[CT Birds] Bad news for Griswold Airport

[COMINS, Patrick]

Some people are having problems with the link I provided.  Hopefully this one will work:
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-ctmadlanding0117.artjan17,0,3923281,print.story



-----Original Message-----
From: ctbirds-bounces at lists.ctbirding.org [mailto:ctbirds-bounces at lists.ctbirding.org] On Behalf Of COMINS, Patrick
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 10:31 AM
To: Posting Bird List
Subject: [CT Birds] Bad news for Griswold Airport

Since Hammonasset Beach State Park is among the top destinations in the state for birders, I thought some of you might want to know about this.  While not the end of the story, it certainly isn't looking good for efforts to prevent the high intensity residential development bordering the Hammonasset River and Hammonasset Natural Area Preserve salt marsh according to a story in today's Hartford Courant:
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-tmadlanding0117.artjan17,0,654448.story

A quote from the story: "This project is going to be a model for coastal development," said Howard Kaufman, an attorney and partner at Leyland."

Oh great, high density residential development next to a fragile and unique natural resource with no offset offered for the greatly increased density is going to be a model for how we develop what isn't yet developed along Long Island Sound.

It has been a pet peeve of mine that the proponents of this project claim that because the design allows higher than normal density for a subdivision that it makes this project "smart growth".  It is true that part of smart growth is to encourage higher density development in appropriate areas, but another part of the equation is to use the 'cluster' development as a tool to avoid or reduce development impacts to ecologically sensitive areas.  In a hypothetical example, if you have a 1000 acre parcel that would normally allow 1000 houses on 1 acre lots, you allow increased density on 100 or 500 acres in order to preserve the rest of the parcel.  It is also true that traditional planning and zoning solutions to limiting growth in rural areas; increasing lot size to 2, 3, 4 acres... can be horrible for conservation, particularly for forest resources, but to simply say that high density development = smart growth to me is only half of the equation.



Patrick Comins, Meriden





_______________________________________________
This list is provided by the Connecticut Ornithological Association (COA) for the discussion of birds and birding in Connecticut.
For subscription information visit http://lists.ctbirding.org/mailman/listinfo/ctbirds_lists.ctbirding.org