11/01/2004
Regional approach to growth
By JOSH MROZINSKI , Middletown Press Staff

EAST HAMPTON -- Sustainable growth will be the topic of conservation Nov. 10 at St. Patrick Church on West High Street.
At the "East Hampton Community Forum" residents will hear a presentation about the CenterEdge Report and be able to comment about their community.

Residents are in fact encouraged to begin the conservation with what they love about the community and with concerns they have about the community, Patricia Wallace, coordinator of the CenterEdge project, said.

CenterEdge is a coalition of civic groups that works to educate people about the disparities they say are created by the long-term development in the metropolitan areas of the state.

The event, starting at 7:30 p.m., is sponsored by the Office of Urban Affairs of the Archdiocese of Hartford, St. Patrick Church, Bethlehem Lutheran Church and East Hampton Citizen Advocates for Responsible Development.

The Office of Urban Affairs of the Archdiocese of Hartford began working on funding for the study in 1998 after looking at the affordable housing question for years with community organizations.

"As that work evolved we started having [a] conversation about looking at it from a regional perspective," Wallace, director of programs at the Office of Urban Affairs, said. "And we realized we needed a framework."

So they hired Myron Orfield, who has served in Minnesota’s legislature and has done 40 studies of major metropolitan areas, to create a study of the state’s housing from a regional standpoint.

Since then they’vebeen introducing the document to communities in Middlesex, Hartford, New Haven and Fairfield Counties.

"We feel that this document really looks back at Connecticut’s past and provides a very helpful framework to ask ourselves where we want to go in the future as a state," Wallace said.

The document, titled "Connecticut Metropatterns: A Regional Agenda for Community and Prosperity in Connecticut", will be presented by Mike Piscitelli of the New Haven City Planning Department.

Wallace said the population has been consuming land at a greater rate than population growth. In the past 30 years population has grown by 12 percent but housing consumption has grown by 102 percent.

East Hampton, she said, is categorized as a bedroom community, which comprises 24 percent of the state’s population, according to the report.

Bedroom communities, the report says, are fast-growing communities of mostly low-density residential development. The report says these communities, which have high-achieving schools, spacious new homes and low levels of congestion, appear to offer an alternative to the declining urban core.

But, the report says, the advantages of such communities can erode over time as growth causes stress, open space is lost to development and traffic congestion worsens. The property tax base is growing slowly in these communities, the report says.

Frank Junga, a member of EHCARD, said he agrees with the report’s finding that more regional planning needs to take place. In general, he said, the tax structure in the state is a stumbling block for smart growth because it forces towns to compete, rather than cooperate, for development.

"One way around that is to have regional planning," Junga said. "So the towns work in concert rather than as competitors."

Although the forum is not specifically about the town, he said, the town will most likely be mentioned.

Beth Angel, also a member of EHCARD, said building without thinking about its effect on a community will hurt the community.

She said the entire study applies to the town, such as how local governments are fighting for a tax base.

"You just don’t build without checking out how it’s going to effect the town," Angel said. "It’s about asking questions, and the main question is how are we going to grow while maintaining the quality of life."

To contact Josh Mrozinski, call (860) 347-3331, ext. 222 or email jmrozinski@middletownpress.com.