficits

''When your car is skidding on ice, the first reaction is to slam on the brakes. But experience tells us that a lighter touch will actually keep us from careening off the road,'' writes House of Representatives Democratic Deputy Speaker and University of Hartford Economics Professor Demetrios Giannaros in a Hartford Courant guest opinion, cautioning the state against attempts to fight rising budget deficits with ''drastic spending cuts,'' which would inflict more pain on residents.

In the current economic crisis, he writes, Connecticut is perhaps ''a year behind the national trends'' and depends more than many other states ''on the financial, insurance and export businesses'' -- all plagued by particular retrenchments, ''slowly crippled by fear,'' and, in turn, responsible for further fiscal contraction, higher unemployment, income and tax-revenue loss, and deeper budget deficits.

The budget accounts for about 11 percent of the state economy, the deficit grows ''with a reduction in spending and investment by either the government of the private sector,'' and the ''greater the reductions, the faster our economy goes down,'' he explains, noting that similar policies by Republican President Herbert Hoover after the 1929 crash, along with tightened bank credit, worsened the depression until Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt began to implement his New Deal in 1933.

Consequently, he continues, to stimulate economic recovery and avert job losses, the state should avoid tax increases and significant spending reductions; expedite long-term infrastructure projects already approved by the General Assembly for bonding, including investment in transportation, bridges, colleges, universities, schools, public safety and environmental protection; and solve the current 2009 deficit problem by cutting wasteful programs and using the $1.4 billion ''rainy day fund'' savings, in coordination ''with the pending economic recovery stimulation actions to be taken by President-elect Barack Obama.''

In addition, the state should avoid steps that would ''reduce the income sources of the poor and needy, for humanitarian reasons but also because they spend 100 percent of their available income,'' the House deputy speaker and macroeconomics expert points out. ''During a recession, a dollar taken from the poor reduces economic activity more than does a dollar taken from other income classes.''

And to close the 2010-11 budget gaps, he adds, the state should ''reduce future spending commitments -- through things such as a more aggressive use of smart growth and regional government to take advantage of the economies of scale -- and cover the difference through an 'economic recovery bonded fund' financed by the federal government.'' -- Hartford Courant   12/7/2008

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

CEO for Cities Addresses 1,000 Friends of Connecticut Smart Growth Conference

''Many of the assumptions on which we built our communities in the last 30, 40 years are untrue,'' said CEOs for Cities CEO Carol Coletta, host of the nationally syndicated ''Smart City'' radio show, in a keynote speech at a 1,000 Friends of Connecticut annual smart growth conference in New Haven, mentioning the consumption-focused society's belief in forever cheap oil, the love of cars and backyards, and the constant push for more roads and highways as solutions to all problems. ''We've been laying down pavement in the United States a lot faster than we've been growing,'' she told the audience of hundreds of officials, activists and concerned residents from across the state, reports Bridgeport News writer Brad Durrell, noting that city executives want to make sure that infrastructure funds from any economic package under President Barack Obama aren't all spent on roads and bridges.

With strong cities always ''the backbone of a strong country,'' Carol Coletta stressed, today's young professionals increasingly prefer urban neighborhoods, attracted by convenience, activity, city ''vibe,'' and, especially, ''the sense of community'' and ''spontaneous connections.''

Her speech and the 1,000 Friends' vision of greater state aid for municipalities and their greater fiscal flexibility set the tone at workshops on brownfield revitalization, delivery of local food to local markets, historic preservation, links between smart growth and climate change, pluses and minuses of property tax fixes, transit-oriented development, and job mobility and transportation.

A longtime smart-growth advocate, Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch expects the new focus on urban areas, energy efficiency and economic sustainability to help his city.

''We have to wean ourselves off this addiction to foreign oil, so urban properties will increase in value because they are located near mass transit,'' he said. ''If we are to maintain our economic standard of living in America, we have to do more with less.''

State Democratic Representative Brendan Sharkey, member of a legislative smart-growth committee, noted that to encourage development in cities and inner suburbs, the committee may move to create a special land-use appeals court, offer incentives for regional cooperation, and allow regional tax revenue sharing.

Alarmed by a growing ''revolt'' over high property taxes, which also hurt the state's competitiveness, Representative Sharkey attributed the increases partly to poor land-use decisions and misguided tax policies.

Friends' Board Co-chair Sue Merrow pointed out that the state's tax system forces municipalities to expand their tax base through commercial development, often on another town's border, which means more sprawl, while Friends President Heidi Green thought the state could get extra revenue by charging sales taxes on Internet purchases, eliminating dated tax credit programs, and increasing state income tax rates.

And Bridgeport-based Workplace Inc. President Joseph Carbone and Stamford-based Business Council of Fairfield County Vice President Joseph McGee called for better mass transit as vital for the long-term economic prospects of southwestern Connecticut.

The region must keep attracting immigrants, improve the outlook for urban youth, and tap into the skills of retirees, all especially likely to use transit, said Joseph Carbone, with Joseph McGee adding that the 419,000 Fairfield County workers are coming from farther away each year, mostly by ever-more congested highways.

''When businesses look at this, they become nervous,'' he said, also hoping for more transit-oriented development, creation of a non-political commission to set priorities for spending transportation capital funds, and construction of taller buildings in city centers to enable across-the-spectrum wage earners to live near their jobs. -- Bridgeport News 11.24.2008   11/24/2008

Resource(s): www.acorn-online.com/

Katz: Obama Administration Will Recognize Importance of Strong Cities

''This economy is a time to tighten belts and focus investment instead of spreading investment like peanut butter (and saying), 'We have 169 towns, we have to treat them equally','' commented Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program Director Bruce Katz on the state's growth and fiscal challenges at a 1,000 Friends of Connecticut meeting in downtown Norwalk, emphasizing President-elect Barack Obama's readiness to strengthen federal commitment to cities and metropolitan regions as new-economy engines, but telling an interviewer later the wide beliefs -- shared by his hosts and Senate Democratic President Donald Williams Jr. -- that he was to join the presidential transition team and eventually lead a White House Office of Urban Policy were premature.

''The question is, can you build a 21st-century economy without vital cities? My attitude is you can't,'' Director Katz stressed in his speech, seeing the problem as especially acute in Connecticut, ''a mostly suburban state where cities are relatively weak, small and under-leveraged.''

Although Hartford has the state capitol and New Haven is famous for Yale University, with other cities also hosting ''major educational institutions,'' they all ''bear the burden of poverty for the state and they're highly racially and ethnically stratified,'' he observed, confident in change under the President-elect's metropolitan agenda, persuasively outlined in his June campaign speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

It was ''an aggressive and ambitious vision about why the nation needs strong cities (and how) the federal government through infrastructure, economic development and taxes has a huge effect on development patterns,'' Director Katz said, pointing out that the President-elect ''is someone, from his community organizing days in Chicago to his state Senate days, that has really dealt with the social, economic and environmental challenges facing cities and suburbs.''

With the meeting held at a Spanish restaurant on historic Wall Street, city officials expect to turn into a showcase for smart growth, reports Norwalk Advocate writer Brian Lockhart, Director Katz added that both Norwalk and New Haven are attempting ''heroic things'' and the state must help them realize their redevelopment goals. -- Advocate, Worldchanging   11/9/2008

Resource(s): www.stamfordadvocate.com/ ; www.worldchanging.com/

Commentary: Regional Revenue Sharing Could Benefit Connecticut's Towns

In Connecticut, ''our 17th-century system of 169 separate towns offering duplicative services is destroying our economic competitiveness,'' now not just with New England and New York, but also with China, India and Latin America, writes newly reelected state Democratic Representative Brendan Sharkey in a Hartford Courant guest commentary, urging a more efficient and regionally coordinated spending and planning approach as crucial for smart growth.

A member of the bipartisan Smart Growth Working Group, which has spent most of the year gathering research data and input from experts and residents, Representative Sharkey promises its unanimous legislative package for the 2009 General Assembly session that opens in January will include many cost-efficiency recommendations focused on regionalism.

He mentions the regional revenue-sharing concept, which would let towns come together to encourage economic growth and jointly benefit from new tax revenue; unification of such school system elements as curriculums and special education services; and regional collective bargaining for town employees and teachers.

''And if towns and cities come together to implement these ideas on a voluntary basis,'' he writes, ''perhaps the state can return a portion of the sales tax generated in that region back to the participating towns -- a powerful financial incentive that provides alternative revenues for towns without raising taxes.''

None of those ideas would ''require a new form of county government'' since the present regional entities, including councils of governments and regional education service centers, can handle the tasks at minimal cost.

But to turn the ideas into practice, the representative stresses, the constituents need to confirm their so-often-heard electoral wishes as lawmakers debate the issues in the months ahead. -- Hartford Courant   11/9/2008

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Redding's Infrastructure Hinders Compliance with State Affordable Housing Law

Although the state's 20-year-old affordable housing law, statute 8-30g, mandates 10 percent of affordable housing in all towns, the town of Redding still has none of its 340 target units, because 90 percent of the town's area lies in a public water supply watershed inappropriate for higher densities and because it lacks an urban center and a sewer system, said Planning Commissioner Rob Dean at a recent Board of Selectmen hearing on the draft Town Plan of Conservation and Development, under which officials would pursue solutions through a state HomeCT program using required ''smart growth techniques.''

It means developing sites linked to sewer, transportation and retail services, reports Redding Pilot writer Rachel Kirkpatrick, with the HomeCT program allowing towns to pick sites, set design standards and control construction.

''If we don't take this approach, we'll see developers doing it for us,'' warned Planning Commissioner Toby Welles. ''This is a matter of trying to take the lead.''

Having no affordable housing, the writer observes, Redding is vulnerable to lawsuits by developers for any denial of projects that include at least 30 percent of such units.

Taking advantage of the density incentive in the affordable housing law, she continues, a developer could ask officials to approve a project that would contain all the town's necessary 340 affordable units, but also almost 800 at the market rate.

If unable to accommodate such density and taken to court, the town would have to demonstrate that it refused the project due to ''a compelling health and safety need, the importance of which supersedes the acknowledged need for affordable housing.''

Under the town's draft plan, an update required by the state every 10 years, officials could concentrate affordable housing development in the village of Georgetown and, perhaps, the village of West Redding, focusing on projects with all units deemed affordable.

Even if reaching the town's full 10-percent affordable-unit target is ''not realistic,'' noted Commissioner Dean, completion of just one qualified project would earn the town a three-year moratorium on developer denial appeals under the 8-30g statute.

With the draft recommending HomeCT construction on town-owned land, possibly by nonprofit groups and definitely 100-percent affordable, he stressed, ''Doing projects that are 100 percent affordable gives the town greater leverage over density.''

See the draft at www.townofreddingct.org. -- Redding Pilot   10/16/2008

Resource(s): www.hersamacorn.com/

1000 Friends of Connecticut Helping Make Smart Growth a Major Election Issue

Formed in 2005 to promote environmental responsibility and sustainable development, the Hartford-based 1000 Friends of Connecticut nonprofit group, now about to conclude a series of 10 electoral legislative-candidate forums throughout the state, has earned wide recognition and remarkable political momentum for its smart-growth campaign, reports Hartford Courant writer Regine Labossiere, quoting Friends President Heidi Green, state Democratic Representatives Brendan Sharkey and Lonnie Reed, their Republican colleague Kevin Witkos, and Simsbury Citizen First Chairwoman Kirsten Griebel.

''To some extent, 1000 Friends is riding a wave and the wave is moving, not because we're here, but because the need for more sustainable development policies is so apparent across the state,'' Heidi Green told the writer. ''Our profile is higher than it was two years ago, but I think it's because the issue is so important.''

Representative Sharkey, who set up a bipartisan legislative Smart Growth Working Group last March, specifically credits 1000 Friends and other advocacy groups for making smart growth and economic development -- especially the need for property tax reform, without which municipalities will continue to compete for commercial projects -- so potent in the 2008 electoral races.

''These groups are helping to provide the impetus for candidates to be responsive,'' he stressed. ''That will translate for those lucky enough to be elected in November, that will translate into real initiatives at the start of the session.''

Acknowledging Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell's point ''that there is a real revolt'' brewing over the property tax problem, he noted the candidates who don't recognize the ''gathering storm'' do so ''at their own peril.''

Representative Reed, who helped organize a property-tax-reform summit last month, said smart growth ''hits all the hot buttons'' in her town, Branford, where people ''care about smart economic development'' and fear sprawl.

Republican Representative Witkos, seeking a Senate seat this year, finds the same sentiments in his Canton hometown area and increasingly in the legislature.

''I've seen a lot of different campaign materials out there,'' he observed, ''and almost everybody mentions smart growth.''

And the Simsbury Citizens First political party, formed last year on a smart-growth platform, seated four its candidates on Simsbury land-use boards the same year, with Chairwoman Griebel noting that an earlier-created Simsbury Homeowners Advocating Responsible Expansion (SHARE) group, to which she belongs, couldn't even get most candidates to comment on the ''big-box'' issue in its first electoral campaign.

''There is a greater awareness of the appropriate vs. the inappropriate development'' now, she said. ''I see it everywhere.''

Indeed, big-box projects were eventually turned down in Canton and Simsbury, thanks to grassroots campaigns, the writer adds, once again quoting 1000 Friends President Green, whose group is planning to step up its smart-growth efforts.

''We are continuing to ramp up our organizing,'' she said, ''and we'll continue that after the election.''

See details at www.1000friends-ct.org. -- Hartford Courant   10/13/2008

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Stamford Approves Mixed-Use, Mixed-Income Metro Green Project

''As far as transit-oriented development is concerned, there is no better example than this project,'' said Stamford's City Land Use Bureau Chief Robin Stein about a proposed 17-story office building (Metro Tower) within a few minutes walk of the city's train station and part of its ongoing smart-growth Metro Green development in the long-neglected South End, telling Zoning Board members before they unanimously approved the final site plan that ''(t)he only way it could be more transit-oriented was if it was inside the train station.''

Mixed-use, mixed-income and the city's most environmentally friendly development so far, reports Stamford Advocate writer Elizabeth Kim, Metro Green also will include the region's ''greenest'' affordable housing complex -- 238 for-sale and rental apartments.

Construction of the first 50 units was launched by Jonathan Rose Cos. in June, with its W&M Industries partner hoping to break ground for Metro Tower within 12 months.

Separately, the writer notes, Building and Land Technology started construction on its own Gateway site nearby, which will also include a Harbor Point office complex just west of Metro Green.

During earlier Zoning Board hearings Gateway and Metro Green developers voiced concerns about the traffic impact of each other's projects, but the writer thinks their mutual objections didn't significantly affect the board's decisions.

Expecting his Metro Tower to meet the highest standards of the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, W&M Industries President Anthony Malkin credited city leaders, including land use bureau chief Stein, for their advocacy of high-density, energy-efficient development and their cooperation with builders.

''Stamford,'' he said, ''gets it and understands the importance of intelligent growth and realizes this is the direction we need to go.'' -- Advocate   10/8/2008

Resource(s): www.stamfordadvocate.com/

Elected Officials Take Stand Against Site Choice for Army Reserve Training Center

In another push against a U.S. Corps of Engineers plan to put an Army Reserve training center at a largely farmland-and-wetland site in northwest Middletown, reports Middletown Press writer Sloan Brewster, the city's Common Council passed a unanimous resolution opposing the choice, with Connecticut Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, flanked by state Democratic Senator Paul Doyle and Republican Representative Ray Kalinowski, telling its public meeting he notified the corps that it had embarked on an ''illegal'' course, which he will fight if necessary.

Given the 88-acre site's historic and topographic characteristic, ''a complete comprehensive environmental impact statement is mandatory,'' stressed the Attorney General in his letter to the corps, calling its suggested basic environmental assessment ''legally insufficient.''

Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell has expressed her opposition in a conciliatory tone.

As state National Guard commander-in-chief, she said in a statement, she has directed Maj. Gen. Thad Martin to work with the army to scale back the facility, expected to house units from several state facilities that will be decommissioned under the federal 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC), by keeping the 250th Engineer Company in New London.

This, the governor thinks, would require less parking for the center's military vehicles, reduce its personnel number from 1,046 to 861, and cut the building floor from 273,000 to 219,000 square feet -- all together allowing the Army to select a smaller and better site.

''I have also asked Gen. Martin to convey my sincere hope that the Corps of Engineers will work with the people of Middletown in an open and public process,'' Governor Rell added. ''That is the best way to resolve this important issue to the satisfaction of everyone involved.''

Supporting the idea of scaling down the proposed center, Democratic Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz criticized the governor for missing the opportunity to press the Army to make its site selection with an eye on smart growth, a request the secretary and Democratic Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro sent her a while ago.

''Gov. Rell still has not responded to our letter regarding that she involve the office of responsible growth in the search for a suitable site for the training facility and that she submit this search for a full review by the office of brownfield remediation and development,'' the Secretary said in a statement. ''While we agree that the new training facility is crucial to our national security and will indeed benefit the economy of its future host community, I strongly believe that the selection of a new training facility for the army and the Connecticut National Guard should emphasize the reutilization of brownfields and direct the U.S. Army of Engineers away from sites that would destroy pristine farmland or wetlands and disrupt the quality of life in residential neighborhoods.'' -- Middletown Press   8/4/2008

Resource(s): www.middletownpress.com/

Planner Says Army Should Locate New Training Center on Brownfield, Not Virgin Land

''It seems everyone has gotten the message about smart growth planning these days -- except the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,'' wrote Middletown-based architect and planner Catherine Johnson in a Hartford Courant commentary, hoping someone will dissuade the Army from siting a 273,000-square-foot regional reserve-training center on 88 acres in the western section of Middletown -- a choice strongly opposed by residents concerned about traffic, wetlands, water pressure and fire protection -- and convince it to select a brownfield, possibly near transit.

Though the federal government insists ''it doesn't buy or use contaminated land, including land the government itself contaminated,'' by excluding anything but virgin land, the architect-planner stressed, ''the government is making a mockery of Connecticut's smart growth and conservation initiatives'' and Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell needs to intervene with the Army brass.

Connecticut Democratic Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, Middletown Mayor Sebastian Giuliano and four state lawmakers said the same in a letter to the governor, reports Courant writer Josh Kovner, expecting the Middletown Common Council to join the pressure with a resolution urging the Army to heed the city's public interests.

The council, the mayor and City Planner William Warner want the Army to focus on three sites off Route 9 in south Middletown -- a Pratt & Whitney tract, a former feldspar quarry, and land near an auto salvage yard.

Army Corps project team head Diane McCartin told the writer the Pratt & Whitney tract was considered but excluded due to the lack of details on its contamination and the scope of the needed cleanup, while the other two sites would cost too much to develop.

She acknowledged the selected site's challenges, the writer notes, but was sure that engineering and environmental studies would suggest solutions to traffic, flood, drainage and other problems.

Still, wrote architect-planner Catherine Johnson in her commentary two days earlier, the Army reserve training center should be built ''on an established industrial parcel adjacent to a downtown,'' since it's ''less expensive to clean up such a brownfield than it is to drag all the necessary infrastructure into the country'' and since many central Connecticut municipalities ''would love to revitalize a former industrial area'' with an influx of 150 steady workers and up to 800 reservists on weekends.

Mentioning two brownfields in New Britain -- a city some 12 miles northwest of Middletown, but with rail links, she added a persuasive argument.

''As fuel becomes more expensive, we must think about moving troops by transit, as was done in World War II,'' she wrote. ''My father got on a train in Hartford in 1942, enlisted in New Haven, was trained in Pennsylvania and boarded a troop ship in California, all by public transit.'' -- Hartford Courant   7/27/2008

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Editorial: Connecticut Overdue for Plan to Overhaul State Bridges

With 1,400 of Connecticut's 4,175 bridges structurally deficient or functionally obsolete -- about 34 percent, in contrast to the 25 percent national average -- a fix-it-first policy is essential to avoid what happened 25 years ago, when partial collapse of an I-95 bridge over the Mianus River in Greenwich killed three people and seriously hurt another three, but as gas prices hover high above $4 a gallon, says a Hartford Courant editorial, the policy ''needs to be coupled with transit improvements and other smart growth initiatives.''

After the Mianus tragedy, the editorial recalls, democratic Governor William O'Neill (1980-91) and legislative leaders created a Special Transportation Fund for a $5.6 billion, 10-year reconstruction plan, which allowed the state to overhaul almost 1,500 bridges, repave more than 4,000 miles of roads, and ensure other improvements, becoming a national model.

Such an effort is once again needed, the editorial points out, quoting a 25th Mianus anniversary statement from the nonprofit Tri-State Transportation Campaign (Connecticut, New York and New Jersey).

''The Connecticut Department of Transportation spends only 22 percent of its transportation dollars on maintaining existing infrastructure, while 36 percent is dedicated to highway expansion projects, a dangerous allocation of funds in a state with some of the worst bridges in the country,'' stressed the watchdog group's Connecticut Coordinator Ryan Lynch.

Noting that other states in the region invest much more to sustain their roads, highways, bridges and transit systems, he said ''we should follow their lead.''

The editorial echoes the statement.

''We should have learned a hard lesson in Greenwich a quarter-century ago,'' it tells state leaders. ''We cannot allow another bridge to collapse.'' -- Hartford Courant   7/14/2008

Resource(s): www.courant.com/ ; www.tstc.org

Stamford Approves Funds for Downtown Light Rail Feasibility Study

''Anyone who drives around Stamford now realizes that we're really in gridlock,'' said the city's Democratic Representative Patrick White as its board voted 19-11 -- with 10 members absent -- for a $141,000 downtown light rail feasibility study, adding ''Probably the most efficient way of moving masses of people is a light rail system.''

Republican Representative Carl Fransetti, reports Stamford Times writer Chase Wright, thought light rail might not work for the city, because of a low I-95 underpass, steep South End inclines, traffic delays during construction, and some system characteristics.

He suggested a comprehensive study of all options to ease downtown congestion, advice in line with Democratic Representative John Zelinsky's concern about light-rail costs, estimated at roughly $110 million to $120,000 million.

He dismissed city transportation planner Josh Lecar's argument that state and federal governments would be interested in funding light rail. ''Let's not kid ourselves,'' he told the planner. ''The money is going to come from our constituents, our hard-pressed taxpayers.''

In contrast, Democratic Representative Eileen Heaphy put the issue in a larger context.

''We have to look to the future,'' she stressed. ''We can't just stay where we are with all the changes going on around us and not consider the transportation challenges we will be facing in the future.'' -- Stamford Times   7/11/2008

Resource(s): www.thestamfordtimes.com/

Editorial Urges Connecticut to Adopt Comprehensive Smart Growth Policy

The massive post-World-War-II move to the suburbs was predicated mostly ''on cheap gas and cheap cars,'' but as gas hovers high above $4 a gallon now and companies ask prospective workers how far away they live -- because a long-distance commuter to a job that pays $10-$20 an hour might not net enough to afford the drive and the company could lose its recruitment investment -- ''we reap what we have sown,'' says a Hartford Courant editorial on the cost of sprawl, urging the state ''to fully embrace a smart growth policy that encourages workers and companies to move to sites in town centers or on transit lines.''

Public policy that reduces the nation's oil needs is now ''imperative,'' and it must ensure easy access to transit and make provisions for those who want to walk or bike but can't because of dangerous streets and a lack of pedestrian-bike paths, the editorial points out, encouraged by efforts of state Democratic Representative J. Brendan Sharkey, whose Smart Growth Working Group will present the 2009 session with a ''comprehensive, coordinated smart growth program.''

