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| Home Rule and Smart Planning |
| Connecticut Needs Pre-approved Sites to Encourage Investment |
| December 30, 2003 |
| By: John O’Toole, Manager, Economic & Community Development - CL&P/Yankee Gas |
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In Connecticut “home rule” is an important right granted to the residents of its towns and cities. The ability to decide what we want and don’t want in our community has been important since the colony was established. With control of land use largely in the hands of local officials and residents, it is important that they make decisions that facilitate economic growth even as they work to preserve the character of their towns.
One process that can help balance conflicting land use priorities is to designate local sites that are engineered and zoned to accept new developments/investments. These are referred to as pre-approved or shovel-ready sites and have been used in other states such as New York and North Carolina to expand planned development. Too often in this state a developer applies for the requisite approvals from local and state agency only to have the application denied after lengthy and expensive hearings.
In 1999, a pharmaceutical company proposed (ultimately unsuccessfully) to invest $35 million to build a 90,000-square-foot research center adjacent to the main campus of the University of Connecticut. At the same time, the state was in the midst of investing $1 billion into campus improvements. The new facility would have accelerated the commercialization of discoveries by UConn faculty, the so-called “tech transfer” between academia and industry. Such a relationship would certainly have assisted in stemming the loss of talented and educated residents moving out-of-state for employment opportunities.
The community that ultimately rejected this proposal was well within its rights to reject it. No one can argue that residents in a community should have to accept projects they feel don’t fit its plan of development. However, this rejection was a significant blow to the state’s economic development strategy of nurturing and expanding its important bioscience industry, and sent an anti-growth signal to investors and site selectors around the country.
The rejection of a project by one community doesn’t have to mean the loss of investment dollars and jobs to the state. Connecticut must work harder to identify strategic/smart places for businesses to locate. Working with our communities, we have to plan for potential investors by pre-zoning sites that complement local plans of development, the work of the transportation strategy board and the state’s efforts to support industry clusters.
Investors don’t grow on trees. It is imperative that when investors/site selectors set their sights on our state that we send them a clear and welcoming message. The key to this is having sites that are acceptable to all affected parties. By pre-zoning sites, Connecticut will send a clear message to potential investors that You Belong in Connecticut.
In the upcoming legislative session, the state of Connecticut should set aside up to $50,000 per site in order to do the requisite engineering and planning to ready parcels to be marketed as pre-approved sites. By pursuing a pre-approved property program we can:
- Foster investments in our communities
- Encourage private developments that complement public investments
- Embrace a city/town planning process that is healthier and more inclusive
- Address transportation planning and cost issues through “smarter growth” developments
- More effectively compete with other states and nations for economic development projects
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