| THe CT Sierra Club has some concerns about an amendment that was added on to HB6467 AN ACT CONCERNING SMART GROWTH AND PLANS OF CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT that passed the House recently. The amendment was not distributed until shortly before the vote.
The bill generally defines smart growth, delays the next state Plan of Conservation & Development til 2011, and mandates the DEP report on CO2 emissions consistent with the recommendations of the Connecticut Climate
Change Action Plan.
However, the amendment added this language in section 3 (f):
Any revision made after the effective date of this section shall be consistent with each municipal plan of conservation and development adopted under section 8-23, as amended by this act. If the secretary determines that it is not possible for the state plan of conservation and development to be consistent with each such municipal plan of conservation and development, the revision shall include a statement describing the reasons such plans cannot be consistent.
In the view of the Sierra Club and other Smart Growth advocates, this amendment says that you start with town-level planning, then do state-level planning, but you can't consider regional perspective if it is not in line with what has already happened at the town level. They feel the language actually dispenses with any scale planning other than micro at the town level, so works against the smart growth concept of regional planning. Some feel that it dispenses with the need for a state Plan and will actually make the state Plan nothing more than a binder in which to store the 169 town plans.
The bill is now in the Senate. It will be debated this week. The environmental community would like to see this section deleted from the bill. I agree. I understand the need for bottom-up planning, but such planning should be done in concert within a region to guide and coordinate the planning of economic growth and conservation of natural resources. I would advocate a series of charrettes within a region in order to maximize citizen participation and input with the understanding that the results of the charrette process will be used to create a regional land use and economic development plan.
Here is the Courant's take on this issue. |