Its committees are studying land use, regional efficiency, economic development and property taxes, to fill the gaps in Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell's ''responsible growth'' program she expanded slowly over the past few years, helped by legislative leaders, 1,000 Friends of Connecticut, HomeConnecticut affordability advocates, and other activists.

''You have to recognize that this is a complex issue. If you are going to address it, you have to pull the different facets together,'' said Representative Sharkey, honored recently by the Connecticut Community Development Association (CCDA) as 2008 Legislator of the Year for his work on property tax reform, smart growth and housing improvements.

''Smart growth has been treated as something of an academic exercise for the past few years,'' the editorial concludes. ''The prospect of gas going to $5 and beyond suggests that now we really need to do it.'' -- Hartford Courant   6/25/2008

Resource(s): www.courant.com/ ; www.housedems.ct.gov/index.asp

Planner Honored Posthumously for Main Street Revitalization Work

''Before it was in vogue, she was an advocate of smart growth,'' said Connecticut Light & Power (CL&P) economic development manager John O'Toole of the late Capital Region Council of Governments principal planner Linda Osten, an ''activist and visionary'' who died of cancer at age 49 last December, honoring the Norwich native posthumously with the CL&P award for outstanding contributions to Main Street Revitalization, a special individual tribute during the Connecticut Main Street Center (CMSC) presentation of its eight 2008 Awards for Excellence on June 9 at the Wauregan Ballroom in downtown Norwich.

The Wauregan itself, built in 1856 and long the most luxurious hotel between New York and Boston, reports Norwich Bulletin writer Michael Gannon, won the CMSC award in the adaptive reuse category for the Fairfield-based B + B green architecture, planning and development firm, which helped save the historic building from the wrecking ball and restored it as mixed-income housing and retail space.

The program, said CMSC President and CEO John Simone in an earlier press release, ''was created to recognize outstanding projects, individuals and partnerships in community efforts to bring traditional downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts back to life, socially and economically.''

Its 2008 award winners also include Upper Albany Main Street; Mansfield Downtown Partnership; Herman Todd, President of Living Word Imprints; Main Street Waterbury; Simsbury Main Street Partnership; Willimantic Renaissance, Inc.; and Marilyn Lisi, Executive Director, Upper Albany Main Street.

Visit the Connecticut Main Street Center website for details.-- Norwich Bulletin   6/10/2008

Resource(s): www.norwichbulletin.com/

Editorial: Connecticut Needs ''Aggressive'' Smart Growth Program to Meet CO2 Reduction Goals

On its February roll of the nation's 50 greenest cities, ranked for their energy use, transportation options, green building and spaces, and recycling and environmental awareness, Popular Science magazine gave three top spots to Portland, San Francisco and Boston, while no Connecticut city has made the list, with Hartford Courant editor Tom Condon pointing out that to meet scientists' goals of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 60 to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, the state and cities need an ''aggressive smart growth strategy,'' which would also reduce driving.

Citing the Urban Land Institute's (ULI) Growing Cooler book, which shows that ''a shift to more compact development should lead to a 30 percent reduction in driving,'' the editor writes that the state's nascent smart growth program ''has yet to result in any actual smart growth.''

He mentions three General Assembly bills that would make the program stronger and more comprehensive.

A broad climate change bill would require the state to help towns draw up ''smart growth land-use regulations,'' which would facilitate dense mixed-use development now frequently prohibited by outdated local zoning.

Another bill would offer tax credits for green buildings, but its recently removed provision to limit the credits to construction within a half-mile of transit stations should be reinstated, since transit ''is a big part of green.''

And the so-called Face of Connecticut bill would provide additional money for acquisition of critical open space.

''There are many more steps to take, from carbon impact fees for new development to more bike paths. We will need congestion pricing on increasingly crowded highways,'' the editor observes, counting on Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Joan McDonald to continue the great work she previously did in New York City.

Instrumental in drafting Mayor Michael Bloomberg's PlaNYC, whose 127 green measures include congestion pricing as a way to reduce carbon emissions 30 percent below 2005 levels, Commissioner McDonald is already working on Connecticut's overall economic development strategy, including transportation, infrastructure and brownfields, the editor notes, concluding, ''Lets hope it will become PlanCT.'' -- Popular Science, Hartford Courant   4/27/2008

Resource(s): www.courant.com/ ; www.popsci.com/

Bill Would Require Bike, Pedestrian Paths Along New Connecticut State Highways

''We have to start incorporating bikes into our transportation routes. When we talk about smart growth, people will use bike lanes if they think they're safe,'' said the General Assembly Transportation Committee's Senate Vice Chairman Bob Duff after the committee endorsed a bill -- sponsored by his party colleague, Democratic Representative Thomas J. Kehoe -- that requires the Department of Transportation (DOT) to build bike and pedestrian paths along new state highways, sets a three-foot minimum ''safe distance'' buffer between vehicles and cyclists, and proposes $200,000 for a related ''Share the Road'' public-awareness and education campaign.

''With higher gas prices, now's the time to think about alternative modes of transportation,'' the senator told Connecticut Post writer Ken Dixon, with the committee's House Vice Chairman Antonio Guerrera adding about dedicated bike lanes, ''The DOT is starting to use them in more and more projects, but if we require them, in the long run, it'll be better for the state.''

DOT spokesman Judd Everhart agreed.

''The department makes every effort to support and promote bicycle and pedestrian access in the design of its projects,'' he noted. ''Promoting alternate modes of transportation is an important part of our effort to reduce the number of cars on the road -- especially single-occupant cars. Promoting the safety of bicyclists goes hand-in-hand with this effort.''

The safety issues and the need to change attitudes both among drivers and cyclists are on everyone's mind, the writer observes, quoting bike shop owner John Paige of Shelton.

''I've seen turning cars hit bicycles, I've seen their mirrors whack bike handlebars, I've seen bikes hit from behind,'' he said. ''I've also seen a lot of cyclists not use reflective gear and others wearing dark clothing.''

He likes the bill, but suspects that the three-foot safety buffer for cyclists may create risks on narrow roads if cars move left over the center line.

''You're creating a law that requires drivers to go over the double yellow,'' he cautioned. ''I could see where that could cause liability problems.'' -- Connecticut Post   4/5/2008

Resource(s): www.connpost.com/

Smart Growth, Non-Motorized Transport Solutions Are Key Points in Draft Report from ConnDOT Reform Commission

With no single issue having ''generated as many comments as the need for enhanced bicycle and pedestrian services,'' Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell's Commission on the Reform of the Department of Transportation recommended creation of ''a higher-level function responsible for non-motorized transportation and smart growth,'' pointing out in its draft report that ''ConnDOT's culture is dominated by individuals who solve transportation and mobility issues by building or expanding highways and by acquiring rail cars or buses'' and must be changed to help expand transit-oriented development and ''to encourage smart growth initiatives that shorten the distance between people and their places of work, recreation, shopping, school, and other vital services such as health care.''

As long argued by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut) advocacy group, the governor's commission emphasized both the potential of congestion pricing for reducing gridlock and the necessity of a ''Fix-it-First'' policy for limiting capital outlays.

Led by Pitney Bowes Corp. Executive Chairman Michael Critelli, the commission repeatedly called for smart growth solutions.

''Increasingly, transportation needs to be integrated with economic and community development, smart growth, environmental, public safety and homeland security initiatives,'' it stated, eventually concluding, ''If ConnDOT seriously incorporates smart growth, transit-oriented development, bicycle and pedestrian travel, demand reduction and other strategies into its thinking, it is possible that the funding gap may be considerably lower than the $3.27 billion ConnDOT has put in its 2007 Master Transportation Plan.''

Thanking Chairman Critelli and all group members for their diligent work, Governor Rell promised close attention to their 30 immediate and long-term recommendations, and an announcement of several even further-reaching initiatives in her State of the State speech February 6.

When the reform is completed, she said in a statement, ConnDOT ''will be refocused on a transportation strategy that will carry Connecticut through the 21st century -- a strategy that recognizes the vital importance of mass transit, smart growth, transit-oriented development and the critical role of all forms of transportation in the maintenance and growth of our economy.''

Still, Tri-State Transportation Campaign blog contributor Ryan Lynch notes that the governor's support for a Route 11 extension and the recent release of $3 million to study the environmental impact of the prospective widening of a 32-mile stretch of I-84 indicates that she ''has missed the larger truth that highway expansion is incompatible with her smart growth and sustainability efforts.'' -- State of Connecticut, Tri-State Transportation Campaign   1/29/2008

Resource(s): www.tstc.org/ ; www.ct.gov/

Editorial: Small Steps, Not Big Projects, Offer Best Hope for Improving Connecticut Transportation

Sprawled throughout the landscape into cul-de-sacs off long country roads, Connecticut lacks the development density to be rescued by transit and must now ''put a hold on the practices that got us here'' by shifting its Department of Transportation's priorities, says a Bridgeport Connecticut Post editorial, agreeing with status-quo critics that too much money ''goes to new roads, and not enough to alternatives like walking and biking paths, mass transit improvement and responsible land-use initiatives.''

Like the Tri-State Transportation Campaign advocacy group (Connecticut, New York, New Jersey), which works ''on solutions that can get going right now,'' the daily seeks multi-level civic and political involvement to ''rescue us from our self-created malaise.''

Towns should foster development that frees people from their constant car dependency and they should reduce ''vehicular traffic in stages,'' while preparing for bigger changes later.

The state should increasingly focus ''on the most sustainable transit of all -- walking and biking,'' since studies show that even a small percentage of cars taken from the road during peak hours can greatly improve traffic flow.

''It's not about dictating where people can and can't live, or what kind of car they can drive, or removing personal choice of any kind. It's about giving people options,'' the editorial stresses. ''There are plenty of people who would welcome the opportunity to walk across the street to go shopping rather than sitting in the car 15 minutes to go half a block.'' -- Connecticut Post   12/5/2007

Resource(s): www.connpost.com/

Editorial: New Approach Needed to Solve Connecticut's I-95 Traffic Woes

Opened January 1958 as a ''ribbon of hope'' for 50,000 cars daily, the state's 111-mile portion of I-95 now has its southwestern half through Fairfield and New Haven counties jammed by 150,000 vehicles many hours a day, with the new electronic signs on delays meaning little to those on the road, writes E/Environmental Magazine editor Jim Motavalli in The New York Times, telling Connecticut officials to ''stop trying to 'fix' I-95'' and ''focus on public transit, variable toll pricing and smart growth.''

No efforts in the past several years to ease I-95 traffic helped reduce its growth and the situation is unlikely to change without a different approach, the editor warns.

''Of course, there's always talk about widening I-95 and 'double decking' a 40-mile stretch from New Haven to Greenwich, but 20 years of construction, a price tag well into the billions and outrage from environmentalists has kept such projects at bay,'' he continues, calling the state ''lucky to have regional rail,'' even if ''very few commuters use it to reach in-state jobs.''

To ensure change, he writes, area workers and commuters need more parking at rail stations, the right to take bikes on rush-hour trains, more employer bus and shuttle services, and more financial incentives to use transit.

The state also needs ''variable toll pricing, under which drivers would pay more at peak travel hours,'' he points out, aware that the reintroduction of the tolls, removed from the New Haven-Greenwich corridor after a fatal crash at a booth in the mid-1980, ''won't be easy,'' but convinced that the time for them is right.

''Aside from public transportation and tolls, the state also needs to think about limiting growth or engaging in smarter growth patterns,'' he stresses, commending Bridgeport for ''building housing and artists' lofts downtown, near rail and bus lines,'' and calling for more similar transit-oriented initiatives. -- The New York Times   12/2/2007

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com/

Effects of Zoning on Public Health Part of Connecticut's First Statewide Smart Growth Conference

''It's amazing what type of health problems we're willing to accept to drive our cars,'' observed Fairfield Plan & Zoning Commissioner Alyssa Israel, the leader of a health-in-planning forum during the first Statewide Smart Growth Conference at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, mentioning sedentariness, obesity, asthma, and traffic casualties, and telling the audience that in a 1926 U.S. Supreme Court case, justices upheld the Village of Euclid's (Ohio) right to enforce zoning laws because of the need to protect public health.

Though the mid-1950s boom has led to placement of planning and health issues in separate departments and made planners focus mostly on economic aspects of development since then, said Commissioner Israel, the early awareness of relationship between urban plans and public health must be restored and once again inform zoning and design.

Instead of car-dependent development, the country needs policies to encourage mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly and transit-oriented neighborhoods, she pointed out, which would facilitate physical activity, create more job opportunities, and provide better access to health care and good nutrition, especially for the poor.

In contrast to South Windsor, whose planner Michele Lipe wasn't happy that her city is debating a measure that would not allow students to walk to school, reports Bridgeport Connecticut Post writer Rob Varnon, Norwalk health education coordinator Rhonda Collins said the city's 2002 ''NorWALKER'' program spurred walking by distribution of maps with pedestrian routes for 10 neighborhoods, and after funds dried up in 2005, it was adopted and continued by schools.

Today, she stressed, there are 13 pedestrian maps with 38 routes and a 14th map is in the work, while the city incorporated the program into its development master plan, currently under review. -- Connecticut Post   11/15/2007

Resource(s): www.connpost.com/

Commentary: Showcase Projects Won't Cut Sprawl

Although Quinnipiac University statistics professor Jack Kaplan, a former Sierra Club Executive Committee member, admires the 10 smart-growth developments showcased in the club's 2005 ''Building Better'' report for their ''genuine contribution to fighting sprawl,'' he admonishes the environmental community's anti-sprawl campaign for still focusing almost exclusively on ''these one-of-a- kind'' projects, even if any realistic person should see that ''only a very small fraction of population'' will ever live in such places.

''There are certainly advantages to living in the downtown area of a central city or above a store in a mixed-use development, but there are disadvantages as well,'' the professor writes in a Hartford Courant guest opinion, certain that most people in large metropolitan areas, ''especially families with children,'' prefer conventional suburban housing, a preference ''just as true for environmentalists as it is for the general population.''

Besides, he observes, there ''aren't that many suitable locations'' for similar showcase projects, most of which also require large subsidies to offer housing that the average person can afford.

Concerned that any ''smart growth campaign that fails to recognize this reality will be only marginally effective at best,'' the professor believes that the central issue in efforts to curb sprawl must be ''the density and location of conventional residential development in the suburbs.''

Noting that the prevalent suburban practice of limiting most residential construction ''to expensive, single-family homes on large lots, plus perhaps a few apartment buildings reserved for the elderly'' doubled Connecticut's urbanized land between 1970 and 2000, while its population increased by only 12 percent, Professor Kaplan stresses that preservation of the state's quality of life depends on policies to discourage low-density residential growth in rural areas and to promote densities of at least four units per acre near cities and along transit routes.

He applauds the HOMEConnecticut group for initiating such a move this year, with legislation on financial incentives for towns that allow single-family home densities of at least six units per acre and multifamily housing densities of at least 20 units per acre, both project types required to set aside at least 20 percent of dwellings deemed affordable.

The incentives were set at $7,000 for each single-family home and $4,000 for each multifamily unit.

''More important, towns would be reimbursed by the state for 15 years for the additional cost of education generated by such housing,'' the professor points out, disappointed that the General Assembly approved only the one-time payments, up to $4 million the first year, referring the education reimbursement issue to an advisory committee, expected to report back by February 1.

''Let's hope,'' he concludes, ''it will come up with some good, politically viable ideas so that further progress can be made next year.'' -- Hartford Courant   10/21/2007

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Kids Aren't Walking to School? Author Points to Efficiency and Choice

''As the nation's population sprawls over an ever-larger geography -- and as schools increase in size -- fewer families can indulge the simple act of walking their children to school,'' observes book author Charles Euchner in a Hartford Courant commentary on the annual National Walk to School Day on October 3, noting that despite serious setbacks since the 1970s, ''America has super-sized its schools for two reasons -- efficiency and choice,'' with administrators driven by economies of scale and the potential for more language and vocational classes, pre-college electives, and extracurricular activities.

''Why build a $70 million school for 1,000 students when you can build a $90 million school for 2,000 students?'' he paraphrases the predominant reasoning among district officials, as if they weren't aware that most students, especially from minority and poor families ''do better in smaller schools,'' a conclusion of 103 studies reviewed by Kathleen Cotton in 1996.

''Private and parochial schools thrive in part because of the small, tight communities they offer, often with few amenities or frills,'' he writes, pointing out that the nation's 27,000 private schools enroll 5.3 million students, or an average below 200 each.

As a rule of thumb, the author continues, elementary schools should have about 400 students, and secondary schools between 600 and 800.

''In a small school, everybody has a chance to be somebody,'' he writes. ''In a high school of 600 students, almost any kid can make the sports teams, land a role in the play or join the student paper. More important, teachers know the students and can spot a student's problems before they fester too long. That's why, according to a survey by Public Agenda, two-thirds of parents and three-quarters of teachers favor small schools.''

As an example, the author quotes Yale Center for British Art postdoctoral fellow Stephane Roy, who moved with his wife to New Haven's East Rock neighborhood two years ago so they could walk their daughter Charlotte to the Worthington Hooker School a few blocks away.

''For her, being able to walk to school makes it all very concrete, very tangible,'' the father said. ''It's an extension of her home, something she knows and loves.''

A decade ago, the author adds, the grand 107-year-old school ''might have been turned into condos,'' but thanks to local advocates, it was reopened after an 18-month-long, $13 million renovation ''for children like Charlotte Roy.'' -- Hartford Courant   10/7/2007

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Reporter Recounts Maryland's Smart Growth Experience for Connecticut Readers

Although Connecticut's residents may be increasingly confident of its gradual shift toward smart growth, Baltimore Sun reporter Timothy B. Wheeler's tale of Maryland ups and downs in The Hartford Courant makes it clear that smart-growth policy progress is by no means automatic, but requires steady public, political and fiscal commitment to land-use and transportation planning changes and related distribution of taxpayer dollars.

Introduced by Democratic Governor Parris N. Glendening in 1997, the reporter notes, anti-sprawl and urban revitalization programs put Maryland on the forefront of smart growth, uplifting environmental advocates and inspiring other states.

Having taken over in 2003, Republican Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. dispersed smart-growth office staff and cut funds for land preservation and for some redevelopment programs, which left his Democratic successor Martin O'Malley a harder task this year as he moves to recharge the state's smart growth efforts.

A decade since their inception, large tracts ''have been spared from the bulldozer'' in some areas, but houses are still ''popping up'' on former farmland, and the Chesapeake Bay is still in decline, the Baltimore Sun reporter observes, quoting Maryland Secretary of Planning Richard Eberhart Hall.

''It's tough, and it's going to get tougher,'' the secretary said, with the latest military Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) round adding up to 60,000 jobs in the Baltimore-Washington area, and the state's population of 5.6 million increasing by another million within 20 to 25 years.

On the plus side, the reporter continues, three-quarters of Maryland homes built since the law's enactment are in its smart-growth zones, or ''priority funding areas.''

On the minus side, the average lot size for those homes has been ''creeping up'' and three-quarters of the land taken for residential construction is outside smart-growth zones, with builders saying they can do little in the Baltimore and Washington suburbs due to neighborhood opposition or because of local laws barring home construction if schools are already overcrowded and roads congested.

Secretary Hall said he can't measure how the situation would have looked if the state ''had not had'' the smart-growth law, but he believes ''it would be worse now.''

University of Maryland's National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education Director Gerrit Knaap thinks ''using incentives alone'' is not enough to manage growth, and stresses the need for regional planning and land-use controls, so effective in metro Portland, Oregon.

Considering outside lessons useful for Maryland, Governor Glendening, who now leads the national Smart Growth Leadership Institute, the reporter adds, has recently helped arrange a two-day workshop for Governor O'Malley and his aides to examine ways of curbing sprawl.

''A dozen or more states are doing some very interesting things,'' he said. ''Everyone is starting to get that this is critical.'' -- The Hartford Courant   9/2/2007

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Responsible Growth Task Force to Chart Smart Growth for Connecticut

''We are charting a new, anti-sprawl course for Connecticut,'' said Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell at the Windsor train station, near an old factory being converted into housing, as she signed a bill that establishes a Responsible Growth Task Force and gives it six months to submit guidelines for investment of bond dollars, state and federal grants and other public funds according to ''real'' economic planning, which ensures coordinated efforts of state agencies ''in the areas of transportation, housing, public health and work force development,'' with a Hartford Courant editorial calling it a good day for Smart Growth.

''Demolishing beautiful green fields and flattening hillsides while nearby land well-suited for development sits abandoned does irrevocable harm to Connecticut's natural beauty and quality of life,'' the governor stressed. ''Imagine what the future of Connecticut will look like with new neighborhoods and people walking and biking to our train or bus stations. My goal is to create more attractive, livable, economically strong communities while protecting our natural resources.''

The newly created 19-member Responsible Growth Task Force, notes the governor's press release, includes 11 agency heads or their representatives, along with six legislative and two gubernatorial appointees.

The law also sets up a $5 million ''regional performance incentive program, which encourages regional planning to incorporate compact, transit-accessible, pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use development patterns.''

What's more, it requires consistency with the state Plan of Conservation and Development for any state agency spending of ''more than $200,000 in state or federal funds on a grant for acquisitions or developments.''

The Hartford Courant considers this requirement perhaps the most important in the bill, since it means ''the state will no longer pay to pave farmland in the middle of nowhere and otherwise subsidize sprawl.'' -- Hartford Courant   8/13/2007

Resource(s): www.ct.gov/governorrell/default.asp ; www.courant.com/

Editorial: Infrastructure Fix-It-First Approach Pivotal to Smart Growth

Symptomatic of the national neglect of infrastructure and the refusal to acknowledge ''the huge, impeding cost of capital replacement,'' the tragic and horrifying collapse of I-35 West in Minneapolis ''has put the 'fix it first' issue front and center on the nation's radar screen,'' writes Hartford-based consultant and national Project For Public Spaces (PPS) Senior Associate Toni Gold in a Hartford Courant commentary, pointing out that although the smart-growth movement fights for more investment into transit, bike paths, sidewalks and related public programs, the fix-it-first approach ''is also at the core of smart growth thinking.''

Her 1,000 Friends of Connecticut smart-growth group's mission statement, she points out, includes a clear commitment.

''Strengthen and direct new development toward communities where infrastructure is already in place,'' she quotes, ''in order to reduce sprawl and related environmental damage, revitalize community centers, and more effectively use taxpayers' money by maximizing the value of their investments already made.''

The problem is that too much money goes for new roads and other infrastructure construction, and not enough for repair and renovation.

In Connecticut, where the Mianus River bridge collapse had already signaled the abysmal infrastructure conditions in 1983, the long imbalance between infrastructure repair and expansion is best reflected by the final environmental impact study on the planned Route 11 project, requiring ''$1 billion for 8.5 miles of brand-new highway through fragile wetlands'' and inciting controversy for 25 years.

''At $118 million per mile, this stuff is really expensive; that money could repair a lot of infrastructure,'' she writes. ''Note that just this past week, Gov. M. Jodi Rell called for only $100 million in bonding to repair and replace all the state's deficient bridges. Lots of luck.''

