Hamden Plans Sustainable Future

Confronting the increasing global threat of environmental disaster and a crushing local tax burden, Hamden has made plans to become more sustainable, both environmentally and economically, in the next ten years.

The Hamden Planning and Zoning Commission endorsed that strategy when it passed its 2019 Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD) Tuesday evening, a night after the Legislative Council gave the document its endorsement.

The POCD is an advisory document that lays out the town’s development goals for the next ten years. State statute requires that every municipality in Connecticut pass a new POCD every ten years. The document does not enact ordinances itself. However, it outlines goals that various town departments and commissions should use to guide their actions. Read more about that here.

The commission opted to use a sustainability theme for its next POCD. With severe storms becoming more frequent and sea level rising, the plan includes a number of recommendations for physical improvements that will help Hamden adapt. The plan also addressed the town’s financial woes by including recommendations for how to stimulate economic growth.

The commission hired Glenn Chalder, president of Planimetrics, to prepare the document. View the POCD here, as it was submitted to the council and Planning and Zoning Commission for final approval. (This version does not include the final edits made on Tuesday).

Growth Areas, Preserving Resources

The new POCD is divided into six chapters, including an introduction and a final chapter on implementation. The middle four chapters cover community organization, economic growth, environmental sustainability, and community assets. Each chapter includes sections with strategies and actions steps for achieving the goals outlined in the section. Action steps, that outline specific steps the town can implement, are written in red.

Since the document guides development, not financial decision-making, it mostly addresses the town’s financial woes by discussing its infrastructure.

The chapter on economic growth includes a section outlining a few specific areas where the town should focus on growth. These include the town center, at the corner of Whitney and Dixwell Avenues, southern Dixwell, the ​“Magic Mile” between the Wilbur Cross Parkway and Skiff Street, the Mount Carmel area along Whitney, and along State Street on the eastern side of the town. The section also mentions that the town is working to extend sewers northward along Whitney to provide the potential for businesses in far northern Hamden in the future. The plan includes action steps to ​“undertake a planning process… to establish an overall vision” for both the southern Dixwell and Mt. Carmel areas.

The plan’s chapter on environmental sustainability devotes two sections to preserving the town’s natural resources, with one focusing specifically on open spaces. The chapter includes multiple action steps to preserve Hamden’s tree canopy and plant more trees. Read more about discussions regarding trees in the POCD here and here.

In one section the document discusses the hazards, and yes, opportunities, that could arise with rising seas. It uses an estimate of 20 inches of sea level rise by 2050.

“People may not think of Hamden as a coastal community,” the document reads. But there are parts of the southern part of the town along the Quinnipiac and Mill Rivers, it explains, that are considered ​“coastal embayments” and ​“tidal marshes” because they have saltwater. In one action step, the plan recommends that the town work to create access to the Quinnipiac River, which may become possible with higher sea levels. 

Implementation

As Chalder began his presentation to the council on Monday, Minority Whip Betty Whetmore asked a question that other council members and residents would echo: how will we make sure this all actually happens?

“Are we doing this to improve the town or are we doing this to appease the state?” she asked.

Chalder pointed to the implementation chapter, which includes a recommendation to establish an Implementation Committee, as some other towns have done. Both council members and residents agreed that the committee would be a good idea. How its members will be chosen and how it will actually work, however, the town has yet to figure out.

Many parts of the plan will not come at much extra cost to the town. For example, revamping the town’s planning and zoning regulations will cost very little, if anything, and is a major outcome of the plan.

Other planning dreams, however, like undergrounding electrical wires and updating infrastructure, might cost money. It will be up to future councils and administrations to figure out how to fund them.

“Many people have spoken to our ability to pay for what’s in the plan,” said Council President Mick McGarry. Getting the money to implement new changes, he said, will require a focus on increasing the town’s tax base.