CT Blue

The Day has a follow up article on the Wal-Mart situation (Some Celebrate Wal-Mart’s Loss Of Interest). Indeed, more than some are celebrating. Unfortunately, not everyone:

Director of Planning and Development Michael Murphy said it was “unfortunate that the project didn’t move forward,” as staff believed the improvements being proposed would have protected the watershed.

From a town policy standpoint, he said, the developer had met, and even went beyond, the requirements to build on the site.

”It’s a matter of how development is done there, not that it shouldn’t be done,” Murphy said. “An opportunity was lost in an area designated for commercial development. Hopefully there will be more opportunities in the future.”

Mr. Murphy has a perfect right to his opinion. My question is whether the Planning Department has a right to an opinion. The Planning Department was instituted in the old Charter. Reference to it was removed in the new Charter, but it continues to exist under the old provision pursuant to a savings clause. Here’s what the old Charter had to say:

The department of planning shall be responsible for assisting the planning and zoning commissions in the development and maintenance of a comprehensive plan of development for the town. The department shall make studies and prepare recommendations and reports for orderly community development in the areas of zoning, subdivision regulations, land use and other phases of municipal development. The department shall have such other powers and duties as the council may prescribe.

So far as I can see it is not the province of the Planning Department to advocate for a developer, or to take a public position on the extent to which any particular proposal should or should not be approved. One of their functions is to act as a resource for the Planning Commission. They are not supposed to set themselves up in opposition to the Planning Commission, which is precisely what Murphy has done.

Town Planners must be closely watched. They can’t really have much fun unless they get to do a lot of planning, which means they have a bias toward development. Land preservation is boring. Not only is planning what they do, but additional commercial development means additional tax revenue, and town governments are, shall we say, biased toward expanding the commercial tax base. In addition, the system is structured in such a was as to get the planning office emotionally invested in a project before it ever gets to the Planning Commission. The developer goes to them, asks their opinion, consults closely, and acts on their recommendations before submitting a definite proposal. All of this makes a certain amount of sense, but the upshot is that the final proposal is the child of both the developer and the planner, and everyone wants their child to thrive.

In the Wal-Mart case the planner became such an advocate that the developer, at least at one point, took the position that the Planning Commission had to approve the project because the planner said that it had to do so. A planner should never give a developer an opening to make an argument like that, and once the Commission has made its decision, it should be the Planner’s role to support that decision, or keep respectfully silent.

Now that we’re entering a depression, the pressure to make a strip out of Route 184 may relent for a while. Who knows, maybe the Connecticut Legislature will take advantage of the crisis to finally reform our system of taxation so that towns don’t feel pressured to encourage the type of commercial development that has blighted so much of our landscape. It’s time we put an end to these big box stores, for both environmental and esthetic reasons. No uglier architectural style has ever evolved in the history of mankind.