Citing other examples of the state's budgetary ''ostrich posture on transportation thinking,'' she writes, ''We're building new roads that responsible growth would suggest not building, and we're mindlessly and expensively patching old projects that responsible growth would suggest need total rethinking.''

Then she concludes, ''It is sad that it takes a tragedy like the I-35 W bridge collapse to force the public, and thus politicians, to pull their heads out of the sand and look around. But it is certainly a good thing that the sound of the Minneapolis bridge collapse will be reverberating for a long time to come.'' -- Hartford Courant   8/12/2007

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Editor Fears Developers Will Co-Opt ''Smart Growth'' Term

When environmentalists moved to promote ''natural food'' in the 1970s, the food industry quickly ''co-opted the term and started calling everything 'natural,' whether or not it was laden with preservatives, fillers, taste-enhancing chemicals and God knows what else,'' writes Hartford Courant Place section editor Tom Condon, concerned that ''(t)he same fate threatens 'smart growth''' as developers everywhere ''are starting to use 'smart growth' to define whatever it is they happen to be building.''

Since Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell ''is trying to nudge the state toward smart growth,'' the editor wants to help readers understand what it means, citing the Smart Growth Network and Smart Growth America Communications Director David Goldberg, and focusing on three current projects by the Stamford-based Vespera company.

According to the public-private network, the smart growth movement seeks to bring back ''community and vitality to center cities and older suburbs,'' usually through careful density increases in town centers and transit corridors, and to make new development ''more town-centered, transit- and pedestrian-oriented,'' with ''a greater mix of housing, commercial and retail uses.''

In addition, Director Goldberg points out that smart-growth communities should be demographically diversified, not age-restricted like two of Vespera's three projects.

Of the three, the editor writes, only the 150-unit, mixed-income residential complex under construction in downtown Niantic, an historic waterfront village, ''is indeed a smart growth project.''

Its residents will have almost everything within walking distance, including transit if the village gets the train stops it needs.

Vespera's two other planned projects, a 600-unit Darrow Pond community in the north end of East Lyme and a 445-unit residential complex in New Milford -- both for ''active adults'' over 55 -- will have some smart-growth points, strongly emphasized by Vespera principal Justin Mandelbaum, but not enough of them to persuade the editor.

The Darrow Pond project along wooded two-lane Route 161 would require utility extension. It would preserve about 220 of its 300 acres through cluster housing and include a general store and post office, but residents would have to drive everywhere else, with East Lyme planner Meg Parulis praising its small-lot design, while admitting that calling it smart growth ''might be a stretch.''

That applies also to the proposed development in New Milford, the editor thinks, stressing that smart growth ''can't be built everywhere,'' as some locations are not suitable for even the best-conceived development.

Noting that gas in Europe ''has hit $8 a gallon,'' he writes, ''Today, design aside, a large housing development several miles from a town center with no pedestrian or transit connection simply cannot be considered smart growth.''

With many California developers also describing their ''mega-sprawl projects'' as smart growth, the editor advises smart-growth and New Urbanism people ''to do what the foodies did'' with the idea of ''natural'' a few decades ago.

''They changed the term to 'organic' and created certification standards,'' he writes. ''That's worked reasonably well.'' -- Hartford Courant   6/17/2007

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Urban Renewal Bonds OK'd for Redding Wire Mill Redevelopment

Chosen by the U.S. EPA for its 2005 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement in the Small Communities category and hailed internationally as advantageous to the community, the economy, and the environment, the 55-acre Gilbert & Bennett wire mill redevelopment in Redding's Georgetown section has now been now bolstered by an unanimous passage of a state bill to let the Georgetown Land Development Co. issue $72 million in urban renewal bonds for the mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly project.

''This is very exciting legislation,'' said the bill's sponsor, Democratic Representative Jason Bartlett. ''It's a model not only for Connecticut, but for the entire country.''

Not affecting the town's ability to issue bonds for projects such as infrastructure improvements, reports Danbury News Times writer Dirk Perrefort, the bill also creates a trust, which allows the Georgetown Taxing District to loan some of the bond money to its future institutional tenants, including facilities of the Norwalk Hospital and possibly of the Wilton YMCA.

Closed in 1989, the once contaminated wire mill site, with 15 of its historic buildings renovated and 21 new ones matching their style, will become a traditional neighborhood, featuring 416 different-type homes, 109,000 square feet of shops and restaurants, 113,000 square feet of offices, a performing art center, and a station for Metro North rail to Manhattan, some 50 miles southwest.

Georgetown Land Development President Stephen Soler pointed out that the U.S. Green Building Council has included the wire mill redevelopment project in its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Neighborhood Development Pilot Program, which ''integrates the principles of smart growth, urbanism and green building into the first national standard for neighborhood design.''

Expecting to issue the bonds for the project through Bank of America this summer, he noted that Norwalk Hospital will offer area residents urgent care, laboratory and radiology services.

''Having a health-care facility on the site will be a real plus for the area,'' observed Redding's health officer Doug Hartline, glad that people won't have to drive to Norwalk or Danbury hospitals. -- News Times   6/13/2007

Resource(s): www.newstimeslive.com/ ; www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/awards.htm

Editorial: Brownfield Remediation Funds Play Critical Part in Connecticut's Plans for Smart Growth

''The essence of smart growth is development in already built areas, such as town centers or transit corridors, to take the pressure off dwindling green space in the countryside,'' says a Hartford Courant editorial, noting that many town centers have empty mills, factories and other postindustrial sites, and telling state lawmakers they must restore the initial $100 million in brownfield remediation money stripped from the budget.

Though Republican Governor Jodi M. Rell's task force called for $200 million to begin to remediate brownfields, which languish under ''cumbersome'' and limited current programs, the editorial observes, the $100 million -- $75 million now and $5 million annually for the next five years -- ''would have been a strong start.''

Created last year, the Office of Brownfield Remediation can't really function and help clean up the roughly 1,000 vacant sites that would revitalize urban areas.

''Losing the brownfield money is unfortunate with so many other smart growth measures moving ahead,'' the editorial says, mentioning four bills.

One would offer incentives ''for meaningful regional planning and cooperation,'' with the state funding projects according to smart growth criteria and ending subsidies for sprawl.

Another would launch an overhaul of the state's transportation infrastructure, including expansion of commuter rail, construction of the Hartford-New Britain busway and the addition of bike paths.

The other two would broaden the historic tax credit program for historic home rehabilitation and encourage more construction of affordable housing in designated districts.

''Cleaning brownfields is one of the best ways that government can aid the revival of cities,'' the editorial concludes. ''With other elements of a smart growth plan moving forward, it would be a shame not to have a nationally recognized brownfield program in Connecticut.'' -- Hartford Courant   5/6/2007

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Editorial Praises EPA's ''Outstanding'' Smart Growth Program

Quoting former Maryland Democratic Governor Parris N. Glendening, who recently said that 40 states had embraced some form of growth management to fight sprawl and found it ironic that ''(e)veryone gets it but the feds,'' a Hartford Courant editorial observes that ''federal authorities are making the problem worse,'' as shown by last year's decision to scatter ''tens of thousands of employees to offices on the fringes of the Greater Washington, D.C. area,'' and by the current attempt to eliminate ''one of the few effective federal growth management initiatives, the Environmental Protection Agency's Smart Growth Program.''

Having won friends not only among planners, but also among homebuilders and commercial developers, the editorial notes, this ''outstanding'' program makes no ''top-down'' pronouncements, but ''conducts research, showcases good projects, publishes reports and studies, and works with communities via grants and locally tailored assistance.''

Describing the EPA Smart Growth people the daily has seen as ''very sharp and dedicated to lessening the negative impacts of development by promoting such strategies as compact and transit-oriented development, sound water management, protecting environmentally sensitive areas, and better pedestrian and biking amenities,'' the daily offers them full support.

''More compact and walkable communities centered on transit get people out of cars,'' it states. ''The EPA is showing towns across the country how to create such places. Mr. Bush should increase the program's budget, not to kill it.'' -- Hartford Courant   4/23/2007

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Danbury Smart Growth Forum Zeroes In On Need for Regionalism

Not one of the state's 169 towns can tackle its fiscal, developmental and educational problems by itself; they must pursue regional cooperation, agreed Smart Growth advocates at a Universalist Unitarian Congregation forum in Danbury, with Danbury City Planner Dennis Elpern regretting that some of the area's wealthier suburbs have often shrunk from their responsibility to build a share of affordable housing.

''Americans are (conflicted) when it comes to Smart Growth,'' he observed. ''They don't like suburban sprawl. But they don't like high-density housing either.''

Danbury, he noted, hopes to make a local difference with its proposed 500-unit Kennedy Place project on the former Amphenol site near city bus lines and a commuter rail station.

1000 Friends of Connecticut President Heidi Green, reports Danbury News-Times writer Robert Miller, pointed out that although such projects can revive or even crate a neighborhood, sometimes they entice gentrification, calling it ''one of our greatest challenges.''

Another such challenge stems from towns' competition for new development to boost their tax revenue -- largely to pay for schools -- which perpetuates sprawl, erodes open space, worsens traffic and air pollution, keeps drivers ever-longer on the road, and costs them increasingly more for gas.

That's the top common problem of Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, particularly in the greater New York City metropolitan area, said tri-state Regional Plan Association senior planner David Kooris, stressing the need for common solutions.

Natural resource preservation especially depends on regionalism, simply because town boundaries mean nothing to rivers, mountain ridges, forests and wetlands, and because no town can afford to buy and protect a lot of land on its own, said Nature Conservancy's Redding-Weston Devil's Den Director Steven Patton, adding, ''It forces us to talk together, think together, plan together.'' -- News-Times   4/13/2007

Resource(s): www.newstimeslive.com/

New Connecticut DOT Official Keeping Ear to the Ground

As they debate ways to spur development without risking more sprawl, Connecticut lawmakers have made smart growth their daily topic, reports Stamford Advocate writer Mark Ginocchio, with most counting on newly named Department of Transportation Deputy Commissioner Albert Martin to help reverse the agency's ingrained ''highways first'' stance and expand both transit and transit-oriented development.

He is ''an agent of change'' but he can't do it alone, said Fairfield County Business Council Vice President for Public Policy Joseph McGee, glad that ''(t)here is a recognition that we can't just continue to pour concrete and build highways.''

In his push for transit-oriented development, he will need to ''repair (the DOT's) relationship with the towns and cities,'' observed Tri-State Transportation Campaign Executive Director Jon Orcuff, stressing, ''You can't do what you want to do if the municipalities don't trust you.''

Attuned to local and regional input during his 37 years in government service, including six years as Detroit transportation director, the writer notes, Deputy Commissioner Martin has already attended several public meetings and hearings on commuters' needs and rail-car purchases.

''I have been very much impressed with what I've heard,'' he told the writer, confident of Connecticut's transit-oriented development potential along its New Haven and Shore Line East commuter rails.

''This state has far more acceptance of, and dependence on, rail'' than the Detroit metro area, he said. ''Rail inspires far more economic development,'' he explained. ''If you were a businessperson who wanted to relocate your business to an area you want to look at the availability of the work force to get to your business. Rail gives you permanence.''

DOT Commissioner Ralph Carpenter, himself on the job only since last summer, called his new deputy ''a great asset to the department.'' -- Advocate   4/9/2007

Resource(s): www.stamfordadvocate.com/

Former Detroit Transportation Director to Coordinate Funding for Connecticut's Transit-Oriented Development

After a national search, Connecticut Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell chose former Detroit transportation director Albert Martin as state Department of Transportation (DOT) deputy commissioner, a post she created last year to coordinate multi-agency funding for transit and transit-oriented development, with the Hartford Courant hailing the winner for his ''clear vision of mass transportation's potential for improving people's day-to-day lives and for fostering livable, vital communities and smart growth.''

In Detroit, the daily tells readers, Albert Martin administered a $500 million transportation improvement program, a bus system, and the three-mile downtown rail circulator, winning respect for his foresight and knowledge.

Unfortunately, the plans for high-speed commuter rail from the suburbs to the city fell through, while his efforts to merge the city and suburban bus lines were stymied by the lack of funds and political support.

''If the people in power had allowed him to do what he can do,'' said former Detroit News editorial writer and columnist Bill Johnson, now a Wayne County Commission official, ''he could have been an excellent transit director.''

The Courant hopes he will find the necessary political support in Hartford, stressing, ''This state's future quality of life is riding on it.'' -- Courant   3/20/2007

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Gov. Rell to Provide More Smart Growth Funding for Connecticut; 1000 Friends Report Urges Focus on Regional Planning, School Funding and Tax Reform

Its roads increasingly clogged, city budgets strained and countryside threatened, the state is continuing a recent turn toward smart growth, with a new 1000 Friends of Connecticut economic report focusing on the need for interrelated regional planning, school funding and tax reform, including an over $1 billion boost in municipal aid, and with Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell proposing ''more than $7 million in operating funding and $587 million in capital funding for smart growth initiatives'' and substantial investment in clean water, farmland protection, brownfield reuse, and transportation and transit-oriented development.

''We are trying to encourage towns to do better planning. But they are compelled to bring things into the wrong sites because of the property tax,'' said 1000 Friends President Heidi Green, releasing the ''Developing Connecticut's Economic Future'' report.

''School funding, the property tax and smart growth are all linked,'' added Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, a 1000 Friends director, stressing the economic advantages of curbing sprawl and concentrating development in urbanized areas.

Thus, notes Danbury News-Times writer Robert Miller, the 1000 Friends report urges full funding for the state Educational Cost Sharing with municipalities, making the state income tax more progressive and establishing a 6 percent tax on Internet sales.

Governor Rell's budgetary press releases reiterated her commitment to the Responsible Growth program she launched last October.

''We know we need economic development and progress, and we know we need housing and other projects that consume land,'' she said. ''Our task is to find a way to balance these needs with thoughtful and forward-thinking policies that will preserve -- forever preserve -- the character and beauty of our state.''

Accordingly, in addition to the nearly $600 million for smart growth initiatives, she will seek a total of $245 million annually over two years in state bonds for clean water projects, $10 million a year for recreation and natural heritage, $10 million for open space grants, $10 million for farmland preservation, $5 million for a new brownfield remediation pilot program, and $2.5 million for regional brownfield redevelopment loan funds.

''Cleaning and reusing brownfields is an excellent way to both preserve open space and encourage economic development,'' she pointed out. ''If we locate a project in a former factory or office building, not only do we avoid using undeveloped land, but we also put the jobs and the housing -- and the new tax base -- right where it is needed most: in our cities and towns.''

Expecting lawmakers to approve her budgetary requests for additional rail cars, improvement and expansion of rail stations and garages, rail and bus service upgrades, bridge repair and an replacement, and new professional transportation staff, the governor stressed she wants the state's congestion problems solved.

''I want to see new rail stations, more parking and new trains,'' she said, ''and new and innovative approaches like the New Britain to Hartford busway and the development of housing and businesses near train stations.'' -- News-Times   2/5/2007

Resource(s): www.newstimeslive.com/ ; www.ct.gov/governorrell/default.asp

Stamford's 82-Acre Shoreline Brownfield Could Be Rebuilt into $2 Billion Mixed-Use Transit Neighborhood

''Smart growth is about creatively reusing the built infrastructure,'' writes state House Democratic Speaker James Amann in a Hartford Courant commentary on a $2 billion Anteres Real Estate Partners plan to redevelop an 82-acre shoreline brownfield in Stamford as a dense, mixed-use, transit-oriented Harbor Point neighborhood, confident the project will put the city on the national smart-growth forefront.

With 4,000 mixed-income housing units, stores, restaurants, waterside parks and other amenities, all within walking distance of the Metro-North commuter rail station a block from congested I-95, referred to by Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy ''as a parking lot,'' the speaker observes, the project will show how to ''focus new development in Fairfield County on our mass transportation assets.''

At the same time, it will transform ''a largely abandoned industrial wasteland'' into ''prime waterfront real estate,'' with a public plaza, boardwalks and 11 acres of parkland.

''These are all principles of smart growth, but they also translate into economic growth,'' Speaker Amann stresses. ''This is mostly private investment creating jobs and housing to help fuel Connecticut's economic engine.''

Noting that the Royal Bank of Scotland demonstrated its trust in Stamford by building a headquarters in the city, he concludes: ''Now is the time for Connecticut to be smarter than ever about the way we develop our remaining resources and transportation infrastructure. Stamford is setting a standard for others in the state and nation to follow.'' -- Hartford Courant   1/28/2007

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Community Resource Inventory Website Provides Interactive Land and Infrastructure Maps of Connecticut's Municipalities

To help local officials and average residents deal with land use problems and to facilitate broad public involvement in smart growth, the University of Connecticut (UConn) and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) unveiled the Community Resource Inventory (CRI) Online site, which offers access to a series of 14 interactive maps for each of the state's 169 municipalities, including their roads, utility lines, water supplies, land cover, farmlands, wetlands and conservation areas.

Long envisioned by researchers from the Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO) Program at UConn's Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR), and now part of the state's ''Responsible Growth'' agenda announced by Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell last October, the CRI site was designed and launched thanks to a $35,000 DEP grant.

''The site will help local officials and concerned citizens better identify natural resources in their community that should be protected and assist them in determining what steps are necessary to protect them,'' said DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy. ''This site provides more information to more people and it will improve the local land use planning all across our state.''

NEMO Program Director John Rozum said his team has been giving resource inventory workshops for years, but access to mapping data was ''a real stumbling block.''

Pointing out that ''a town resource inventory is a critical first step to planning community growth so that it's protective of natural resources,'' he gave an example of a conservation commissioner or land trust member who ''might want to combine the open space, wetlands, and stream data to get a better handle on priority areas for conservation.''

NEMO Program geospatial expert and chief site architect Emily Wilson added that the CRI site will also help Geographic Information System (GIS) professionals and users, saying they ''can connect their local projects with the interactive maps, so that they can use our data in combination with local zoning, property or other information.''

See http://nemo.uconn.edu/tools/cri/index.htm. -- Greenwich Post   1/22/2007

Resource(s): www.acorn-online.com/news/publish/greenwich.shtml

GOP Plan Would Preserve 5,000 Acres of Farmland, Open Space Using Connecticut Budget Surplus

Sensitive both to their small minority status -- 12-24 in the Senate and 44-108 in the House -- and to a strong voter backlash against sprawl, several GOP senators are readying a bill to use a quarter of the state's $500 million surplus to preserve an additional 5,000 acres of farmland and open space.

The bill would put $100 million ''into something that ultimately would last for generations,'' said Republican Senator Judith Freedman, a statement echoed by the ranking GOP member of the Environment Committee, Senator John McKinney.

''Directing a portion of our budget surplus to make a significant investment in land conservation is both environmentally responsible and fiscally prudent,'' he stressed. ''Funding important capital investments like the purchase of land is one of the best ways to use revenue surpluses because the value of what is purchased will last forever.''

The bill, reports Norwalk Hour writer Patrick R. Linsey, would let the state acquire 20 properties, some at a clear development risk, with most comprising several hundred acres and the largest, a 1,000-acre tract in Middlesex County, within a few miles of the Connecticut River and the Long Island Sound.

Though some Democrats, including Senator Bill Finch, signaled support for the bill, newly elected Senator Bob Duff, previously in the House, cautioned members of both parties against ''spending the surplus like drunken sailors.''

In reality, he observed, ''we don't have a surplus and we're heading for a structural deficit next year.''

Conservationists applaud the $100-million initiative.

''There's a tremendous need to protect what we hold dear in Connecticut, which is our landscape, our farmland, our fields and forests,'' said Connecticut Fund for the Environment spokesman, attorney Curt Johnson. ''We're looking forward to working with all sides of the aisle.'' -- Hour   1/12/2007

Resource(s): www.thehour.com

Norwalk Preservationists Cry Foul Over Changes to Historic Commission

Led by Norwalk Preservation Trust President Tod Bryant, now joined in court by state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the long public effort to keep bulldozers away from the old Grumman-St. John House -- built in 1741, spared by flames as the British burned the city in 1779, and bought by Chris Handrinos in 2001 for demolition and expansion of his Norwalk Inn & Conference Center, seen as an unofficial GOP club -- acquired a transparent political dimension this month, when newly elected Republican Mayor Richard Moccia decided against reappointment of the trust president's wife Marija and three others on the 11-member Norwalk Historical Commission to another five-year term.

Mayor Moccia, report Norwalk Citizen-News and Advocate writers, felt ''the historical commission needs a new direction,'' but denied any link between the fight over the historic house and the replacement of Marija Bryant, Elizabeth Booth, Ralph Bloom and Vice Chairwoman Carol Ann Falasca.

All four were eager to continue their voluntary service on the commission, known for strict enforcement of an ordinance that lets the city block demolition of historic homes for 90 days to allow time for a compromise before potential legal steps. (See related articles from December 6, 2006 and December 21, 2006.

Disclaiming politics, the mayor noted that he appointed two Republicans but also a Democrat and an Independent, all eventually approved by the Democrat-led Common Council in four bipartisan 8-6 votes.

Nevertheless, the council's hearing revealed a full range of skepticism and indignation. Several residents, historic commission members and councilors argued against the move as risky for the city's conservation interests. Some pointed out that the commission got three members with minimal experience last year and the appointment of another four newcomers completely changes it character, leaving just four fully versed in current preservation challenges and development pressures.

''To replace 70 percent of any commission's members in one year not only subtracts from its short- and long-term memory but will make the commission's deliberations inefficient because of the large collective learning curve,'' cautioned resident Terri Tylo, ''This lack of support for exceptional volunteers does not encourage other good people to volunteer to serve on any commission when they know that they too may be subject to political purge.''

Majority Leader Carvin Hilliard agreed that the message ''if you don't play ball, or if you don't cooperate, you could get replaced'' creates ''the intimidation factor,'' while commission member Gail Wall quoted the mayor as having said, ''My Chevy has more historic value'' than the Grumman-St. John House.

''This city,'' she observed, ''simply cannot afford to support political and business cronyism.''

And disallowed to remain on the commission, Marija Bryant clarified the direction the mayor wants to change, a direction which allowed ''a public hearing about the preservation'' of the mid-18th century house that could be razed for a 43-room inn expansion.

''That direction meant working with neighborhood groups to preserve historic character and getting information about preservation incentives to homeowners,'' she said. ''It meant bringing the heritage of Norwalk into the public dialogue and not in a stuffy, let's-turn-the-clock-back way, but in a modern, proactive, smart-growth way.'' -- Citizen-News, Advocate   1/11/2007

Resource(s): www.norwalkadvocate.com/ ; www.norwalkcitizen-news.com/

''Time to Act Is Now,'' Connecticut Conference of Municipalities Tells Lawmakers in Bid to Stop Sprawl, Encourage Smart Growth

''People across Connecticut see the devastating effects that sprawl development is having on our quality of life, and they fear that the face of their state will be permanently disfigured unless something is done,'' the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM) warns Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell and the General Assembly, urging immediate action to provide property tax relief, stop sprawl and encourage smart growth, and increase investment in open space, urban infrastructure and multi-modal transportation.

''The time for more reports, forums, studies and task forces is over,'' the CCM stresses in its 2007 State Legislative Action Program, reflecting the consensus of the state's 140 cities and towns. ''The time to act is now.''

To reduce local government reliance on property taxes to fund services, especially public schools, writes CCM Public Relations Director Kevin Maloney, the state should take six steps.

