Regional Plan of Conservation and Development, 2006-2015

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Regional Plan of Conservation and Development, 2006-2015intended to better integrate state planning functionsacross agency lines and to increase the value of theState Plan as an advisory tool for municipalities andregional planning organizations like SWRPA. Inaddition, Public Act 05-205, which adopted the StatePlan, also added the requirement that Connecticut’s15 regional planning organizations update their plansevery 10 years.The Blue Ribbon Commission Report on PropertyTaxes and Smart Growth was released in 2003. TheBlue Ribbon Commission recommended that the stateincrease its funding to local governments to reducetheir reliance on property taxes to fund public services,notably education. It also recommended strengtheningregional planning and more effective growthmanagement tools.The State Transportation Strategy, approved bythe Connecticut Transportation Strategy Board in2002, was also considered during the preparation ofthis Plan.The Greater Bridgeport Regional Planning AgencyThe Greater Bridgeport Regional Planning Agency(GBRPA) was in the process of preparing its RegionalConservation and Development Plan 2006 in December2005; GBRPA’s last regional plan was adopted by thatagency in 1990. Central to the 2006 plan is thedevelopment of a regional growth management strategyto ensure that when land-use decisions are made they“have the effect of retaining the characteristics whichmake the [Greater Bridgeport] Region a good place tolive in terms of economic opportunity, social conditionsand environmental quality.” The preamble to the draft2006 plan also defines urban, suburban and rural“service areas,” as well as “special areas forconsideration,” such as those with important cultural,historic and environmental features.Connecticut MetroPatternsIn 2003, the Office of Urban Affairs of theArchdiocese of Hartford released ConnecticutMetroPatterns. This report – which focuses on howConnecticut’s strong reliance on property taxes tofund municipal services results in competition betweenmunicipalities to grow their grand lists – compares thestate’s 169 municipalities based on many differentsocioeconomic factors.Westchester CountyThe County’s land-use plan, Patterns forWestchester, was adopted in 1995. While covering anarea much larger than the South Western Region,Patterns nonetheless shares this Region’s emphasison centrality to preserve Westchester’s character.Centrality, the Plan’s Guiding PrincipleThe principle of “centrality” – which guided the1995 Regional Plan of Conservation and Development(“the 1995 Plan”) – involves focusing development inthose parts of the Region with the infrastructure inplace to best accommodate growth. By doing this, theRegion’s urban areas are strengthened, making themexciting, vibrant places to live and work. Centrality alsopreserves the Region’s dwindling supply of openspace by encouraging developers (oftentimes throughincentives) to forego building on “green spaces” andconcentrate instead on the Region’s town centers. Asstated so succinctly in the 1995 Plan, “centrality is theplanning alternative to sprawl.”Another benefit of centralizing new development inthe urbanized portions of the Region is that it providesthe critical mass needed to make public transportationmore viable for a greater number of people, includingThe Housatonic Valley Council of Elected OfficialsThe Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials(HVCEO) adopted its regional Growth Guide Map in 1997 andwas updating it in the summer of 2005. According to thenarrative that accompanies the Growth Guide Map, its“fundamental purpose . . . is to reduce the negative effects ofunchecked scattering of economic and housing developmentacross the landscape” and to “conserve existing urban andintown [sic] areas and promote staged growth around them.”To this end, the Growth Guide Map established six categoriesof development in the Region, with the “regional center”(Danbury) prioritized for the most intensive development and“semi-rural remote areas” and “small community centers”targeted primarily for conservation.Old Greenwich5
South Western Regional Planning Agencyresidents of those areas and the people who workthere. Given the fact that the Region must rely on anovertaxed and, in some cases, deterioratingtransportation system, this is arguably the greatestpotential benefit of centrality.It is important to recognize that implementingcentrality is reliant on the Region’s municipalities,which establish or modify land-use regulations withintheir boundaries. These can include zoning citycenters for the highest-density uses, encouragingoffice and residential uses around transit stations anddiscouraging the extension of sewer lines into lowdensityareas to reduce their development potential.Basic Goals of the PlanIn adopting the Plan, SWRPA seeks to achieve thefollowing goals for the Region, which appear below(the order in which they have been placed is randomand should not be inferred as being in priority order):❑ Encourage municipal land-use planning thatrecognizes the need to direct development tothose areas with the infrastructure, includingtransportation, to best accommodate it.❑ Preserve the Region’s dwindling supply ofpermanent open space and, whenever possible,add to it through either outright acquisition ofopen space or through conservation easements.❑ Improve and expand the Region’s publictransportation system, including the New HavenLine Railroad, bus transit services and facilitiesthat support transit use.❑ Provide for the Region’s growing energy needswhile protecting human health, natural resourcesand property values.❑ Encourage the development of a broad range ofhousing alternatives, and whenever possible,direct new housing to locations that are servedby transit.❑ Encourage the preservation and adaptive reuseof historic structures.❑ Foster continued cooperation among theRegion’s first responders to develop coordinatedplans to address emergencies that cannot becontained within a single municipality’sboundaries.❑ Plan for an aging and increasingly diversepopulation.❑ Protect the quality of life in all of the Region’sneighborhoods by ensuring that low-incomeareas or other communities of concern are nottargeted for the location of undesirable landuses.❑ Maintain the Region’s strong business climate bybuilding on those assets that stimulated theRegion’s business growth in the first place:viable transportation facilities, attractivecommunities, good schools and a well-educatedand trained workforce.New Canaan Town Hall6
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Regional Plan of Conservation and Development, 2006-2015

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