February 12, 1989
I live in a small town nestled in the hills of northwestern Connecticut. Thousands of people come here from around the world to canoe on the Housatonic River, walk in the Cathedral Pines, hunt and fish in the Housatonic Meadows State Park or just take in the beauty of the autumn leaves.
This year Coltsfoot Mountain, a rocky cobble of wilderness that many have enjoyed as they walked the Appalachian Trail, will be subdivided into 20 housing lots. These will be occupied not by homeless people in need of shelter, but by well-to-do people, many of whom have other homes elsewhere. This subdivision represents the outer fringe of uncontrolled growth that threatens Connecticut’s last open spaces.
I also spend a lot of time in Connecticut’s inner cities, particularly in Waterbury and New Haven. I know the neighborhoods where it is easier to buy a vial of crack of cocaine than a quart of milk. I see people shivering on the streets because they have no place to go. I know children whose schools can’t afford do keep their bathrooms supplied with toilet paper.
These worlds may seem unconnected, but in fact they are intimately linked. Public and private policy have skewed Connecticut’s development away from the cities and toward non-urban areas. The result has been predictable: the degradation of both our countryside and our cities.
For the past decade, Connecticut has ridden an economic boom, thoughtlessly allowing its wealth to be used to scar the remaining open spaces, rather than channeling its resources to renew the cities. Now the bust has come- in the form of a state budget deficit that could reach $882 million next year. This crisis provides the opportunity to reevaluate what we are doing- and to turn in another direction.
Perhaps we can learn from New Jersey, a state whose suburban sprawl and urban decay hold up a magic mirror showing us what Connecticut would look like if we don’t change our course.
Faced with a disastrous pattern of development, the New Jersey State Planning Commission in December outlined a plan to redirect new construction from non-urban areas to distressed cities and their adjoining older suburbs. New Jersey developers would be required to pay fees to cover the costs of the public services their projects would require; compensating incentives would be offered for projects in more populated areas. (Local zoning and planning powers remain unchanged.)
Connecticut already has a state plan for conservation and development, approved by the governor and General Assembly. The plan states that “concentrating new development in or near existing urban areas is essential to maintaining a healthy environment and limiting infrastructure costs.” But the plan is virtually unenforced. Many public officials aren’t aware of its existence.
As the Legislature and governor struggle with the budget deficit, they should take a look at the New Jersey plan and similar plans in other states, such as Oregon and and Florida. Then they should craft a proposal, suitable to Connecticut, for a statewide development tax, whereby all developers would be required to pay a fee on commercial, industrial and residential construction. However, this fee would be lower in targeted urban areas. Not only would this tax be a revenue raiser, it would redirect development from our much-needed open spaces to cities.
This approach would facilitate the state’s goal of “concentrating new development in or near existing urban areas.” It would unite Connecticut citizens concerned about land use and open spaces in non-urban areas with those concerned about social justice in the cities. Opposition to a statewide development tax would probably come for developers outside urban areas, because they would be required to pay the full cost of the services their projects require, including transportation, schools, fire protection and waste disposal and treatment.
The shortsighted may argue that imposing limits on non-urban development will slow the growth of the state’s tax base. But megalopolitan sprawl is the cause of much of our soaring public expense. Transportation, waste disposal and treatment and police and fire protection are far more costly when housing and businesses are spread over a wide area. For example, if 50 new businesses move to a city, the cost of public services is less than if those businesses moved to 50 different communities within the state.. Clustering jobs and homes in urban and nearby suburban areas would provide tremendous savings for individuals, corporations, towns and the state.
Indeed, James G. Gilbert, chairman of the New Jersey State Planning Commission, said that such clustering is the only alternative to new taxes to pay for development-related services.
We are told that both new taxes and reduced state services are required to eliminate the state budget deficit. Before the Connecticut Legislature makes nay cuts in needed services, it should pass a statewide development tax with an abatement for urban areas. The state must stop subsidizing developers who subdivide my hometown’s wooded hillsides into tract developments- and instead make it economically viable to provide jobs and housing in Connecticut’s cities.