It should make real estate conveyance tax rates permanent; increase funding to municipalities, while restoring municipal aid programs cut in tough-budget years; increase its share of K-12 education costs; fully fund its municipal mandates; bar new unfunded legislative mandates unless voted for by two-thirds of both chambers; and assume municipal program administration and full or partial costs where it would to ensure greater efficiency and overall tax savings.

To stop sprawl, the state should improve land use decision-making by encouraging regional cooperation and strengthening both state and local planning capabilities.

This should include incentives to create effective councils of governments (COGs) in each of the state's 15 planning regions, with each sharing not only property taxes from economic development ''to encourage cooperation and smart growth,'' but also a portion of state sales tax and other regional revenue, while exercising additional powers crucial for inter-municipal cooperation, joint decision-making and regional success.

Correspondingly, the state should increase the land-use planning and technical assistance capacity of the Office of Policy and Management and regional planning organizations ''as called for by the Governor's Executive Order 15;'' create a statewide Geographic Information System (GIS); and complete ''the built-out analysis'' envisioned in the 2006 transportation investment initiative and publish the results.

To invest in the future, the state should seize the rare opportunity created by its surplus to help municipalities meet clean water needs, by using the $294 million from the Clean Water Funds in the next two fiscal years for grants and loans for their clean water projects.

It should boost investment in the Local Capital Improvement Program, Urban Action Program, Small Town Economic Assistance Program, and Town Aid Roads, along with grants for school construction and conversion of municipal facilities to alternative energy.

It should also fight sprawl by increasing funds for open space and farmland preservation, spur economic development by reclaiming brownfields, and build on 2006 transportation investments by easing traffic congestion and investing ''in multi-modal mass transit and highway expansion where appropriate.'' -- The Ridgefield Press Online   1/9/2007

Resource(s): www.acorn-online.com/news/publish/ridgefield.shtml

University of Connecticut-Storrs Will Work with Developer to Build New Urbanist Town Around School

Unlike many colleges that take a greater role in their towns, improve adjacent neighborhoods and help students become ''part of broader communities that offer commerce, culture and cuisine,'' reports Associated Press writer Justin Pope, the University of Connecticut at Storrs, in the state's rural northeastern corner, lacks a town around its 20,000-student campus and is looking ''to build one from scratch, complete with shops, restaurants, hundreds of apartments and even a traditional New England town green.''

Part of Mansfield, the writer notes, the tiny village of Storrs has only ''a handful of businesses in a strip mall, a post office and a dateline for basketball stories,'' but construction of the first building for the planned 50-acre town, including 35 acres of open space, could begin in the summer, with the whole project complete by 2013.

The university, which has already put much of its $2.3 billion from the state into new buildings on the campus, and the LeylandAlliance company, which had embraced New Urbanism and has secured private funds for the project, envision dense pedestrian-friendly development, with street-level businesses and apartments atop.

Architect Frank Gehry is to design a fine arts building across the street from the new ''Storrs Center.''

Careful study of university and community wishes, says LeylandAlliance principal Macon Toledano, will help the company build a town with the character for which older college towns are known.

Mansfield Mayor Elizabeth Paterson, who also works at the university, told the writer that local residents have felt the need for a Storrs town center since the 1960s and that the municipality will benefit from an expanded tax base and tourist revenue.

''We need a place,'' she concluded, ''where friends and neighbors can come together with other friends and neighbors while they're getting a cup of coffee with a gallon of milk or going to the post office.''   12/25/2006

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/

Regional Tax Sharing, State Tax System Reform Key to Preserving Local Character in Rural Connecticut

Connecticut ''has not grown economically since 1989'' and ''lost more 18- to 34-year-olds in the 1990s than any other state,'' said Regional Growth Partnership President and 1,000 Friends of Connecticut Trustee Robert Santy in his ''Growing Green, Growing Smart'' presentation at the town grange in East Haddam, stressing the need for both regional tax sharing among municipalities and eventually state tax system reform, to help them meet demand for new services and schools.

He told the audience, reports Colchester Regional Standard writer Diane Church, that since state aid is scarce and an average 70 percent of municipal revenue comes from property taxes, many of the 169 municipalities, especially small and rural ones, compete for commercial development or senior housing, which worsens traffic, destroys open space, and kills local character, frequently driving the youth away.

With rural development easy, smart growth advocates often encounter problems in steering projects to abandoned brownfields, the presenter pointed out, because most are contaminated and developers ask, ''Why go to the expense of remediating property when we can build in a Greenfield?''

He gave listeners the example of their own town. At 56 square miles, East Haddam is one of the state's most sprawling towns, although its population remains under 10,000. Its grand list grows at an average of 6.8 percent a year, in contrast to the state average of eight percent, and it depends on property taxes for 74 percent of annual revenue.

Without tax sharing among the region's towns, strengthening its councils of governments, and overhauling state taxes, East Haddam faces an uphill battle to resist commercial development and save local character.

The speaker believes, the writer adds, that the state should pay 80 percent of municipal school costs and at least half of special education expenses. It would require a state income tax increase, and 1,000 Friends of Connecticut are reported ready to submit a related proposal to the legislature.

''It's very controversial,'' the speaker said. ''But people understand the underlying problem with taxes. They want change.'' -- Regional Standard   12/13/2006

Resource(s): www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=1635

Investors Outline Plan to Reclaim Stamford Industrial Site, Create Mixed-Use, Mixed-Income Waterfront Neighborhood

In the state's first private redevelopment project of such scope, Antares Investment Partners envision a $2 billion transformation of an 82-acre postindustrial site at the Long Island Sound waterfront near Stamford's transit hub into a mixed-use, mixed-income, high-density Harbor Point neighborhood, with Antares CEO Bruce Macleod saying its residents won't have to ''get in their bloody cars every time they want something'' and partner James adding, ''We'd like to use this project as an example of smart growth.''

The neighborhood, reports Hartford Courant columnist Rick Green, will offer 4,000 housing units, including 400 affordable to secretaries, police officers, young singles and others with moderate means. There also will be waterside parks, shops, restaurants and ''tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue'' for the city and the state.

Stamford Mayor Daniel Malloy says workers complain all the time that they can't find affordable homes and that commuting on congested I-95 is disastrous. ''It's one of the reasons why our economy lags behind almost every other state,'' the mayor observes. ''The marketplace should play a role in making sure there is sufficient affordable housing.''

1,000 Friends of Connecticut Executive Director Heidi Green compliments Stamford for getting ''ahead of the curve in planning for much smarter growth,'' while most municipalities too often opt for more office space rather than the diversified housing needed by the middle class.

Having recently toured the Harbor Point site and seen its quality-of-life potential for future residents, House Democratic Speaker James Amann agrees. ''This is exactly the kind of development we should be promoting all around the state,'' he stresses. ''They can walk to work. They can ride to work on the rail. The best thing about it is the private investment.'' -- Courant   11/28/2006

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Newspaper Keeps Focus on Sprawl as ''Smart Growth Election'' Enters Final Days

The state's quality of life, its main competitive economic asset, ''is being ruined by sprawl -- poorly planned, car-oriented subdivisions and strip malls that increase driving and energy use; cause pollution; mar the characteristic Connecticut scenery; isolate the poor and seniors; and limit housing options for workers,'' says the Hartford Courant in another editorial recap of what's at stake in the impending ''Smart Growth Election.''

Though ''not an early advocate'' of smart growth, Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell has backed its several elements and created the Office of Responsible Growth on October 6, to expand transit and transit-oriented development and create incentives for regional planning and natural resource protection.

A week later, her Democratic challenger, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, co-chairman of the 2003 Blue Ribbon Commission on Property Tax Burdens and Smart Growth Initiatives, unveiled a more comprehensive plan. He would put the governor in charge of smart growth, invest state funds in targeted growth areas, and push for more transportation options right away.

What's especially important, he also made ''the connection between tax policy and bad land-use decisions,'' calling for ''more state funding of local education and less reliance on local property taxes'' to relieve municipalities from the pressure to approve any development just for its projected revenue.

''Smart growth is not a partisan issue,'' the editorial stresses. ''We hope that after the election, Gov. Rell or Gov. DeStefano will convene a session with legislative leaders, key commissioners and civic groups such as 1,000 Friends of Connecticut to take the best of the candidates' proposals, plus examples that work in other states, and put together a program that will do the job in Connecticut.'' -- Courant   10/27/2006

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Editorial: Gov. Rell's Smart Growth Initiative Needs to Address State Policies That Subsidize Sprawl

Since she has banged her head ''against Connecticut's dumb growth for years,'' Hartford-based Urban Edge Associates President and New York-based Project for Public Spaces Senior Associate Toni Gold now congratulates Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell for articulating smart growth principles ''with all the right words and with a sweeping executive order,'' which established the Office of Responsible Growth, but she cannot shake off an image of the proverbial ''fig leaf,'' one convenient for the November election.

''What really raises doubt about Rell's commitment to smart growth is the major and glaring omission of any promise at all to change the largest of all state subsidies for dumb growth and sprawl: an overall fiscal structure that relies excessively on local property taxes to fund expenses, especially schools,'' she writes, echoing concerns of Democratic gubernatorial candidate, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano. ''It is the desperate need to increase property tax revenue that causes towns to compete with each other, often against their better judgment, for big box stores, highway strip malls that drain the town center, and all other inappropriate development that threatens the character, livability, and in the long term, the prosperity of their towns.''

The writer also has other questions about the governor's move toward smart growth. Who will head the Office of Responsible Growth and ''will that person really have the governor's ear?'' Will its ''interagency steering committee'' have real clout or will be limited ''due to its purely advisory role?'' With 92 percent of the state's capital transportation funds last year spent on highways, only 6 percent on transit and less then 2 percent on bike and pedestrian trails, will a new deputy transportation commissioner for mass transit be able to change Department of Transportation (DOT) policies and ''the overall picture?'' Will the governor turn her promise to preserve community character and ''walkability'' into a requirement for DOT ''to share power with localities, a necessary measure to avoid paving paradise?'' And will the state reallocate a meaningful portion of its tens of millions of dollars in federal flex funds, 78 percent of which now goes for highways, to help ''transit, bikes and pedestrians?''

Crediting years of efforts by numerous nonprofit, public and business groups for the prominence of smart growth in this electoral campaign, especially the Hartford Courant, which raised the sprawl issue and ''refused'' to let it go, and 1000 Friends of Connecticut, which has ''synthesized all of these efforts into an umbrella policy,'' the writer stresses, ''Leadership by the governor is an essential, first requirement for managing Connecticut's growth.''

Then she concludes: ''Until the state rebalances and restructures its revenue sources to relieve the perverse property tax incentive to sprawl, until it funds at least 50 percent of local education expenses, and until it fully reimburses towns for lost taxes for nonprofit and government property, the governor's smart growth initiative will be suspect as little more than pre-election window dressing.'' -- Courant   10/15/2006

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Property Tax Reform Key to Curbing Connecticut Sprawl Patterns, Says Gubernatorial Candidate DeStefano in Eight-Part Smart Growth Plan

Having earlier criticized Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell for ignoring smart growth, her Democratic challenger in this November's election, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, bested her subsequent creation of the state Office of Responsible Growth to coordinate multi-agency work against sprawl with his specific eight-point smart growth plan, unveiled at an annual Apple Harvest Festival in Glastonbury.

Five miles southeast of Hartford and still rich in open space, Glastonbury ''is ground zero for sprawl and the need for smart growth,'' said his campaign spokesman Derek Slap before announcement of the plan, which builds on and augments the mayor's proposals for property tax relief, transportation improvements and open space preservation.

Mayor DeStefano, who chaired the state's Blue Ribbon Commission on Property Tax Burdens and Smart Growth Incentives in 2003, reports Hartford Courant Capitol Bureau Chief Christopher Keating, strongly believes that sprawl cannot be curbed without property tax reform, since revenue-hungry municipalities now permit extensive development because property taxes fund schools and other local services.

''Ballparks, hockey rings, and convention centers are not an urban development policy,'' he stresses in his smart growth plan, pointing out that the state and municipalities should work together ''on municipalities sustainable development that draws on the unique character and strength of each community, not rely on 'home run' projects that have no connection to the rest of the city.''

Accordingly, his plan would identify targeted growth areas and funnel state money into their development; put proposals to a regional vote to let residents decide whether the state should subsidize convention centers, sport stadiums and similar projects in their communities; encourage multi-town cooperation by strengthening regional planning organizations and government councils; provide smart growth training for state and local decision-makers; and expand the capacity of the Metro-North Commuter Railroad and build the long-stalled busway from Main Street in New Britain some 10 miles northeast to Union Station in Hartford. -- Courant   10/15/2006

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Call for Statewide Adoption of Smart Growth Expected at October 18 Waterbury Candidates' Forum

With the November election less than a month away, Waterbury Regional Chamber President and CEO Stephen R. Sasala II is inviting the public to a Candidates' Forum in the chamber's boardroom October 18, at which 1000 Friends of Connecticut President Heidi Green will make the case for state adoption and implementation of smart growth.

Expecting the forum, sponsored by the Connecticut Community Foundation, to bring in many of the region's state senators, representatives and their challengers, the chamber president points out in a Waterbury Republican-American guest column that 1000 Friends' premise is simple and the way well mapped out in ''A Leader's Guide to Growing Connecticut Smart'' of last July.

''By actively and relentlessly pursuing smart growth in a reasonable and systematic manner,'' he writes, ''Connecticut can attract new business opportunities to build our job market, improve transit and education, restore our cities and our environment, and create sustainable, dynamic communities for a better future.''

Accordingly, the Candidates' Forum will explore their views and readiness to push for ''a complete rebalancing of the state/local revenue portfolio'' and for a shift of costs from municipalities to the state; to create ''incentives for revenue sharing'' among municipalities; to offer legislation that will increase state school funding and make schools ''less reliant on local property taxes; and to focus ''on preserving community character while promoting smart growth.'' -- Republican-American   10/9/2006

Resource(s): www.rep-am.com/

Newspaper Applauds Gov. Rell's Move to Manage Connecticut Growth Through State Office of Policy and Management

The creation of the Office of Responsible Growth in the state Office of Policy and Management brought Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell applause from the Hartford Courant, which has thoroughly examined sprawl's impact over the past two years and welcomes this ''first structural'' change in government she has made, but Windsor Democratic Councilman Al Simon saw her announcement at the town's train station as somewhat suspect just a month before the November election.

''If you look at what she's done - zero - versus what she's proposing, this is like a deathbed conversion,'' he told Associated Press writer Susan Haigh, pointing out that towns need property tax reform, not a steering committee, to stop sprawl.

The Courant does not agree fully with his assessment of the governor's track record, but raises a few key issues, too. It notes in an editorial that Governor Rell backed $3.5 billion of transportation infrastructure investment in the past two years and the creation of a dedicated fund for open space, farmland, historic sites and affordable housing. On the other hand, it asks if the new Office of Responsible Growth will ''have the authority to bend the departments to its will.''

In Massachusetts, the editorial observes, Republican Governor Mitt Romney's super-agency, the Office for Commonwealth Development, is working, and Governor Rell ''needs to ensure the same results.'' In addition, her announcement that the new office will ''review state funding'' with an impact on development ''doesn't go far enough,'' since the state ''has to be able to direct state funding toward sensible development and stop subsidizing sprawl.'' What's more, she does not address the state's ''heavy and disastrous dependence on local property taxes,'' though her task force is studying this major cause of sprawl.

Nonetheless, Governor Rell ''has stepped out in front of her gubernatorial opponent,'' New Haven Democratic Mayor JohnDeStefano, who knows the subject well. Calling her step the most promising one yet to limit sprawl, the editorial is now awaiting the mayor's plan. -- Courant, Boston.com   10/8/2006

Resource(s): www.courant.com/ ; www.boston.com

Gov. Rell Establishes State Office for Responsible Growth

''If left unchecked, sprawl will continue to fragment the landscape, impair our ability to remain economically competitive, consume precious natural resources, waste energy and pollute our air and water,'' said Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell, issuing an executive order that established an Office of Responsible Growth within the Office of Policy and Management, which will review state development-related funding and work for a ''well-planned, economically strong and environmentally sound'' future.

Citing University of Connecticut Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR) data that show that each day between 1985 and 2002 the state lost an average of 18 acres of forest and added 12 acres of development, expanding its impervious surface of concrete, asphalt and rooftops by 22 percent, Governor Rell said these statistics should alarm every state resident.

Entitled ''Connecticut: Green and Growing,'' her order authorizes the new Office of Responsible Growth to create and chair an Interagency Steering Council, bringing together commissioners and executive directors whose agencies affect land use decisions. That involves economic and community development, environmental protection, transportation, agriculture, public health, and housing.

''Only by bringing everyone to the same table can we create lasting, positive change,'' the governor stressed. ''I want to see real, comprehensive planning. We have the opportunity to leave a lasting legacy for future generations. We need to do it right.''

The council's two top goals are to expand housing opportunities for all residents and workforce housing with easy access to passenger rail and bus services, and to promote mass transit and roadway design that helps state and local economic development while preserving and enhancing communities' character and walkability.

''By coordinating the work of our state agencies in areas of transportation and housing we increase our chance of success for transit-oriented development that provides commuters and city residents with bus or rail alternatives to their cars. That coordination also means we are more likely to revitalize rail lines and create bus routes along corridors people travel from home to work and back,'' the governor said, concluding, ''Responsible growth policies simply were not on the state's fast burner in the past: That's about to change.'' -- Connecticut Office of the Governor   10/6/2006

Resource(s): www.ct.gov/

Is It Smart Growth or Isn't It? Columnist Takes Issue With Developers Using New Urbanism Jargon to Sell Units

Intrigued by the planned mixed-use River Oak complex along Route 10 in Simsbury, about nine miles northwest of Hartford, a project portrayed on the Konover Development Corp. web site as the antithesis of sprawl, Hartford Courant columnist Rick Green looked closer at this latest Farmington Valley hot button proposal and found that the company ''is offering candy to the 'smart growth' crowd.''

The columnist appreciates developers who simply ''do the right thing'' and consider traffic congestion and community values while thinking about their profits, and he feels that another mention of new urbanism or smart growth just for marketing will make him spit up his ''double cap decaf latte.''

He couldn't be more clear. ''Here in the valley of sprawl, where they love to turn green fairways into asphalt, a mall-builder has found religion, proposing a new urbanist nirvana where people live, shop and can walk to work,'' but also insisting on a 128,000-square-foot anchor store to make his numbers work.

Outraged residents in the sizeable Simsbury Homeowners Advocating Responsible Expansion (SHARE) group think ''all this smart growth gobbledygook is just hiding the real mission: to plunk a 'big box' store in Simsbury,'' the columnist writes quoting SHARE member James DeVivo. ''Just plopping one of these things down in a field in the middle of a well-established suburb doesn't make it new urbanism,'' he stresses. ''Having a big box at the foot of Avon mountain is a sin.''

Not the first one, the columnist observes, finding Route 44 ''bursting with strip malls,'' the ridgetops ''lined with garish mansions,'' and Route 10 ''already clogged with condos, office parks and shops.''

Architect Patrick Pinnell, ''a persuasive, Yale-trained disciple of new urbanism,'' acknowledges that River Oaks has flaws, but tells the columnist it shows ''a better example of how to do things'' after years of nonsense. Still, if the company's officials ''are really serious about showing Connecticut a different kind of development, they will come back with a plan without a mega-store,'' the columnist writes.

''I'm glad the mall-and-more-concrete crowd is rethinking things,'' he adds. ''But giving the Farmington Valley another big box isn't progress. It's old-fashioned dumb.'' -- Courant   9/26/2006

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Could the Next Generation of Monorails Be a Viable Solution for Urban Transit Woes?

''The highways in Connecticut don't work anymore,'' writes New Haven Register columnist Joe Amarante, blaming ''all of us: spoiled drivers, lazy bureaucrats, car-related lobbyists and the best little politicians money can buy,'' and renewing his 2002 call for monorails -- a clean and cost-efficient system championed for the state by Tampa, Florida-based Sky Train Corporation.

With 12 years of research, several patents and three models that incorporate standard light-rail components and could use existing rights-of-way, the company has already drawn significant attention and support for a proposed demonstration monorail in Hartford. The line would run from the Government Center along six blocks to the new science museum, slated for completion in 2008, later reaching the Rentschler stadium and business district, and finally Bradley International Airport 15 miles away.

Once its advantages become obvious, a similar line could also help relieve congestion in the 75-mile New Haven-Hartford-Springfield, Massachusetts corridor. ''Our monorail,'' wrote Sky Train Corporation CEO Karl Guenther to the state Citizens Transportation Lobby and the Department of Transportation, ''can be built for $40 million a mile, and is 100 times safer than cars, rails and buses; we offer a noiseless system which is entirely environmental and community friendly.'' It will also provide local jobs if manufacturing is kept in the state, possibly with the involvement of United Technologies, General Dynamics and Proton Systems. Connecticut, he added, ''could lead the nation showing that monorails are effective within the scheme of city and transportation planning.''

Sky Train Marketing Director Francis Knize, who lives in Wilton and knows the region's daily traffic woes first hand, has recently said at a state Transportation Strategy Board meeting: ''Consider monorails. They save lots of money because they don't need conductors, they are viable, anti-sprawl, and can be solar-powered and green in every way.''

The New Haven Register columnist urges state officials to move quickly, again quoting director Knize. ''The future of highways is grim,'' he observed. ''Fifty years down the road, no pun intended, you'd have to double-decker highways.'' Details at www.skytraincorp.com. -- New Haven Register   9/24/2006

Resource(s): www.nhregister.com/

Editorial: Gov. Rell's Transportation Move a Good Start, But More Work Needed to Support Smart Growth in Connecticut

Welcoming Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell's ''unusually passionate announcement'' of a national search for a deputy transportation commissioner for mass transit and anti-sprawl measures as a step toward smart growth, the Hartford Courant notes that although its editorials argued for assigning this duty to the DOT commissioner, a deputy ''can be a leader in fighting sprawl, with the strong support of the commissioner and the governor.''

Still, the daily says, Governor Rell -- or her successor -- should take additional steps. The governor should ''champion a legislative package that will create incentives to build in town centers and transit corridors, provide more help for regional planners and local land-use officials, and make a stronger commitment to farmland preservation.''

The governor should also ''initiate a statewide review of zoning legislation, because current zoning laws in many towns are outdated and work against smart growth.'' In combination and with perseverance, the daily concludes, all ''these initiatives will grow into a solid smart-growth policy in Connecticut.'' -- Courant   9/10/2006

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Democratic Candidate Focuses on Transportation Funding at Connecticut Gubernatorial Forum

''The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result,'' said Democratic gubernatorial nominee, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano at a forum of University of Connecticut economists and business leaders in Berlin, criticizing his absent Republican rival, Governor M. Jodi Rell, for setting the wrong investment priorities, neglecting jobs and education, and ignoring transportation and smart growth.

DeStefano pointed out that heavily congested Connecticut is investing just $3 billion in transportation over 10 years, in comparison with $10 billion of investment by its northern neighbor Massachusetts.

Standing in for the governor, Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, former state Representative Mike Fedele, reports Danbury News-Times writer Fred Lucas, rejected the criticism as ''doom and gloom.'' With the mayor 13 years in office, New Haven still has high crime and poverty rates, he countered, while the state shows unemployment at 4.3 percent, compared to 4.8 percent nationwide, has created 3.400 jobs since May, and posted a budget surplus of almost $1 billion for the fiscal year that ended in June.

He admitted that the economy ''is still fragile,'' but noted that residents could get some relief if lawmakers would approve the governor's proposal to eliminate the property tax on private vehicles, an idea they previously rejected.

Democratic lieutenant governor candidate, former Simsbury First Selectwoman Mary Glassman, reports Hartford Courant writer Christopher Keating, was perplexed. ''It's shameful that they would even suggest proposing it again,'' she said, ''because it only helps those with expensive cars, and those certainly aren't the ones in the cities, and it takes money away from the pockets of cities and towns.''

According to the university's new economic quarterly report, Connecticut residents shouldn't expect a surge in new jobs no matter whom they elect in November. ''A lackluster national economy is sapping strength from Connecticut recovery,'' said report forecast manager, state labor economist Daniel Kennedy. ''Today, the economy faces multiple drag forces from higher interest rates, higher energy prices and a slowdown in the housing market.'' -- News-Times, Courant   9/7/2006

Resource(s): www.newstimeslive.com/ ; www.courant.com/

Gov. Rell Announces National Search for DOT Deputy Commission to Focus on Mass Transit, Anti-Sprawl Efforts

''We are embarking on a new path,'' said Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell, announcing a national search for a Department of Transportation (DOT) deputy commissioner to focus solely on mass transit and fight against sprawl. ''It is the smart path toward long-term job growth and a steady improvement in our quality of life. There's no turning back.''

To achieve success, the governor pointed out, the state must coordinate and balance its economic, environmental, public health, energy and transportation policies at each step. ''This is a critical moment in our efforts to fix our aging transportation infrastructure, especially our railroads,'' she continued. ''Mass transit and the detailed planning associated with mass transit have been put on the back burner for decades in this state. We have finally reversed that course and are moving in the right direction, but we have a lot of ground to make up.''

Choosing a Metro-North commuter train for her signing of a $2.3 billion transportation enhancement bill, which is ''the centerpiece of the mass transit initiatives'' she and legislative leaders advanced this year and which builds on her $1.2 billion transportation package of 2005, Governor Rell said she now needs ''an experienced professional with a proven track record in public mass transportation and transit-oriented development'' to help make Connecticut a national model.

''Mass transit is convenient, safe, accessible and efficient, and requires walkable, bikable neighborhoods surrounding our train stations,'' she stressed. ''That means affordable housing and business development near our transit stops. Most of all, it means an unwavering commitment to making the right decisions on land-use.''   9/2/2006

Resource(s): www.ct.gov/governorrell/default.asp

1,000 Friends of Connecticut: Coalition Emerging as Grassroots Groups Work to Limit Sprawl, Bring Smart Growth Principles to State's Communities

Increasingly upset by sprawl tolls -- ''more driving, more traffic and more fuel consumption, loss of farms and forests, air and water pollution, higher costs of services, isolation of the poor and elderly, limited housing choices'' -- Connecticut residents ''are organizing to do something about it,'' says a Hartford Courant editorial on smart growth, citing several examples, including East Hampton, where activists took the town's early name for their independent Chatham Party, challenged the status quo at the ballot box last fall with calls for smarter development, and won a five-member majority on the town council.

True to their campaign pledges, they moved to protect adjacent Lake Pocotopaug, limit big boxes, improve design, deter blight and acquire open space -- all goals pursued elsewhere.

In Canton, grassroots Advocates for Responsible Expansion (CARE) are watching over the town's ability to enforce land-use regulations. In Simsbury, residents created the Save the Woods group to protect 424 acres of forest from residential development, and organized Simsbury Homeowners Advocating Responsible Expansion (SHARE) to oppose a big box on Route 10.

In Waterford, a model low-impact subdivision, designed with assistance from the University of Connecticut Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR), benefits from hydrological techniques mimicking a forested landscape and reducing stormwater runoff to nearby waterways. In New Haven, the city's Urban Design League played a key role in revitalization of the urban center and shaping of other recent projects.

All these efforts ''are beginning to coalesce into a statewide coalition under the banner of 1,000 Friends of Connecticut,'' a group bringing together business, government, education, labor and religious leaders, making growth management an issue in this year's electoral campaign, and preparing a push for change during the 2007 legislative session.

Calling it imperative for the incoming governor and legislative leaders to ''get out in front of the nascent smart growth movement and nurture it with changes in the state policy,'' the editorial says they must revamp tax policy, strengthen planning, provide incentives and study the impact of sprawl, especially its financial burden, ''compared with the cost of more compact patterns of development.''

Pointing out that the state ''is on a path to become a giant, undifferentiated subdivision connected by highways and strip malls,'' the editorial cautions that time is running short and changes must come fast. -- Courant   7/9/2006

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Whitman, Glendening Speak Out on Government's Role in Growth Patterns

Quite sure that much of Connecticut's ''misplaced development is aided and abetted, and even subsidized, by state policies and practices,'' as it was in their own states when they took office in 1994 and 1995, former New Jersey Republican Governor and 2001-03 EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and former two-term Maryland Democratic Governor, now Smart Growth Leadership Institute President Parris N. Glendening point out in a Hartford Courant commentary that growth pattern changes ''cannot be accomplished in any lasting way unless the state government plays a major part'' and that ''it certainly helps if the governor makes it a personal priority.''

Maryland, they write, was ''funding infrastructure and school construction in areas where neither the locality nor the state had planned for development'' until lawmakers passed the 1997 Smart Growth Act, under which the state ''began to remove subsidies for sprawl and instead steer funds toward communities that had planned to absorb growth in a smaller, better-planned footprint.''

New Jersey was losing open space while cities struggled to revitalize until voters approved the 1998 bond issue which will raise more than $1 billion to preserve 1 million acres by 2010 and the state ''took steps to make it easier to redevelop in existing areas, reclaim industrial brownfields and adopt older buildings for re-use.''

Not always easy, the moves gained strong bipartisan support when the public understood their benefits such as ''holding down property tax bills, creating alternatives to traffic congestion, creating healthy communities, and expanding recreational and other opportunities,'' the two former governors and National Smart Growth Council co-chairmen write, stressing the need for three elements to ensure reform continuity ''beyond the current governor.''

There must be ''a statewide smart planning and investment framework'' codified in law; a nongovernmental advocacy organization -- like 1,000 Friends of Connecticut or Maryland or New Jersey or any other state -- must keep watch, to prevent erosion of commitment to smart growth; and governments and nonprofit groups must ''invest in an ongoing public discussion of the issues,'' they write, crediting The Courant for ''making a tremendous start'' in that area.

Specifically, they continue, the state leadership should focus on four goals. It should ensure that planning happens and incorporates ''meaningful'' public input, and that there is a state agency responsible for planning and a cabinet post ''for coordinating state agencies overseeing transportation, environment, housing'' and related sectors; connect transportation and land use, because ''(i)f you build communities so every activity requires a long car trip, no amount of pavement will cure congestion;'' work with employers and businesses on economic development, because they ''want to know that workers can find housing and transportation close to jobs;'' and make sure ''tax policies are working for, and not against, community and state goals,'' with too heavy dependence on property taxes often forcing localities to take ''a development-at-any-cost-attitude,'' and compete for commercial projects or zone only for the most expensive housing.

''Based on what we've seen, Connecticut has the elements necessary to become a national model for innovations in guiding growth for betterment of the state's people,'' the two former governors conclude. ''All that is needed is public, private and community leadership to put it in motion.'' -- Courant   7/9/2006

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

1000 Friends of Connecticut Lauded for Efforts to Make Smart Growth a Statewide Issue

Encouraged by the recent legislative approval of not only a $2.3 billion transit-friendly transportation package, which ''expressly calls for the coordination of jobs, the environment and transportation,'' but also a four-town brownfield pilot program, tax breaks for open space and historic property conversion into housing, and funds to educate municipal leaders about land use, 1000 Friends of Connecticut President Heidi E. Green pledged across-the-board efforts to strengthen the smart growth constituency for gubernatorial and other elections this fall, with a Hartford Courant editorial headline welcoming the group as ''1000 Friends of Smart Growth.''

Connecticut is still a beautiful and wealthy state, but suburban sprawl, stagnant jobs, highway gridlock and high energy costs are eroding its quality of life, the editorial observes, warning against inaction, because ''if the traditional countryside continues to be overrun by subdivisions and strip malls connected by ever-widening highways, if the farms die off and the cities are half-used, we compromise our own prosperity.''

1000 Friends of Connecticut wants to make sure everyone understands the threat. Formed over the past two years, the group distributed ''The Leaders' Guide to Growing Connecticut Smart'' at its ''coming-out'' press conference at the state Capitol, expecting the governor to lead the fight for smart growth, come up with a coordinated plan for growth in town centers, employment hubs and transit corridors, and appoint a ''Smart Growth Coordinator'' to head a planning section in the state Office of Policy and Management.

Pointing out that in all states that seriously challenged sprawl the governors have spurred the challenge, 1000 Friends of Connecticut will host two of them, former New Jersey Republican Governor and EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and former Maryland Democratic Governor Parris N. Glendening, at its Key Issues Forum, co-sponsored by the Courant, in Hartford on July 13.

''Change will come not by telling people where to live, but by patiently making a case that what we're doing can be done more efficiently and economically,'' the editorial stresses, quoting one of the group's members who said at the Capitol press conference, ''Connecticut is too smart to grow dumb.'' -- Hartford Courant   6/18/2006

Resource(s): www.courant.com/ ; www.1000friends-ct.org

New Mixed-Use Project in Mansfield to Preserve 60 Percent of Land for Wetlands, Requires LEED Certification for Larger Buildings

Specialized in creating places ''infused with history, memory and charm,'' Tuxedo, New York-based Leyland Alliance LLC and its partners brought Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND) and Smart Growth principles to Mansfield in northeastern Connecticut, where their new mixed-use Storrs Center will take only 15.5 acres of a 48-acre site between the old town and the University of Connecticut campus, saving the rest around a vernal pool as wetlands, a buffer and a storm-water management area.

While Norwalk-based Steven Winter Associates (SWA) Inc. prepared planning outlines and helped devise Sustainability Standards and Guidelines, including criteria for green building practices, master planner Herbert S. Newman and Partners and other team members consulted with local ecology experts on ways to protect and restore the area's landscape, rich in wetlands and wooded uplands.

Built on both sides of Storrs Road as a new Main Street, with everything in five-minute walking distance, the project will include Town Hall, a high school, a community center and pedestrian paths to the campus on one side, while the other will feature a town square, a village street, and a market -- all three anchoring retail, offices and housing -- plus separate residential and conservation areas.

According to SWA's March update, buildings over 75,000 square feet will need LEED Certification, but smaller ones, which will host the greatest number of shops and apartments, can use more-cost-effective SWA guidelines for materials, energy efficiency, water conservation and indoor environmental quality. -- Wintergreen, Leyland Alliance   3/27/2006

Resource(s): http://swinter.com/ ; www.leylandalliance.com

Retail, Mix of Affordable and Upscale Housing Part of Stamford's $2 Billion Waterfront Redevelopment Plan

To create a master redevelopment plan for 82 acres along Stamford's neglected Long Island Sound waterfront and lead the neighborhood ''into a new era of smart growth'' and transit-oriented development near the Metro North commuter rail, Greenwich-based Antares Investment Partners LLC and Left Bank Development selected Cooper, Robertson & Partner of New York and Sasaki Associates Inc. of Boston -- world-class firms known for their groundbreaking projects throughout the nation and abroad.

Expected to attract some $2 billion in investment, the waterfront redevelopment will mix residential and retail uses, offering varied type and price housing, including a significant affordable component.

Antares managing partner James Cabrera and CEO Bruce McLeod described their undertaking as one of the greatest redevelopment projects in the Northeast, the latter promising ''a big emphasis on environmental sustainability.''

Area leaders applauded the choice of the planning team. ''I am excited that these crucial steps have been taken and the South End of the city will be able to reinvent itself and again become Stamford's crown jewel,'' said Democratic Mayor Daniel P. Malloy. ''I am thrilled about the exceptional caliber of the master planning firms and along with the city officials and resident are eagerly awaiting their initial concepts.''

State Republican Senator William H. Nickerson added, ''With Sasaki Associates and Cooper, Robertson & Partners overseeing planning, I am confident we are in good hands. The state of Connecticut looks forward to playing an active role in ensuring the success of this development.''   3/3/2006

Resource(s): www.prnewswire.com/

Redding Brownfield Redevelopment Project Receives $600,000 Grant from State to Help With Contaminant Removal

Brought to national attention by the U.S. EPA 2005 Smart Growth Award as a model public-private small community effort to reclaim an abandoned brownfield, the Gilbert and Bennett Wire mill redevelopment project in Redding got a major state boost, with Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell giving the town and the Georgetown Land Development Co. a $600,000 grant to help remove lead, asbestos and other contaminants from the 55-acre site and several factory buildings excluded from demolition.

''By demolishing these two mills,'' the governor said, ''not only will we be cleaning up a brownfield site, but we will also be creating hundreds of new homes and generating new tax revenue for the town and the state.''

With some buildings slated for renovation and conversion, reports Danbury News-Times writer Mark Langlois, others will be torn down to make room for a pedestrian-friendly mix, including businesses, offices, restaurants, loft and senior housing, a performing arts center and other urban amenities.

''This has been a very long time coming,'' pointed out Redding First Selectwoman Natalie Ketchum. ''This isn't like taking open land and using it for economic development.'' The developer, the writer adds, expects to break ground this year and complete construction by 2009. -- News-Times   2/18/2006

Resource(s): http://news.newstimeslive.com/

Editorial: Aid for Towns and Cities Must Be Priority in Connecticut's 2006 Legislative Session

When they convene February 8, state lawmakers must focus on aid for towns and cities, says a New Canaan News-Review editorial in support of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM) and its 2006 list of legislative priorities, which include property tax relief, education cost sharing reform, road and transit upgrades, homeland security improvements, and a push for ''sustainable development and smart growth'' through a coordinated local, regional and state effort to promote construction where infrastructure already exists and to discourage sprawl.

As it calls on Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell and the General Assembly to ''enact a series of initiatives many of which are of low cost or no cost to the state,'' the CCM can count on voter pressure and the economic rebound, with the gubernatorial office and all Assembly seats at stake this November, and a higher than expected fiscal year surplus of $327.8 million.

''Cities and towns across Connecticut,'' the editorial points out, ''are finding that their budgets are getting tighter as their expenses are rising, and residents are crying for help in alleviating the burden of paying for just about everything through their property taxes.'' -- News-Review   1/25/2006

Resource(s): www.newcanaannews-review.com/

Harwinton Officials Consider Options to Protect Open Space as Development Pressure Rises

A slow but steady influx of residents, mostly from the Hartford-New Britain metro area some 15 miles east, has changed Harwinton's small-town atmosphere in the past several years and a new 58-lot subdivision project just put before the Inland Wetlands Commission increased the town's worries about its infrastructure and school budget, with First Selectman Frank Chiaramonte pointing to the need for smart growth.

''I've been saying this since before I'd gotten into office, and nobody's been listening to me,'' he said. ''We need to preserve open space. It's time for a moratorium on building. We need to stop, and get our plan in place.''

According to Inland Wetlands Commission chairman Bruce Burnett, reports Torrington Register Citizen writer Robert Cyr, most of the recently plotted or developed lots include some wetlands. Even though town zoning requires at least two-acre residential lots, developers still find them almost everywhere, the chairman observed, adding, ''Our concern on the wetlands commission is that we don't do any damage to the watercourses or supplies.''

Selectwoman Sandra Davis agreed. ''Everybody wants to curb development, and keep taxes down, but you can't stop development,'' she said, noting that the town has to evaluate its remaining open parcels and be prepared to buy some for preservation rather than expect their owners to keep them undeveloped. -- Register Citizen   1/9/2006

Resource(s): www.registercitizen.com/site/news.asp?brd=1652

Editorial: Historic Mills Offer Great Redevelopment Opportunities for New England

''An irreplaceable historic asset, an integral part of the New England landscape,'' the state's vacant Victorian-era mills offer a great opportunity for redevelopment into housing, light manufacturing and office or retail space, says a Hartford Courant editorial, pointing out that the town of Redding just won U.S. EPA's 2005 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement in the Small Communities category for the planned conversion of the 55-acre former Gilbert & Bennett wire mill into a mixed-use, transit-oriented village.

The project will feature 416 housing units -- including 55 for lower-income families, 40 for seniors, and 15 for artists -- along with retail, office and light industrial components, and a Metro-North rail station.

Located mostly in town centers, the 110 vacant historic mills inventoried so far at Governor M. Jodi Rell's request ''can help the state to grow smartly by increasing density in built areas,'' the editorial points out, also noting that their potential developers face a task harder than they should, since most of these mills don't qualify for the state's historic tax credit.

The governor and legislative leaders, the editorial says, ''should rectify that oversight and otherwise encourage the redevelopment of these majestic buildings.'' -- Courant   11/28/2005

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Transportation Crisis in Connecticut Could Shape 2006 Gubernatorial Election

''Connecticut's transportation practices, and the sprawl they encourage, have brought us to a crisis that no gubernatorial candidate can ignore any longer,'' write 1000 Friends of Connecticut board co-chairs, former East Haddam First Selectwoman Sue Merrow and Madison Harbor Capital Partners President Dick Maine, in their Hartford Courant commentary on top issues for the 2006 election, observing, ''A governor who took smart growth seriously would find the public already way out in front.''

Since the federal government has transferred power over transportation policy and almost all funding to the states in the past 10 years, they write, Connecticut alone must take blame ''for the sad state of public transit, for the disproportionate commitment to highways, for the negligible support for biking and walking, and for the lack of any real connection between transportation and land-use policies.''

Under the 2003-05 State Transportation Improvement Plan (STIP), 78 percent of its $2.8 billion in capital funds went for highways and bridges, less than 19 percent for transit, and only 1.3 percent for bike and pedestrian projects. The 2005-09 STIP draft continues the pattern, earmarking 76 percent of its $3.6 billion for road and bridges, 20 percent for transit, and just 0.4 percent for bikers and pedestrians.

These figures were set before the General Assembly passed a $1.3 billion transportation bill at the last session -- 74 percent for Metro-North rail improvements; the rest for roads -- and before this year's federal bill boosted Connecticut's share from $416 million to $500 million a year through 2009, the writers note, pointing out that a shift of half of the flexible money ''would increase transit funding by $525 million over the 2005-09 period.''

But the state's transportation planning is ''highly political,'' discussion is ''largely absent,'' and the final result is ''a laundry list of favorite projects,'' they write, citing their group's recent study, ''A User's Guide to Transportation Policy in Connecticut: The Case for Reform.''

The winners, they continue, are those who ''can manipulate the system most skillfully inside what we call 'the black box.' They include the well-organized lobby of road contractors, asphalt manufacturers, highway engineering firms, the trucking industry, the American Automobile Association, automobile manufacturers,'' and others -- developers, home builders, politicians, state transportation officials and also the governor.

Gubernatorial leadership ''has been missing for 10 years,'' but Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell still could institute a road-building moratorium and a ''fix it first'' policy, while ''we all take a good comprehensive look at our growth and development,'' they stress, seeing the 2006 election as the opportunity for Connecticut voters to turn things around. -- Courant   11/27/2005

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Town of Redding Hopes Conversion of Former Mill to Mixed-Use Neighborhood Can Become Model for New England Communities

Proud of Redding's work with developer Stephen Soler to clean up and redevelop the vacant 55-acre former Gilbert & Bennett Wire Mill in the town's Georgetown section as a mixed-use, transit-oriented and walkable neighborhood, which won Redding the 2005 EPA Smart Growth Award in the Small Communities category, First Selectman Natalie Ketcham said at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., ''This is an important day for Redding and for all of Connecticut because we have a new model for making the idea of smart growth a reality and creating environmentally friendly, fiscally sound, uniquely New England communities.''

Calling Redding support ''terrific,'' Georgetown Land Development principal Stephen Soler said, ''It is our hope the private/public partnership model and fiscal model we are creating in Georgetown can be used throughout the state of Connecticut and the country as a new and more successful approach to redeveloping environmentally challenged properties and promoting the principles of smart growth to create smart communities.''

The EPA Smart Growth principles move the discussion ''from the traditional growth/no growth question to how and where new development should occur,'' observes Danbury News-Times reporter Susan Tuz, noting that the mill site redevelopment, scheduled to start next spring and be completed in 2009, will include conversion of many historic brick buildings -- some dating back to 1818 -- into lofts, business offices, restaurants and markets, while new construction will add a performing arts theater, a treatment plant and diversified housing, with single-family homes, townhouses and affordable senior units.

Designed by the renowned Miami-based Duany & Plater-Zyberk firm, the project will also reactivate the Georgetown Train Station, offering easy links with Norwalk, Stamford and New York City. ''In short, it's the art of possible,'' said Stephen Soler. ''We've designed the kind of place where people will love to live, work and have fun.'' -- News-Times, eMediaWire   11/16/2005

Resource(s): www.newstimeslive.com/ ; www.emediawire.com/

Congressmen Applaud ''Team Effort'' for Redding's Award-Winning Smart Growth Project

In a joint press release on the EPA 2005 National Smart Growth Award in the Small Communities category to the Town of Redding, Connecticut Democratic Senators Christopher Dodd and Joseph Lieberman, and Republican Representative Christopher Shays congratulated all involved in the public-private Redding-Georgetown Land Development effort to turn the post-industrial Gilbert & Bennett Wire Mill site into a mixed-use urban center, sharing their views on what is needed for long-term sustainability.

''This award,'' said Senator Dodd, ''is a prime example of what can be accomplished when there truly is a team effort and everyone is working toward the same goal: improving a community.'' When the project is completed, pointed out Senator Lieberman, it ''will have transformed the Gilbert & Bennett site in Georgetown into a model of environmentally sustainable development and smart growth.''

Echoing their praise, Representative Shays added, ''I congratulate Natalie Ketcham and the Georgetown Land Development Company for their partnership, leadership and vision. The citizens of Redding will certainly benefit from this remarkable revitalization project.''   11/15/2005

Resource(s): www.house.gov/shays/welcome.htm

Local Election Winners Urged to Become Smart Growth Experts as Eastern Connecticut Towns Prepare for Growth Surge

Congratulating and wishing good luck to all winners of local elections in Eastern Connecticut, New London Day Night City Editor Lisa McGinley advises them to get ready for perhaps the busiest times their towns have ever seen and to ''study up on 'Smart Growth','' to become true experts on the approach they sometimes advocated ''without understanding all its implication and ideals.'' Smart Growth, the editor writes, ''depends on all the players -- land-use officials, users of highways and water systems and breathers of air -- knowing as much as the developer about the pros and cons of the proposal.''

In a 2003 speech, she observes, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Anthony Downey listed six key Smart Growth goals: to limit outward expansion, to encourage higher-density development, to advance mixed-use zoning, to reduce car dependency, to revitalize older areas, and to preserve open space.

Accordingly, elected officials must be prepared to act when developers come with proposals like those on the region's current list -- for film studios, a racetrack, shopping centers, or a special taxing district for age-restricted housing.

''And developers will come, followed by workers and their children, needing homes and schools and room on the highway for their cars,'' the editor assures the electees, telling them the most important question they may face will be whether their towns are willing ''to consult with others, in the absence of a regional planning agency with authority to make decisions'' and shape new growth patterns.

''Don't let people wonder 40 years from now what this region would have been like if only officials had looked beyond their own town lines,'' the editor pleads. ''Get smart about growth now.'' -- Day   11/9/2005

Resource(s): www.theday.com/

Hartford Newspaper Ready to Make Connecticut Sprawl a Centerpiece of 2006 Gubernatorial Campaign

While the state's five largest cities lost residents over the 1990s, many of its small rural towns saw double-figure growth, reaching 33 percent in Colchester, much of it just sprawl -- ''ill-planned, low-density, auto-dependent, single-family residential or strip mall construction on what was forest or farmland'' -- says The Hartford Courant in a long, history-conscious and data-rich editorial entitled ''State of Sprawl,'' not only confident that Connecticut leaders can handle the challenge and manage growth ''smartly and sensibly, if they have the imagination and political will,'' but also ready to make sprawl ''a centerpiece'' of the 2006 gubernatorial campaign.

Preceded by a 1930s New Deal mortgage-refinance program and gradually accelerated by various post-War World II policies favoring suburbs, sprawl was really unleashed with ''the growing availability of cheap cars and cheap gas,'' the editorial observes, stressing, ''Nothing changed the American landscape like the automobile, because once free of the need for fixed-path transit, development could go anywhere.''

Far from calling the postwar movement to the suburbs ''a bad thing, because for countless Connecticut families it wasn't,'' the editorial points out that since then its socioeconomic, cultural and environmental costs have made it unsustainable.

The editorial cites wasteful service and infrastructure extension, while urban networks decay; rapacious land consumption, with Connecticut losing nearly 50,000 acres, or 12 percent of its farmland between 1997 and 2002; increased driving and road congestion, with 80 percent of the state's 1.6 million workers commuting alone; air and water pollution, with serious threats to water supplies, aquifers and delivery systems; insufficient housing production, with the state found short of 68,000 affordable units in 2000 and prices up 60 to 80 percent since then, but wages only 13 to 15 percent; obesity and other health problems, documented by a 2004 Rand Corp. study of 38 metropolitan areas; and social isolation, with many elderly suburban dwellers unable to drive and ready to move wherever they can find services and amenities within walking distance, but finding these options limited.

Still ''a desirable place to live'' despite all these problems, Connecticut will squander its advantages ''if sprawl continues unabated,'' the editorial warns, calling state leaders, lawmakers, local officials and residents to action.

Mentioning the Oregon urban-boundary model, created by Republican Governor Tom McCall and environmentalists in the 1970s, and the Maryland smart-growth model, pioneered by Democratic Governor Parris N. Glendening and customized in several other states in the 1990s, the editorial says Connecticut lawmakers ''put money into smart growth'' this year by creating a permanent $100 million fund for open space, farmland and historic preservation and affordable housing construction, but they must work out a comprehensive ''incentive-based anti-sprawl program'' to reverse the ''decades-long pattern of poorly planned, helter-skelter development.''

Urging Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell or her successor to take the lead in smart growth efforts, the editorial says the state should continue educational programs; launch a build-out study; create meaningful incentives for development in urban areas, while ending sprawl subsidies; relieve local governments from over-reliance on property taxes, responsible for their poor and ultimately adverse land-use decisions; make ''a real investment in transit and transit-oriented development,'' higher than the $1.2 billion the governor committed mostly to upgrades of the present, largely inadequate system; strengthen the cities and inner suburbs, to restore their attractiveness and reduce development pressures in rural areas; study and encourage regionalism; and create a ''sprawl-buster'' office to help towns plan and manage growth, while also offering them model zoning and subdivision codes and other assistance.

''We will ask all candidates for governor to explain how they will attack the sprawl problem if elected,'' the editorial says, inviting readers to sound their opinions, too. -- The Hartford Courant   10/9/2005

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Sprawl Costing Connecticut Millions Annually in Development Fees -- Not Counting Quality of Life Losses

Whenever low-density development takes people ''farther and farther out to exurbia, basic infrastructure must follow'' and taxpayers pay more and more for its extension, writes Regional Plan Association's associate Connecticut planner Emily J. Moos in a Hartford Courant commentary, citing research showing that sewers cost about $450,000 a mile, that the nation spends some $200 million each day for roads, and that the cost of far-flung schools is equally high.

In Maine, she notes, the number of students dropped by 27,000 between 1970 and 1990, but the state still spent $727 million on school construction. In Washington State each new single-family home requires an additional $18,600 a year in educational funds, with many Connecticut towns shouldering similar costs.

''Connecticut will pay increasingly for the sprawling model of development that it has chosen to follow, unless it makes a change,'' the planner concludes. ''We must implement smart growth initiatives not only to reverse the negative trends of sprawl and ensure the state's competitiveness within the broader region, but also to preserve and enhance the quality of life that Connecticut residents have enjoyed for centuries.'' -- Hartford Courant   10/9/2005

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

West Hartford Celebrates Groundbreaking for Mixed-Use Blue Back Square Project

First outlined by developers Richard Heapes, Robert Wienner and partners in 2001, the $160-million mixed-use Blue Back Square project in central West Hartford is finally under way, with elated Lieutenant Governor Kevin Sullivan, a town resident and former mayor, telling the large crowd at a groundbreaking ceremony, ''We always talk about smart growth and this is an excellent example of that. This is smart growth defined.''

But it took patience and firmness to overcome opposition and get it launched, notes West Hartford News writer Ken Harrison, quoting chief developer Richard Heapes and Mayor Scott Slifka. Thanking the Town Council for its steady ''commitment and dedication,'' the developer pointed out ''it is because of the way they stood up and defended this project from countless attacks that we are all here today to celebrate this wonderful occasion.''

Mayor Slifka said, ''Blue Back Square has been approved by the Town Council twice, by the voters of West Hartford twice and by the marketplace countless times and now at long last, Blue Back Square is becoming a reality.''

Town Councilwoman Barbara Carpenter added, ''Despite over two years of frustration we have now seen the best of West Hartford and I am so proud of our strong community for making this day possible.''

Scheduled for completion by October 2007, the writer notes, the project will feature more than 100 condos, over 400,000 feet of office and retail space, a movie theater and several restaurants. The plans also include renovation of the nearby Town Hall and public library. -- West Hartford News   9/29/2005

Resource(s): www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=1646

Regional Cooperation Could Ease Rural Development Pressures, Benefit Connecticut Cities and Suburbs

Having long ''siphoned off'' jobs, population and economic growth from Connecticut's central cities, their nearby suburbs are now ''watching as development bypasses them and heads out to the towns beyond,'' with many residents dismayed by its constant waves that overwhelm local roads, schools and service budgets, writes Hamden-based planning consultant Michael T. Looney in a Hartford Courant commentary, hoping that ''increased development pressure on exurban Connecticut has cracked open the door to greater regional cooperation among cities and towns.''

The state's history of strong home rule, weak county government and ''occasionally tempestuous'' municipal competition has often worked against regionalism, with regional councils of government the only larger structures, yet ''never intended or empowered to serve as the machinery of regional governance.''

But now, when rural towns resist development, which would be welcomed in the central cities and first-ring suburbs, regional cooperation is a mutually advantageous solution, the planner writes, seeing the challenge in counteracting ''the private housing and commercial development markets.''

This doesn't ''involve complicated zoning techniques or a radical reordering of society,'' but simply ''making our central cities and first-ring suburbs more desirable places to live, not necessarily through mega projects, but by doing the little things right.''

It means, he continues, reducing crime, improving schools, reclaiming vacant lots, upgrading sidewalks and streets, and razing badly blighted buildings, a daunting task ''likely beyond the abilities of any one municipality to handle.''

Consequently, rural worries about encroaching development and urban worries about its lack may finally bring cities and suburbs onto common ground.

''A stronger, more vibrant Hartford is truly a benefit to Vernon and Tolland, not just for the regional economic gains that would spin off from the central city, but also because the more desirable Hartford is, the more pressure it takes off suburban towns to absorb the demands of the private market.''

With its extensive infrastructure and social and cultural institutions, Hartford is a much better location for high density than any outer suburb. ''The key is not to fight market pressure, but to guide it in a logical and sensible manner,'' the planner ends. ''That is the basis of truly smart growth.'' -- Courant   8/28/2005

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Stafford Takes Step Toward Smart Growth With Special-Permit Ordinance for Big Box Stores

Expecting a Wal-Mart big-box application this September, the Stafford Planning and Zoning Commission moved toward its own definition of smart growth for this rural town among the northern Appalachian forests by adopting a special-permit ordinance for any commercial building over 50,000 square feet, observes a Hartford Courant editorial, encouraging the town ''to do more to manage growth smartly.''

Until now, the editorial notes, developers in business zones faced only a site plan review, focused on lighting, screening, parking and similar narrow issues, with little public control over a structure's appearance and its neighborhood impact.

Although the special-permit ordinance ''is more of a negotiating tool than a set of strict guidelines,'' it gives the commission more influence over business type and building size, location and some design elements, not precluding big-box stores, but requiring the right proposals in the right places.

Now ''residents should push for a design review committee'' wielding more power than the ordinance itself, the editorial stresses, advising them also to consider a ''village district'' that would restrict certain building types and to seek investor tax incentives to help reclaim vacant and blighted buildings.

''Communities should be receptive to a variety of commercial proposals,'' the editorial concludes. ''But that doesn't mean they can't protect a town's character and control where certain types of businesses are built.'' -- Courant   8/17/2005

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Editorial Says Connecticut Legislators Must Make Tough Decisions to Help Ease Commuter Woes

Citing the newest national ''Driven to Spend: Pumping Dollars Out of Our Households and Communities'' study by the Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP) and the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), which shows a 2003 traffic delay increase in Connecticut, New York and northern New Jersey to 49 hours per traveler, a Newtown Bee editorial invites people to think about it while waiting in traffic, especially on the most congested state stretches of I-95, I-91 and I-84.

''That is just over two days of your time lost, either at work or at home; two days of gasoline burned and tailpipe emission spewed into our air for naught; two days of pumping up your blood pressure,'' the editorial tallies the highway pleasures. ''Add up the wasted hours, the wasted energy, and all the commuters who just feel wasted at the end of the day, and it amounts to a heavy tax on the good life in Connecticut.''

And the economic future is also at risk, the editorial points out, quoting state Transportation Strategy Board chairman Nelson Griebel, who warned, ''Where the most serious daily congestion exists is where economic growth is threatened.''

Although a special legislative session later this month is likely to approve Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell's plan to spend more than $1 billion over 10 years to ease congestion, and although even more highway money will come from the federal government, there is no timetable for some key projects, and local commuters should not expects relief for many years.

In this context, the editorial observes: ''State initiatives to reinforce and expand the state's anemic public transportation network, to develop and promote Connecticut's commuter and freight rail lines, and the implementation of smart growth policies that provide incentives for more high-density commercial and residential development around public transit stations may help -- but only if there is enough political fortitude in Hartford to see them through.'' -- Newtown Bee   6/16/2005

Resource(s): www.newtownbee.com/

Anti-Sprawl and Farmland Preservation Bills Seek to Preserve Connecticut's Open Space, Direct New Development to Urban Centers

With federal data showing Connecticut's 12-percent loss of farmland between 1997 and 2002 to be the highest nationwide, while its average per-capita driving rate climbed by almost 500 miles each year, lawmakers have finally produced an anti-sprawl bill and a farmland preservation bill -- the first requiring the state to designate ''priority funding districts'' by 2010, to divert growth from environmentally fragile areas and spur it near regional urban centers and major transportation corridors; the other, setting a $30 land transaction recording fee, to raise $27 million over two years to preserve land, open space and historic properties, and to build affordable housing.

''It's not a full blown smart-growth bill,'' said American Planning Association state chapter vice president Donald Poland about the anti-sprawl bill, ''but I think it's a big first step in Connecticut,'' where one of the main problems is ''a lack of state planning.''

The bill's chief sponsor, Democratic Representative Lewis J. Wallace, agreed. ''It's a more tempered, more moderate, more incremental approach,'' he said. ''But this is what's right for Connecticut at this time.''

The priority funding districts, reports Hartford Courant writer Mike Swift, will be chosen by the state Office of Policy and Management in consultation with the commissioners of economic development, transportation, environmental protection, public works and agriculture.

The state will fund large projects, those that cost more than $100,000, only in these priority districts, with exception for libraries and public schools. The bill also directs municipalities, regional planning groups and other agencies to identify potential areas for higher-density, mixed-use, transit-oriented development with an affordable housing share, but lets municipalities decide whether they want to follow these directions.

Home Builders Association vice president Bill Ethier likes the bill as facilitating the permit process for denser projects near transit. ''We've always said that section of the market is underserved,'' he noted. ''There's a small, but probably growing, section of the market that wants that kind of development, and they should be served.''

Sierra Club state chapter program director John Calandrelli is less enthusiastic. ''Even though it's watered down and we know how the process works, we're still supporting the bill,'' he said. ''It's going to rein in a little bit where the state money goes.'' -- Hartford Courant   6/8/2005

Resource(s): www.courant.com/

Developer Plans Seminar to Help Residents Visualize Advantages of New Milford Smart Growth Project

It would be ''a crying shame'' if New Milford reverted to its prior low-density residential zoning for the Candlewood Mountain farm and someone spread 57 houses all over it, said developer Karl Frey, disappointed that the Town Council voted against the possibility of a special tax district for his planned mixed-use active-adult village, but he bought 164 of the farm acres for $14.25 million anyway and envisions a two-day seminar on the site in June, to help residents visualize the advantages of his smart-growth project.

''I'm going to do everything I can do to have the town's elected officials, and the general populace, understand exactly what we're trying to do here,'' he said. ''I don't want to be like every other developer.''

Frey's proposed luxury adult community, reports Danbury News-Times writer Nanci G. Hutson, would include single-family homes, condos, townhouses and garden flats on about 60 acres, with the remaining 100-plus acres set aside for walking trails and open space. The council's vote, the writer notes, undercut the developer's hope for state legislation on a special tax district that would issue some $25 million in bonds to cover initial construction costs, because of questions about local control over such a district.

Arguing for a tax district, the developer promised a $10 million donation to a nonprofit land trust for protection of tracts the town would select, stressed that active adult communities generate tax revenue without burdening schools and other services, and estimated the tax yield from his project at some $65 million over 30 years. -- News-Times   5/20/2005

Resource(s): www.newstimeslive.com/

Opponents of Old Mystic Road Improvement Plan Believe Change Will Damage Local Character

Despite Connecticut's official support for smart-growth policies, which include protection of scenic land from unnecessary development, the state Department of Transportation (DOT) moved to widen and realign ''a picturesque New England intersection in Old Mystic,'' protests a New London Day editorial entitled ''Regulation Tyranny,'' calling it a road-builder blow against landscape ''under the guise of improving safety.''

Agreeing that the plan addresses safety concerns, the editorial sides with critics who point out that although DOT scaled down the project, it still is ''out of proportion to the problem'' and will mar local character.

Even with the incursion of a car wash, gas station and car dealer nearby, the editorial observes, the area retains its pleasant rural look ''precisely because of the tree-lined and irregular intersection.''

Stressing that the road building is as much a part of sprawl as ''the commercial strips and subdivisions that consume the land and eat away at Connecticut's picturesque scenery,'' the editorial concludes: ''This intersection flies in the face of smart growth.'' -- Day   3/25/2005

Resource(s): www.theday.com/

New State DEP Commissioner's Agenda Includes Focus on Connecticut Smart Growth

Brought from Massachusetts by Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell -- who replaced Governor John Rowland last July -- and asked ''to provide leadership'' for a strong agenda, new Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Gina McCarthy said she will focus the agenda on issues of Long Island Sound, air quality and climate change, open space, wildlife, sprawl and smart growth.

Noting that during the last two years in Massachusetts she ''spent a lot of time on smart-growth issues -- where and how towns should grow (and) how growth should be in keeping with local characteristics,'' Commissioner McCarthy told the New London Day's editorial board that Connecticut, ''a beautiful state,'' poses significant challenges in those policy areas, especially for departments whose functions overlap.

As an example, the commissioner cited transportation. ''I believe in a state having a system of mass transit, so I have a lot to get used to here,'' she said, mentioning the challenge of expanding I-95 ''in an environmentally sound manner.''

She saw another challenge in overcoming municipal obstacles to smart growth. In Massachusetts, a strong home rule state, ''Smart Growth struggled to work with municipalities,'' and here, she observed, ''home rule is even stronger.''

Having begun her career in pollution prevention locally, which ''gives you such a tremendous flavor for how environmental decisions affect people,'' the commissioner wished that every state employee ''would start at the local level,'' stressing, ''Prevention is always better than enforcement.'' -- Day   1/30/2005

Resource(s): www.theday.com/eng/web/

Redevelopment of Old Mills Helps Stonington Communities Preserve Quality of Life

Stretched along some seven miles of Connecticut's jagged southeastern shore, Stonington and its outer boroughs save local vistas from sprawl by the state's most successful redevelopment of vacant or half-empty old mills, with town planning director Jason Vincent calling their revenue-boosting ''adaptive reuse'' an example of smart growth.

Former Planning and zoning Commission chairman, Pawcatuck Revitalization Organization project manager Bob Granato adds that towns nationwide ''have made the rivers the center of their communities with art colonies and theaters that bring in people to support the local economy.''

Having tapped mostly private money for conversion of the first six of 12 area mills -- featuring large windows, high ceilings and brick facades -- into condos, homes, small offices, businesses and artists' studios, reports New London Day columnist Joe Wojtas, the town moved to facilitate the process with the new Industrial Heritage Reuse District zoning approved last summer, which quickly brought in another two mill redevelopment proposals.

Town and Pawcatuck Revitalization Organization officials hope the new zoning will help developers rehabilitate the other four mills, including the most-challenging, the 19-acre Harris Graphics property, potentially part of the envisioned Riverwalk project. The organization, the writer notes, is working with a Yale University architectural group on a master plan for mills and the downtown area, which will soon benefit from multi-million-dollar street improvements.

According to a draft report by New York consultants, the town should continue mixed-use redevelopment of its old industrial sites to protect its quality of life and expand affordable housing. -- Day   11/28/2004

Resource(s): www.theday.com/eng/web/

New Milford Examines ''Town Within a Town'' Active Adult Community Proposal

Known for pastoral beauty, residual affordability and ever faster growth, New Milford, near the state's central western border, may be getting another whole town in its most picturesque undeveloped section, with local landowner Carl Dunham, Jr. and Stamford developer Karl Erey of Vespera Investments asking residents to support infrastructure extensions for their proposed 164-acre, mixed-use Dunham Farm, a luxury ''active adult community'' for buyers at least 55 years old.

Cut out of Dunham's 600 acres of hilly meadows, reports Bridgeport News-Times writer Nanci G. Hutson, the new ''town within a town'' would feature clusters of a total of 508 townhouses, garden-style condos, duplexes, lofts and small houses in the $300,000-$600,000-plus price range, along with centrally located stores, a coffee shop, a meeting hall, a chapel, a post office and a small fire and rescue station.

The $250-million development would also include tennis courts, exercise facilities and a swimming pool, while leaving some 100 acres as open space, with hiking trails and nature and picnic fields.

''This is as smart as it gets,'' the developer stresses. ''This is the anti-sprawl project.''

The writer finds most town officials impressed. ''It's not just a bunch of single-family homes on one- and two-acre plots,'' observes Economic Development Commission Chairman Trip Rothschild. ''They've worked to create a very interesting village kind of atmosphere with everything in walking distance.''

Still, he and others predict a thorough review process, especially since the developer is asking the town to create a special taxing district, which would issue a 20-year, $30 million bond to finance roads, sewer and water lines, and other infrastructure for the project, without which he couldn't afford to proceed.

Although little known in Connecticut, this financing mechanism is quite popular elsewhere, the developer explains, promising the town about $1 million in annual tax revenue within the first five or six years and several million annually after 20 years. Certain of success, he also offers a $10 million donation to a nonprofit land trust for open space acquisition.

Like some residents, the writer notes, town conservationist Patricia Greenspan is concerned about the project's density and its impact on local traffic. But Town Councilman Larry Greenspan, her husband, thinks the project would add less traffic than a standard subdivision, while boosting the town's budget and local merchants. ''I highly endorse it,' he says. ''It is certainly a better alternative than 57 McMansions.'' -- News-Times   10/25/2004

Resource(s): www.news.newstimes.com/

Greenwich Leaders Discuss Regionalism, Prosperous Downtown at Growth Planning Workshop

Famous for its old, green and affluent neighborhoods, but frequently clogged by mostly spillover traffic, Greenwich can't isolate itself from increased development in nearby cities and must consider its future in a regional context, said New Haven Mayor John DeStefano during the Planning for Growth in Greenwich workshop, held by the Greenwich Chamber of Commerce at the Audubon Greenwich Center, telling the audience of business, municipal and civic leaders, ''They are already planning for Greenwich now. The only question is whether you want to be in the room when they're planning for you.''

Chairman of the last year's Blue Ribbon Commission on Property Tax Burdens and Smart Growth Initiatives, notes Greenwich Time writer Hoa Nguyen, the mayor pointed out that forced by their over-reliance on property taxes -- with some 40 cents of each dollar going for education -- municipalities usually seek new strip malls and similar sprawl-type projects that generate more tax revenue without overwhelming schools. That's why his commission urged the state to reform its tax system.

The workshop's other speaker, Columbia University history and social science professor Kenneth Jackson, complemented Greenwich for keeping its central business district vigorous, stressing, ''Most of the time, downtowns have been almost literally destroyed'' and ''(a)ll the life and vitality is at the Walmarts or whatever is a few miles out of town.'' But he also noted its ''relatively few sidewalks'' and very few pedestrians, observing that spending public money on roads makes residents drive more and contribute to congestion.

Later forming small groups, the writer adds, workshop participants focused on the need for new sidewalks, bike paths, and freight railways, also suggesting free bus service between Greenwich rail stations and expansion of affordable housing. -- Greenwich Time   9/24/2004

Resource(s): www.greenwichtime.com/

Dependence on Property Taxes Could Be Eased by Balancing Connecticut's Residential and Commercial Growth

To shed their over-dependence on residential property taxes that have risen to some 65 percent of municipal budgets in the past five years statewide, with 59 percent of the revenue going for schools, the state's small Northwest Corner communities should balance their residential and commercial growth, said New Haven Democratic Mayor John DeStefano -- the chairman of former Republican Governor John Rowland's Blue Ribbon Commission on smart growth and tax reform, expected to seek governorship in 2006.

Invited by Torrington's Chamber of Commerce to advise its members on smart growth, reports Register Citizen writer Rick Klimanowski, the mayor pointed out that Connecticut leans on property taxes more than any other state, which spares not even elderly couples on fixed incomes and results in higher home prices.

This must change, the mayor said, expressing similar concern about New Haven's commercial growth and job security prospects, especially as many companies are moving jobs abroad.

With state Democratic Representative Roberta Willis emphasizing the importance of ''quality of life issues'' in the state's northwestern corner and of a ''dialog to see we share the same problems with big cities,'' Mayor DeStefano told the audience the challenge is to keep the area's uniqueness, ensure adequate school funding, spur commercial revenue and ease the lack of housing. For this, he stressed, residents and officials on all levels must put politics aside, as the ''heavy lifting gets done when people work together.'' -- Register Citizen   9/14/2004

Resource(s): www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=1652

Shelton Building Reuse Plan Would Add Housing for Low- to Medium-Income Households

A 100-year-old former factory building near the Housatonic River in Shelton may gain new life as a 110-unit condominium for people in low to medium income brackets, with developer-architect John Guedes' attorney Raymond Rizio telling the city's Planning and Zoning Commission this $12-million ''adaptive reuse of an old industrial building that no longer functions for industrial purposes'' can become ''the cornerstone of the redevelopment of downtown.''

In an area where very few housing units sell below $200,000, the proposed one-to-two bedroom condos would be listed for $150,000 to $200,000 -- prices local real estate consultant Jim Wright sees in ''tremendous, tremendous'' demand.

Mayor Mark A. Lauretti and Shelton Economic Development Corp. President James Ryan support the project, reports Bridgeport Connecticut Post correspondent Kate Ramunni, quoting the latter, who said the city has been eager for such private investments, noting, ''This is historic preservation in its truest sense'' and a key part of a downtown revival ''mosaic.''

Still, the writer adds, some other supporters -- including ''We R-1'' co-founder Rich Patterson, whose group has sometimes criticized the commission as being too lenient in granting developers requests for Residential 1, or one-acre, zone variances -- expressed concern about the project's insufficient parking space and potential traffic congestion. -- Connecticut Post   6/27/2004

Resource(s): www.connpost.com/

Torrington Earmarks EPA Funds for Assessment of Downtown Brownfield Sites

Included by the U.S. EPA among six Connecticut municipalities to share $1.2 million of the agency's brownfield assessment grants, Torrington, in the mostly rural Litchfield County, will spend its $200,000 for in-depth analysis of the best redevelopment potential for four downtown sites, with city Economic Development Coordinator Christina Emery calling brownfield reclamation ''a key smart growth initiative,'' since each redeveloped acre, ''which cuts down on suburban sprawl and encourages reuse of existing infrastructure, preserves four acres of open space.''

Two of the sites, reports Register Citizen writer Jamie Preston Olmstead, are seen as possible locations for a new county courthouse; the other two are slated in the downtown master plan for mixed uses -- retail and residential. Hoping the city also may qualify for cleanup grants, Coordinator Emery expects it to establish a revolving loan program that would provide low interest loans for site cleanups. -- Register Citizen   6/16/2004

Resource(s): www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=1652

Southbury's Heritage Village Welcomes Mixed-Use Center

Its old Bazaar buildings razed in 1998, the Heritage Village neighborhood in Southbury, northern Fairfield County, will now benefit instead from a new mixed-use Heritage Center, with the Heritage Development Group implementing principles of Smart Growth.

The first building is completed, and group vice president Bob Houlihan expect the first tenant, the Heritage Deli Café, to open its doors within weeks. Some 20,000 square feet in one of the two planned commercial buildings has been already leased to Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (PIPI), headquartered in Germany, reports Woodbury Voices writer Maeve Slavin, and construction of the first of five apartment buildings is under way, along with adaptation of a former sheep meadow as a landscaped walking trail.

''Smart Growth is a re-affirmation of the traditional custom of integrating commercial, residential and recreational uses with pedestrian corridors,'' the writer tells readers. ''This formula supports the idea of community and endorses the use of existing infrastructure to update a fading neighborhood.'' -- Voices   5/29/2004

Resource(s): www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=1380

Regional Zoning, Tax Shifts Proposed to Stem Loss of Connecticut's Open Spaces

Excessively dependent on property taxes, Connecticut makes its municipalities contend for development at the expense of open space, said two smart-growth advocates at a land-use forum in Portland -- six-term New Haven Mayor John DeStefano suggesting a 20-percent property tax cut, offset by an across-the-board income tax increase, and former East Haddam First selectwoman Susan Merrow urging regional zoning cooperation, because whatever adjacent Middletown does affects Portland, too.

Chairman of the state commission on ''Property Tax Burdens and 'Smart Growth' Initiatives,'' which issued its call for reforms last year, Mayor DeStefano pointed out that businesses pay $1.5 billion of the state's $5.5 billion property tax revenue a year, while two-thirds of them pay only the minimum $250 in income taxes, an imbalance that ''is hurting business and job growth.''

The former selectwoman, reports Middletown Press writer Jeff Mill, elaborated on the need to reform the state tax structure, help cities and conserve land, stressing, ''Over-reliance on property tax causes bad land-use decisions. We're using up land eight times faster than the population is growing.'' -- Middletown Press   4/20/2004

Resource(s): www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=1645

Editorial: Connecticut Anti-Sprawl Bill Would Stimulate New Construction in Urban Areas

''Support is growing for steps to rein in sprawl,'' says a Hartford Currant editorial, urging Connecticut lawmakers to pass ''a sound anti-sprawl bill'' that would ''encourage development in urban areas, which already have an infrastructure of roads, schools, sewers and public safety services.''

Specifically, the bill would set up a geographic information system to provide a snapshot of every property; authorize an analysis showing the prospective look of each municipality if every plot was developed to the maximum allowed under zoning laws and a study documenting the impact of federal, state and local taxes on taxpayers of different incomes; and let the state's five largest cities adopt ''a split-rate property tax system, under which land would be taxed at a higher rate than buildings.''

This system, the editorial says, would stimulate construction in urban areas, as it did in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where business has skyrocketed since its adoption two decades ago. ''These tools would encourage intelligent planning based on knowledge of the consequences of various tax and zoning decisions,'' the editorial points out, adding, ''Scattershot development in the countryside requires a much greater investment in public services'' and ''forces people to travel farther to jobs, creating more highway congestion.'' -- Hartford Currant   3/3/2004

Resource(s): www.ctnow.com/

Meeting Participants Call for Property Tax Reform, Effective Urban Strategy to Stem Costs of Connecticut Sprawl

''We need an urban strategy that's as aggressive as our protection of rural space,'' said Norwalk resident Peggy Holton at a City Hall hearing held by state lawmakers from the Planning and Development Committee seeking public input on the October 2003 report by the Blue Ribbon Commission on Property Tax Reform and Smart Growth Incentives, which proposed shifting some $1.25 billion in municipal educational costs to the state, while exploring ways to curb sprawl, revitalize older neighborhoods, promote transit and reduce car dependency.

The audience of about 70 local officials, homeowners, conservationists and others concerned about property tax increases, traffic congestion and overall quality of life, reports Norwalk Hour writer Amrita Dhindsa, expressed support for the proposals and encouraged a push for legislation.

Noting that Connecticut is third nationwide in property tax burden, Blue Ribbon Commission member, Norwalk Democratic Mayor Alex Knopp asked state lawmakers to make tax reform a priority, to relieve municipal reliance on the property tax for funding local services. ''The property tax is regressive and unfair,'' the mayor noted, calling it an inaccurate measure of wealth and resident ability to pay.

Local Democratic Representative Bob Duff said in an e-mail that a prime area for state-municipal partnership can be pursuit of a sound transportation policy, to relieve traffic, improve transit, facilitate economic development and prevent businesses from leaving the city due to road congestion. -- Hour   1/30/2004

Resource(s): www.thehour.com

Smart Growth Planning Offers a Brighter Future for City of Torrington

Having become ''one of the latest hot topics'' in legislatures and municipalities across the country, Smart Growth has also stirred hopes in Torrington -- the main city in park-like Litchfield County -- where Mayor Owen Quinn's Smart-Growth Group, formed last fall to address the tremendous residential development surge, is focusing on downtown redevelopment, courthouse construction, sewer capacity and a new Park and Recreation master plan. ''The mayor really wanted to seriously look at where we were heading in five, 10, even 15 years, and what burdens the city might face,'' says Economic Development Coordinator Christina Emery. ''We're basically trying to figure out where we want to be long-term, and how we want to handle economic growth, neighborhood revitalization and the overall future of Torrington.''

This coincides with the state's interest in smart growth, reports Torrington Register Citizen writer Jamie Preston Olmstead, noting that the General Assembly's Planning and Development Committee scheduled a January 21st city hearing on key related issues, including transportation, sprawl and property taxes. A week later, the writer adds, the mayoral Smart-Growth Work Group will present its preliminary findings at a smart-growth summit, with the participation of the City Council, Planning & Zoning Commission, Economic Development Commission, Parks & Recreation, Inland-Wetlands, Board of Finance and other agencies. -- Register Citizen   1/10/2004

Resource(s): www.registercitizen.com/

Connecticut Focuses on Smart Growth Principles in Five-Year Update Draft of Conservation and Development Plan

With Connecticut ''at a crossroads'' as it faces the need ''to balance the environment, economy and community,'' the state Office of Policy and Management (OPM) is readying a series of January and February public hearings on the ''Draft Conservation and Policies Plan for Connecticut, 2004-2009,'' its six growth-management principles made ''more prescriptive'' for the state's 169 municipalities and 15 regional planning organizations (RPOs), while leaving them sufficient application latitude ''based on their unique situations and local interests'' and promising ''state capital investment.''

The fifth five-year update of the conservation and development plan first adopted by the General Assembly in 1979, the new draft specifies the principles as follows: ''Redevelop and Revitalize Regional Centers and Areas with Existing or Currently Planned Physical Resources; Expand Housing Opportunities & Design Choices to Accommodate a Variety of Household Types and Needs; Concentrate Development Around Transportation Nodes and Along Major Transportation Corridors to Support the Viability of Transportation Options; Conserve and Restore the Natural Environment, Cultural and Historical Resources, and Traditional Rural Lands; Protect and Ensure the Integrity of Environmental Assets Critical to Public Health and Safety; (and) Promote Integrated Planning Across All Levels of Government to Address Issues on a Statewide, Regional and Local Basis.''

Augmented by the Locational Guide Map, the draft plan says, ''Creating an ethic of regional coordination is key to the successful implementation of all the growth management principles,'' adding, ''Regional coordination is about pragmatic, rather than political, solutions to the mounting fiscal burdens on Connecticut taxpayers caused in part by the recent devolution of federal government programs to states.'' Among its references, the draft plan lists the recent report by the state Blue Ribbon commission on Property Tax Burden and Smart Growth Incentives, which confirms other study findings that ''(c)urrent patterns of development in Connecticut are not sustainable'' and seeks ''to stir debate over possible changes to the state's tax structure to reduce municipalities' reliance on property taxes, while promoting incentive-based approaches for encouraging municipalities to develop and conserve their land.''

The plan notes that the broad-based blue ribbon commission defines smart growth as ''a comprehensive planning process that encourages patterns of development that can accommodate and sustain economic growth while at the same time limiting sprawl, reducing transportation congestion, protecting natural resources, preserving the traditional character of communities and ensuring equitable access to affordable housing, jobs and community services.'' -- Connecticut Office of Policy & Management   12/22/2003

Resource(s): www.opm.state.ct.us/

Tax Burden/Smart Growth Commission Offers Urban Renewal, Rural Preservation Recommendations in Report

''Connecticut is consuming open space like an alcoholic consuming scotch,'' while many city lots and buildings sit vacant and deteriorate, said Blue Ribbon Commission on Property Tax Burden and Smart Growth Incentives chairman, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, releasing its 55-page report, which recommends shifting an estimated $1.25 billion of municipal education cost to the state and funding more studies of smart-growth planning and land-use policies to help curb sprawl, revitalize urban centers, spur transit use and reduce car dependency. ''We are well on our way to becoming wall-to-wall suburb. Such development brings with it more roads, more congestion and more pollution,'' the report reads. ''We are losing our remote rural character and the central urban core has become increasingly distressed.'' Although the state would absorb most of the education cost shift, reports Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in the Norwalk Hour, Mayor DeStefano said part could be covered by raising income tax for wealthy residents. His commission found many municipalities caught in reluctant competition for big-box stores and other development -- which bring new property tax revenue needed to pay the rising cost of local services -- and many municipal officials worried that growing numbers of elderly, fixed-income and other local residents can't afford to pay their property taxes. To ease these fiscal problems, the commission also suggests letting municipalities collect surcharges on some state taxes and allowing regions to increase their sales taxes, but to use the proceeds only for regional projects. The legislature will consider the commission's recommendations after it reconvenes in February. -- The Hour   10/21/2003

Resource(s): www.thehour.com

Lawsuits Pit Spotted Salamander Wetlands Habitat Against Wilton Housing Project

In a 1999 case closely watched for its statewide impact, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the Inlands Wetlands Commission of Wilton cannot use its concern over spotted salamanders that breed in wetlands during the spring and later live upland to block AvalonBay Communities, Inc. from building 113 apartments, including 28 affordable units, on a 10.6-acre site that contains the salamander habitat within some 500 feet off wetlands. ''The commission may regulate activities outside of wetlands, watercourses and upland areas only if those activities are likely to affect'' zones under its direct supervision and in this case, the court found, there was ''no evidence, nor any claim, that spotted salamander provide any benefit to the wetlands on the property or off-site.'' While the case was in court, AvalonBay reduced its project to 100 apartments and increased the number of affordable units to 30, but this proposal was also rejected last month both by the city's Inlands Wetlands Commission and the Planning and Zoning Commission, triggering another lawsuit. Under a 2000 state law, reports Norwalk Hour writer Jerrod Ferrari, municipalities like Wilton are required to make at least 10 percent of their housing units affordable to lower-income residents. About 2.6 percent of Wilton's housing is currently deemed affordable. -- Hour   10/5/2003

Resource(s): www.thehour.com

S.G. Panel Proposes Shifting Education Costs to State in Hopes of Easing Municipal Competition for Development Tax Dollars

To make municipalities less dependent on property tax revenue, which forces them to compete for development and fuels sprawl, the state Blue Ribbon Commission on Property Tax Burdens and Smart Growth recommends shifting almost $1 billion of their education cost to the state, with the tacit implication of a state income tax increase in the future. The commission's final report was approved unanimously after the Connecticut Business and Industry Association (CBIA) secured assurance that any tax reform's key goal would be economic growth. The CBIA, writes Middletown Press correspondent Mary E. O'Leary, ''has a big stake in tax reform'' since business pays more than $1.5 billion a year in local property taxes and $445 million in state corporate taxes, the latter due to go up this fiscal year. The commission also recommends regional cooperation and proposes incentives for land use planning to focus development in areas with existing infrastructure. Although the legislature is unlikely to consider all recommendations simultaneously -- delaying tax reform, while acting on smart growth proposals as soon as next year -- experts like New Haven's policy analyst Robert Smuts calls it significant that the across-the-spectrum commission recognized the connection between freeing towns from their dependency on property taxes and regional cooperation, growth management and better land use. -- Middletown Press   9/30/2003

Resource(s): www.middletownpress.com/

Commission's Tax and Land Use Proposals Aim to Break Sprawl-Producing Competition for Property Taxes

With 40 percent of a Connecticut taxpayer's dues now taken by the local property tax, 29 percent by the state income tax and 20 percent by the state sales tax, and with its land consumed eight times faster than the population grew over the past three decades, the state Blue Ribbon Commission on Property Tax Burdens and Smart Growth is readying proposals to reduce municipal reliance on property taxes by shifting about $1 billion in K-12 educational costs to the state and to modify its ''land use model ... to avoid the costs generated under the current sprawl format,'' quotes New Haven Register editor Mary E. O'Leary from the commission's draft report. The commission's ''starting point,'' says Office of Policy and Management representative W. David LeVasseur, was the ''Connecticut Metropatterns'' study by Oregon lawmaker and urban expert Myron Orfield. Issued this spring, the writer notes, the study found that ''competition for property tax base pits town against town, produces sprawl, threatens the rural character of the state and encourages patterns of inequality.'' Any property tax relief would need to be offset by an increase in state income and probably sales taxes, with some specifics likely to emerge from public input before the final report goes to the General Assembly in October, but actual implementation is expected to take several years or a decade. In contrast, smart growth recommendations -- including better state-local coordination of land use, new planning incentives and statewide data processing -- already match state efforts to buy open space and spur urban development. Connecticut Conference of Municipalities Associate Director James Finley says, ''Strengthening of councils of governments, giving them revenue-sharing and land-use authority -- that can certainly start sooner, rather than later.'' -- New Haven Register   8/3/2003

Resource(s): www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=1281

Report Outlines Steps for Improving Land Use Strategies in New England

''Sprawl is neither the ordained nor the inevitable outcome upon the New England landscape,'' but the necessary public-private steps to ''improve land use patterns and reduce the cost of local government'' must begin with legislation to eliminate gaps between land use laws of the region's six states and with incentives for municipal cooperation, asserts the New England Environmental Finance Center at the University of Southern Maine's Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service in its just-posted online ''Model State Land Use Legislation for New England.'' The 97-page study proposes the creation of municipal service districts, an outcome-based comprehensive planning law and omnibus model state-level land use control legislation. It points out that in the face of growing sprawl costs, ''it is incumbent upon all levels of government to respond in a comprehensive, forceful, and effective manner.'' Specifically, the states and municipalities should acknowledge that they share land use authority; that the state can and will assert its authority to fulfill its financial, social, environmental and other responsibilities when they are jeopardized; that primary land use decision-making authority can and should reside at the local level, with state review warranted if state interests and responsibilities are at stake; and that ''when the state asserts authority over municipalities, it must be done equally and fairly across the state.'' To help the six states ''enact all or a portion'' of the proposed legal framework, the study organizes the material in three increasingly specific parts, entitled ''A mechanism to create a form of regional governance tailored to New England,'' ''A far-reaching set of amendments to the state-level, comprehensive land-use planning statutes of Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont'' (since Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire lack such statutes), and ''A set of 10 individual provisions which, taken together, represent omnibus land use legislation.'' The study also defines or clarifies definitions of impact fee; implementation program; moratorium; rate of growth, or ''cap'' ordinance; capital budgeting; cluster development; floating or unmapped zoning; high density development; infill development; locally unwanted land use (LULU); Not in My Back Yard (NIMBY); overlay zoning; planned unit (mixed use) development; and transfer of development rights.   7/18/2003

Resource(s): http://efc.muskie.usm.maine.edu/pubs.htm

Guilford Residents Review Town's Assets, Development Priorities in Smart Growth Strategy Workshop

What their rustic Long Island Sound coastal town of 21,000 needs most is more diversified and affordable housing, preservation of open space and the last farmland, and protection from ''big-box'' chain stores with their asphalt parking lots, said Guilford residents during a workshop with consultants hired by the Planning and Zoning Commission to devise the town's strategy for smart growth. The consultants, Glen Chalder of Planimetrics and Terry Szold of Community Planning Solutions, sought the input as the first step in their study of the town's assets and long-term potential, reports Guilford Courier writer Michelle Royce, quoting Szold, who told residents, ''All of us are collectively observers of growth, smart and otherwise,'' inviting them to define for themselves ''what kinds of development are good.'' The residents also said they wouldn't want more traffic, but would like to ensure that the town no longer ''shuts down'' at night, leaving the young with nothing to do while the town ends up as a mere summer vacation place. Selectwoman Janet Poss put their concerns in a wider context, stressing that in its search for smart growth, Guilford should work with nearby towns to handle regional development problems. The consultants plan another town workshop in September. -- Guilford Courier   6/13/2003

Resource(s): www.ctnow.com/

Editorial: Smart Growth Is the Smart Choice in a Lean Economy

''The Smart Money is On Smart Growth'' say Brookings Institution experts Bruce Katz and Mark Muro in the headline of their Hartford Courant commentary, stressing that despite Connecticut's $1.4 billion deficit in the next two years, Republican Governor John G. Rowland should join Massachusetts Republican Governor Mitt Romney ''in pursuing the fiscal benefits of curbing sprawl and fostering more compact growth,'' because bad times ''accentuate cost-consciousness, and sprawl is incredibly costly'' -- it requires state and local governments to spend a lot for ''new highways, new schools and new water pipes to ever more far-flung suburbs.'' In the context of economic and tax collection slowdown, they write, ''the cost of sprawl and the cost-saving promise of smart growth reforms become unmistakable.'' That's why Governor Romney ''has dramatically reordered state government around a smart-growth agenda and appointed a smart-growth proponent (Doug Foy) to reorient the state's transportation, economic development and housing departments'' and that's why Governor Rowland should try to stop ''the mindless horse-trading of program cutting and tax increases now under way'' and seek tough reforms to advance regionalism, cut sprawl-inducing spending and return growth to cities. Connecticut's budget shortfall also intensifies the need to restructure the state's fiscal system and reduce the ''inordinate'' municipal dependency on property taxes, which is a condition for ''true land-use reform'' and without which municipalities ''will remain addicted to property tax revenue'' and ''development in the wrong places.'' The writers conclude by repeating a quotation by Massachusetts ''smart-growth czar'' Foy, who recently told business leaders, ''Men, we've run out of money; now we must learn to think.'' -- Hartford Courant   6/8/2003

Resource(s): www.courant.com

Broader Debate Over Land Use Issues Shaping Up in Connecticut

Connecticut regional planning and zoning seem unlikely ''in our lifetimes,'' but ''there are signs that a broader debate over land use is taking shape,'' observes Hartford Courant columnist Dan Haar, noting that as the anti-sprawl and smart growth movements gather steam, the newly created pro-development Connecticut Partnership for Balanced Growth is appropriating their ideas ''to claim some of the middle ground'' -- its president, shopping center developer Mike Goman of Konover & Associates Inc., recently telling industry banquet guests, ''We're effectively allowing extreme advocates of smart growth to frame the debate. We want to make sure the evolving smart-growth principles don't come to mean no growth.'' Although anti-sprawl and smart growth are ''tied together by ideas,'' they are ''not the same,'' the columnist writes, taken aback by the spread of commercial development along Route 44 in the Farmington Valley, where ''Canton is gradually joining Avon and Simsbury'' and where Canton Advocates for Responsible Expansion (CARE) president Jane Latus explains, ''To say you're anti-growth is like saying you're anti-breathing.'' Her group, which favors local control, endorsed a 350,000-square-foot Shoppes retail center with some offices, big stores and a Main Street on a golf course in Canton, because ''an insensitive developer could have built four times that amount'' due to its rezoning a few years ago. She is cautiously optimistic about the new Connecticut Partnership for Balanced Growth, but also wary since ''It's very easy for people to co-opt the lingo for smart growth.'' The columnist accepts the group's assurances that it seeks a balanced debate and a middle ground even though its keynote speaker was ''a free-market, pro-car, anti-zoning fanatic from Oregon,'' economist Randal O'Toole. Noting that group president Mike Goman and executive director Chuck Coursey distanced themselves from his diatribe, the columnist thinks ''maybe they should let the Sierra Club pick their next speaker.'' -- Hartford Courant   4/18/2003

Resource(s): www.ctnow.com/business/

Guilford Taking Steps to Create Smart Growth Plan

In another move to preserve Guilford's character and natural assets, town selectmen are following up their general Plan of Conservation and Development, adopted last year, with funds for a more specific Smart Growth Plan, which should ensure multi-agency cooperation, better land use and greater fiscal efficiency. The first phase of smart growth planning, by the independent Planimetrics firm, will begin shortly and likely last throughout the summer, reports Guilford Shore Line Times writer Casey Lyons, quoting Town Planner George Kral, who says consultants will scrutinize residential zoning regulations, focusing on such issues as available land, higher density, mandatory open space, and both multifamily and affordable housing. The town wants to determine where besides downtown it should encourage development and which sections and other rural areas it should protect. In the second phase of planning, probably next year, the planner says, Planimetrics would study other growth-management options, including the transfer of development rights, developer impact fees and ''permit phasing,'' under which the town could establish an annual home-building cap. -- Shore Line Times   4/16/2003

Resource(s): www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=1630

Connecticut's Affordable Housing Waiting List Gets Longer in Norwalk, Stamford

Although Connecticut's affordable housing appeal law should make all communities provide 10 percent of their units to low-income residents, its wealthy southwestern region has 98 percent of affordable units concentrated in Norwalk and Stamford, said Norwalk senior planner Dorothy Wilson at the city Common Council's public forum on the issue, which doesn't mean, stressed others, that the city's affordable housing shortage is any smaller. The waiting list has recently grown from about 620 to 770 names, said Norwalk Housing Authority director Curtis Law, whose agency owns and manages about 1,200 units and controls 800 occupied by recipients of federal rental aid. He urged efforts to maintain sufficient public housing, while helping its residents become home owners. Others, reports Norwalk Hour correspondent Harold F. Cobin, complained about exclusionary zoning, steep land prices and government funding scarcity. Norwalk Economic Opportunity Now executive director Robert A. Burgess hit the city's previous administration of Republican Mayor Frank Esposito for putting up ''roadblocks'' to affordable housing since 1982 -- which triggered an NAACP suit -- and voiced his belief that with Democratic Mayor Alex Knopp and an all-Democrat city council ''construction of affordable housing will be much, much easier.'' -- Norwalk Hour   1/7/2003

Resource(s): www.thehour.com

Anti-Congestion Plan Approved by Connecticut's Transport Strategy Board

Meeting the mid-December legislative deadline, the state Transportation Strategy Board approved a $9 billion, 20-year Connecticut anti-congestion plan, with the first decade's state spending of $3.5 billion on roads and $1.2 billion on transit -- mainly in its choked 50-mile I-95 and Merritt Parkway corridor between the New York suburbs and New Haven, running the whole length of affluent Fairfield County. The plan also projects $41 million for improvements at Bradley International Airport near Hartford and an undetermined amount for coastal barge freight, port and rail service integration and high-speed ferry service expansion. Anticipating adequate federal aid, the board proposed to increase state sales tax from 6 to 6.5 percent for 10 years, hike gas tax three cents a year from the current 25 to 40 cents by July 2007, raise fares on the Metro-North and Shoreline East railroads and some bus lines, and study tolls for the northern stretch of I- 95 and the southern stretch of I-84. The 15-member board passed the plan unanimously, but the chairman of its Movement of Goods subcommittee, George Giguere, who favored decking of I-95 and widening of the Merritt Parkway -- both concepts shunned by the board -- criticized allocation of 25 percent of the money for transit in Fairfield County as ''disproportionate,'' given that only two percent of state residents use trains and buses. But Westport First Selectwoman Diane Farrell reminded him that Fairfield County is the state's economic engine and the Republican state senator from Greenwich, William Nickerson, said ''the only way Fairfield County is going to work its way out of its current transportation glut is through transit and rail,'' adding, ''We can't drive our way out of transportation problems.'' -- The Advocate, The Hour   12/18/2002

Resource(s): www.stamfordadvocate.com ; www.thehour.com

Waterford Subdivision is New England's First ''Laboratory'' for Natural Stormwater Management

Once a chicken farm, the just-opened 18-acre Glen Brook Green subdivision in Waterford became New England's first and the country's 23rd laboratory for rainwater collection, treatment and reuse, as University of Connecticut agricultural researchers prepare to compare its runoff with that of a typical suburban street nearby and to calculate the difference in pollutants they carry to area waterways. ''While we've done a great job cleaning up our waterways,'' said U.S. EPA New England regional administrator Robert W. Varney, ''we still have many challenges with residential, commercial and industrial developments and contaminated runoff from everyday activities.'' Instead of the usual curbs and gutters, reports Associated Press writer Stephen Singer in The Boston Globe, the environmentally friendly Glen Brook Green neighborhood features contoured gardens with gutters run into the ground, narrow roads and broad grassy areas, water-absorbing soil spaces between road sections and water-collecting roadside ditches. With $1 billion in federal money spent since 1990 on national pollution-reducing and monitoring programs, EPA officials have found such natural stormwater management solutions not only beneficial for water quality, but also less costly. They estimate that typical ''curb and gutter'' drainage systems cost $45 to $50 a linear foot in comparison with $10 to $15 for grass-lined ditches. But even with the Glen Brook Green success, the writer notes, administrator Varney doubts builders will be required to adopt similar practices, which likely will be ''an option.'' -- The Boston Globe   10/11/2002

Resource(s): www.boston.com/

Transport Board Looks at Rush Hour Toll Levys to Discourage Car Use, Boost Transit Ridership

''You can't build your way out of congestion,'' said Coastal Corridor Transportation Investment Area board co-chairman Franklin Bloomer, briefing an audience of local lawmakers and civic, business and environmental leaders in Stamford on Connecticut's urgent need to focus on trains, buses and ferries instead of highways to relieve the region's paralyzing traffic. ''We are going to have to decide between what we want and what we're willing to pay for,'' added co-chairman Oz Griebel, warning that since most federal aid -- or about 72 percent of the state transportation budget -- is reserved for highways projects, the state alone will likely have to fund its new transit programs. Working on its recommendations, due to the state Transportation Strategy Board by mid-December, the investment area board sees high-tech electronic tolls, with ''value-priced'' fees going up during rush hours, as a means to discourage car use and boost transit ridership. Norwalk Hour writer Abigail Tucker reports that this approach is supported by the Stamford-based Southwest Area Commerce & Business Association (SACIA), whose president and CEO Chris Bruhl said, ''We live in a market-driven society. These would be price signals for price-conscious consumers.'' -- The Hour   10/9/2002

Resource(s): www.thehour.com

Connecticut Falls Short of Traffic Reduction Goals

From 1997, when Republican Governor John Rowland signed a law aiming for a five-percent cut in state traffic congestion by this October 1, through late last year, congestion increased by about 10 percent, a setback attributed by gubernatorial chief of staff Dean Pagani to Fairfield County's ''dramatic'' population growth, but seen by Democratic candidates for governor and lieutenant governor, Bill Curry and George Jepsen, as resulting from a serious transportation policy failure. The Democratic gubernatorial contender promised to start working on the congestion problem ''immediately'' if elected, while his running mate said, ''What we need is a real commitment to public transportation so people can get to work without clogging the highway.'' Norwalk Hour writer Dirk Perrefort notes that the state Department of Transportation surpassed its five-year goals for rail use -- gaining 2,581 instead of 1,400 passengers -- and for interregional bus service and full-time telecommuting, but fell short of goals for ridesharing, vanpooling, alternative work schedules and ferry ridership. He adds that the Democratic gubernatorial candidate promised to diversify state transportation funding, launch emergency construction of railroad parking lots, encourage business use of flexible work schedules and boost rail and ferry freight. -- The Hour   10/2/2002

Resource(s): www.thehour.com

Transport Board Rejects Upper Deck Proposal for I-95 in Connecticut

Readying a 20-year blueprint for easing cargo and commuter traffic along Connecticut's heavily-congested stretch of I-95, the Coastal Corridor Transportation Investment Area (CCTIA) board rejected a state transportation strategy board's idea of increasing the highway's capacity with an upper deck and outlined instead about 70 complementary solutions, including proposals to move freight by Long Island Sound ''feeder'' barges and to draw commuters out of their cars by improving rail service. An upper deck along I-95 would result ''in a huge infusion of additional traffic into the area,'' said CCTIA board co-chairman Franklin Bloomer, adding, ''There are several areas of the country where additional roads built to relieve congestion have just made the problem worse.'' Norwalk Hour reporter Dirk Perrefort writes that in comments on the board's call for more funds to improve service on the Metro- North New Haven Rail Line and the Danbury Rail Line, state transportation official Harry Harris focused on the current $150 million, five-year project to rehabilitate 242 railroad cars from the early 1970s. But Connecticut Commuter Council vice president Jim Cameron said rail ridership has been growing by 3 to 5 percent a year since 1997, trains often have standing room only and rehabilitation of old cars, though commendable, is not enough to attract more commuters and make them stay with transit. -- The Hour   9/23/2002

Resource(s): www.thehour.com

Connecticut Gubernatorial Candidate Stresses Urgent Need for Smart Growth

''There ought to be a pitchfork rebellion'' against Republican Governor John G. Rowland for eight years of funding highways while ignoring land-use and transit improvements long needed along Connecticut's most populous and congested corridor in Fairfield County, said Democratic gubernatorial contender Bill Curry, stressing the state's urgent need for ''smart growth.'' The governor's spokeswoman Nuala Forde called the candidate's charges ''bizarre,'' adding she hasn't heard him ''say one positive thing about Connecticut.'' Flanked at a Stamford rail-station news conference by his running mate, state Senator George Jepsen, and Norwalk Mayor Alex Knopp, reports Norwalk Hour writer Ryan Flinn, the Democratic candidate released a packet of proposals that would diversify transportation to reduce car use; stop casino expansion to prevent additional traffic increases; and cut urban property taxes to stem business and resident outflow to suburbs. He would also push to expand housing near transportation hubs; renovate urban buildings rather than demolish them for new ones; protect more open space and reclaim brownfields; and require long-term state land-use planning. -- Norwalk Hour   8/16/2002

Resource(s): www.thehour.com/

Editorial: Health of Suburbs Depends on Health of Cities

As Connecticut cities ''spill across their borders, the movement to move even farther away accelerates,'' leaving a socioeconomic hole and a diluted sense of community, writes Hartford Courant columnist Denis Horgan, stressing that cities need help and extensively quoting Hartford Catholic Bishop Peter Rosazza, who asks ''How far away can we run?'' Talking about a major demographic study commissioned by the Archdiocese under its CenterEdge Project, the bishop says, ''People run from the city and their problems follow them to the suburbs. People run from the suburbs to avoid the change and they carry new problems with them.'' Concerned about social justice, the bishop points out that the ''divisions between the cities and the rest threaten us all,'' because ''the health of surrounding communities is dependent on the health of the cities.'' The bishop doesn't know where the study will lead, but emphasizes the need to consider ''regionalism and some sort of revenue sharing.'' He adds, ''we have to understand that the blight of the cities is a human blight as well. We must work for the common good. That is only common sense.'' The writer seconds the call, noting that the governor and others have pushed for rescuing cities, but that more has to be done to help people, since any ''further erosion of the cities will only corrode those beyond the borders as well.''   2/13/2002

Resource(s): www.ctnow.com/

Hartford Coalition to Stress Social Ills of Sprawl

Alarmed by sprawl-induced socio-economic disparities in Connecticut metropolitan areas and hoping to make its future development ''an issue of social justice,'' the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford, reports Hartford Courant writer Mike Swift, is shaping a diverse coalition of religious, business, conservation and other civic-minded groups around its CenterEdge Project, to help residents realize how and why ''unchecked growth on the fringe'' costs cities ''jobs and people'' and erodes the state rural character. The writer quotes the project's honorary chairman, Bishop Peter A. Rosazza, who says the church cannot ignore the social justice issue of city-suburb disparities. The bishop stresses the educational purpose of the coalition, but doesn't preclude eventual lobbying efforts should members want to pursue that course. Noting that the more than 1.3 million Roman Catholics account for 41 percent of the Connecticut population, the writer also quotes Minnesota Democratic state senator Myron Orfield -- whose Metropolitan Area Research Corp. mapped the spread of many urban ills throughout the state's older suburbs for the project -- who says churches ''bring a strong suburban membership'' and ''the moral issue to the table.'' They can raise questions that ''nobody else really can,'' he points out, such as ''How moral is it for black middle-class homeowners to be steered to certain suburbs?'' According to the Archdiocese's Office of Urban Affairs web site, Orfield is working on a narrative for his 50 area maps and on policy recommendations for state lawmakers. The Courant writer adds that similar church entries into regional socio- economic arenas included a push by an interfaith Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength (MOSES) group in Detroit for a new transit authority now debated by state lawmakers and an appeal by Cleveland Roman Catholic Bishop Anthony Pila to curb sprawl as detrimental to the area's environment, community fabric and social justice. Among the more than 20 groups in the Hartford Archdiocese's project, the writer lists the MetroHardford Economic Growth Council, the Capitol Region Council of Governments, the Bridgeport Regional Business Council, the Connecticut Citizens Action Group, the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.   1/3/2002

Resource(s): www.ctnow.com/; www.oua-adh.org/centerEdge_project

In line with Governor John Rowland's 1998 ...

In line with Governor John Rowland's 1998 open space acquisition program, which aims to preserve 673,00 acres -- or about 21 percent of the state's land -- by 2023, Lt. Gov. Jodi Rell announced $6 million in grants to municipalities and local groups for purchases of a total of 1,120 acres. Stressing the state's commitment to environmental protection, state republican Representative Cathy Tymniak, whose Weston district will benefit from a $287,000 grant for the Wildlife in Crisis, Inc., says this money "will help protect the habitat and wildlife for future generations." 09.10.2001, The Hour, Norwalk   9/17/2001

Explaining his unexpected veto of the controversial ...

Explaining his unexpected veto of the controversial "Sooty Six" bill, which would have forced Connecticut's oldest power plants to reduce emissions and ended the pollution credit trade in three years, Governor John Rowland said he has seen many "well-intentioned ideas become lousy laws" and suggested a risk to the state's energy supplies, with potential rolling blackouts like the recent ones in California. Hotly debated for four years, the bill was approved 31-5 in the state's Senate and 86-56 in the House. The "sooty six" are plants in Bridgeport, Middletown, Milford, Montville, New Haven and Norwalk. In Norwalk, both mayoral candidates, Republican incumbent Frank Esposito and state Democratic representative, the bill's co-sponsor Alex Knopp, expressed their deep disappointment with the veto. But ISO-New England President Gordon van Welie pointed out that now both sides should work out a compromise to "accomplish the environmental goals without jeopardizing the state's energy future." Citing the governor who characterized his veto decision as "good policy over good politics," a Norwalk Hour editorial agrees with those lawmakers who say "it was neither."The Norwalk Hour, 06.23.2001; 06.26.2001   7/2/2001

Despite the bipartisan pleadings of Connecticut's congressional ...

Despite the bipartisan pleadings of Connecticut's congressional delegation, President Bush's budget "will slash funds" for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Long Island Sound office "from its present $5 million a year to under $500,000," demurs a Norwalk Hour editorial, saying the budget deals a "bad hand" to broad efforts to clean up the Sound and revitalize its $5 billion a year marine economy. The editorial stresses that federal agencies have only recently "given the Sound the same attention as another eastern seaboard estuary, Chesapeake Bay" and that the Stamford-based Save the Sound group, the New York Audubon Society and other organizations are "stunned by the budget cutbacks." Crediting Republican Representatives Nancy Johnson and Rick Lazio for leading the battle for Sound cleanup money in the House last year, the editorial hopes that "Congress can see fit to include added funding for Long Island Sound" as sensible from an ecological standpoint and "good for those businesses that rely on the sound for their livelihood." 04.20.2001The Hour, Norwalk   4/23/2001

After four years of planning, helped by ...

After four years of planning, helped by $1.5 million in state redevelopment seed money in 1999, prominent Norwalk developer Stanley M. Seligson is ready with a $270 million mixed-use revitalization project for the city's languid West Avenue-Wall Street area, saying that as a native businessman during its heyday, he has made its revival of the section his personal goal. The 22-acre project, which would include 500 housing units, 600,000 square feet of retail, dining and entertainment space, 100,000 square feet of office space and about 3,500-car multi-level garage, now depends on $49 million in city and state funds for street and other infrastructure improvements. The developer hopes that the city can come up with $5 million from general obligation bonds and about $24 million in tax increment financing bonds. He points out that tax increment financing, popular in other states but rare in Connecticut, is advantageous since it doesn't affect the city's books or its credit rating, while spurring a project "that can raise tons of money." He adds that his project would create 3,000 jobs and increase area property tax revenue from about $300,000 to more than $3 million a year, when the first phase is completed by the end of 2003. The Hour, Norwalk, 04.08.2001   4/12/2001

Warning a New England transportation summit in ...

Warning a New England transportation summit in Rocky Hill that "incredible congestion" is threatening the region's economic growth, Governor John G. Rowland encouraged businesses to offer employees flexible starting hours and pledged to focus his efforts as chairman of the New England Governors Conference on improving mass transit. With the congestion most severe along I-95 in Fairfield County, the governor restated his controversial proposal to close some of the road entrances and open the breakdown lane for rush hour traffic. He also said getting commuters to use transit is extremely difficult since they can park free at work, while some municipalities oppose expanding insufficient parking at train stations. A transportation expert, Michael Gallis, pointed out that the region's transportation structure hinders bringing goods north from New York and isolates it from the global economy. Instead of focusing on particular projects, he added, transportation planners must acknowledge economic and lifestyle changes, and work to prevent New England from becoming "a cul de sac in a global network."The Hour, Norwalk, Associated Press, 04.07.2001   4/10/2001

In his State of the State address ...

In his State of the State address, Governor John Rowland (R) expressed great optimism about both the country and Connecticut, stressing that the President-elect and the new Congress "have pledged to end the seemingly endless partisan gridlock" and that the state's first priority will be "further investments in our urban areas and the people who live there." Expanding "the circle of opportunity," the governor said, means preserving the state's "essential quality of life" and hinges on improving its transportation system, which is "the lifeblood of our economy." To this end the governor summed up his goals and expectations as follows: "More than ever before, transportation policy has to be coordinated with economic develpment and environmental protection. Economic development in urban areas creates new wealth and new opportunity. Cleaning up brownfields encourages investment in the poorest parts of our state. And preserving open space helps control growth and protect the beauty and character of this place we call home. This session provides us with a unique opportunity to synchronize economic development, transportation and environmental policy. We can develop policies that will make our urban centers vibrant again, our transportation system efficient, and maintain a quality of life second to none."   1/8/2001

Resource(s): www.state.ct.us

President Clinton signed legislation that creates a ...

President Clinton signed legislation that creates a permanent two-million barrel heating oil reserve for the Northeast region, which suffered from high oil prices last winter and could face a similar situation in coming months. The president described the law, which also restores presidential authority to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as an insurance policy against supply shortages and price spikes in winters. Stored in New Jersey and Connecticut, the oil reserve could be used at a moment's notice. According to the Energy Department, the country consumes about a million barrels of heating oil a day in winter, two-thirds of it in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions.   11/22/2000

Proving again that he meant his 1998 ...

Proving again that he meant his 1998 re-election pledge to focus on urban revitalization, Governor John G. Rowland created the Connecticut Inner City 10 annual awards for the fastest-growing companies in the most distressed neighborhoods. Part of his recent $5-million incentive and job training program to help businesses and encourage cost-sharing partnerships, the new awards will go to companies with more than half of their operations in inner cities and sales of at least $1 million in 1999. An official of the Business Council of Southwestern Connecticut, Joe McGee, says the state's policy on cities has improved dramatically, as the funding amount shows. During the governor's tenure, state aid for its six largest cities exceeded $1.4 billion - almost $400 million more than they received during 15 years under the two previous governors. The president of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, Ken Decko, says the governor's actions demonstrate that he wants to do something about improving life in the cities. The Hour, Norwalk, CT, Sep 27, 2000, 203-846-3281   9/28/2000

Under his 1998 Open Space Program, Governor ...

Under his 1998 Open Space Program, Governor John Rowland announced another $6 million to help cities and towns make additional preservation partnerships and maintain the character and quality of life in the state. Since the program's launch, the state has preserved more than 14,000 acres at a cost of about $40 million. Half of the money was spent in partnership with municipalities, conservation groups and water companies; and half secured direct land purchases. The Department of Environmental Protection will distribute the new money after its review of pending and new funding requests.   9/5/2000

In cooperation with the nonprofit Save the ...

In cooperation with the nonprofit Save the Sound and other environmental groups, Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman will introduce a bill in Congress next year to create a multi-million-acre Long Island Sound Reserve. Urging shoreline residents to support the joint initiative, the senator said, We have come a long way toward cleaning up the Sound, but ... this is a living and fragile body and a lot still needs to be done. The reserve would include permanently protected open space and underwater land, with safeguards for habitat and water quality, and with improved public access. Listen to the Sound 2000 public hearings on the initiative will be held through June in Connecticut and New York State. According to an official at the New York office of the Audubon Society, William Cooke, both states have committed about $500,000 toward the Sound restoration and now is time for infusion of major federal funds, like those that helped restore the Everglades in Florida and Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.   5/25/2000

In his State of the Union address ...

In his State of the Union address, President Clinton expressed satisfaction that he and Vice President Gore have "finally put to rest the bogus idea that you cannot grow the economy and protect the environment at the same time." Urging greater commitment to the environment and cooperation across party lines, the President proposed "a permanent conservation fund, to restore wildlife, protect coastlines, save natural treasures, from the California redwoods to the Florida Everglades." The President also called for more funding under the Vice President's livable communities' initiative. He specified the funding "for advanced transit systems," for "saving open spaces in places of heavy development" and for "helping major cities around the Great Lakes protect their waterways and enhance their quality of life." Stating that "the greatest environmental challenge of the new century is global warming," the President pointed out that technological advances dispel the outdated notion that "you cannot cut greenhouse gas emissions without slowing economic growth." To speed these advances, said the President, "we should give a major tax incentive to businesses for the production of clean energy, and to families for buying energy-saving homes and appliances and the next generation of super-efficient cars." In addition, the President asked Congress to help provide more "clean energy technology" to the developing world. That, he said, "will create cleaner growth abroad and a lot more new jobs here in the United States of America."   1/31/2000

The Stamford-based Champion International Corporation and the ...

The Stamford-based Champion International Corporation and the Conservation Fund, based in Arlington, Va.,have completed a $76 million deal to save from development almost 300,000 acres in New York State, Vermont and New Hampshire. This nation's biggest and most complex public-private land preservation deal was first announced by the governors of New York and Vermont, George Pataki and Howard Dean, in December 1998. It was arranged by the Conservation Fund, in partnership with private investors, public agencies, foundations and conservation groups, with the Vermont Land Trust as the lead partner. The deal will preserve 143,000 acres in New York, 133,000 acres in Vermont, and 18,600 acres in New Hampshire -- about two thirds as sustainable "working forests." Easements will ensure public access for camping, hunting and other recreational purposes.   8/10/1999

The Legislature's Joint Committee is working on ...

The Legislature's Joint Committee is working on a bill that would authorize a state income tax credit for donations of land conservation easements.   5/14/1999

Connecticut College in New London has presented ...

Connecticut College in New London has presented its seventh annual Inherit the Earth Award medals to three businesses combining environmental stewardship with job creation, productivity and profits. GreenVillage of Cambridge, Massachusetts, received the gold medal for environmentally sustainable residential housing. Pavich Family Farms of Bakersfield, California, won the silver medal for organic farming practices. ShoreBank Pacific of Ilwaco, Washington, the first regulated financial institution dedicated to ecosystem restoration, earned the bronze medal for promoting resource conservation, ecological integrity and social equity.   4/1/1999

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