1000 FRIENDS OF CONNECTICUT
2007 LEGISLATIVE SESSION SMART GROWTH WRAP UP
JUNE 28, 2007

Growing smart means having a vision for where we want the state to be in 10 or 20 or 100 years. It means putting the systems, structures and policies in place to support that vision. Legislation passed in the recently completed 2007 Connecticut legislative session puts us on a solid footing toward growing Connecticut smart, though we didn’t take a giant step forward.

GOOD IDEAS WITH STAYING POWER

An Act Concerning Responsible Growth (PA 07-239)
Growing smart requires governments to function well vertically and horizontally.
Please take the time to thank the champions of this legislation: Governor Rell, Representative Sharkey, Senator Coleman, Representative Hennessy, Representative Christiano, Senator Fasano, and Representative Candelora:

• Creates a regional incentive grant to encourage towns to lower property taxes by working together across town lines – the program will be funded with $8.6 million from surplus funds in 2007/2008;
   Codifies the Responsible Growth Taskforce created in Executive Order 15;
   Requires the Department of Economic and Community Development to prepare a state economic development strategy for the state. It is to include: measurable goals and benchmarks and calls for a strong participatory plan development process;
• Requires municipalities and regional planning agencies to maintain up-to-date plans of conservation and development that are consistent with the state plan and economic development strategy;
• Requires OPM to conduct a review of regional tax-based sharing programs and regional asset districts;
  
  An Act Implementing the Recommendations of the Brownfields Taskforce (PA 07-233)
  Growing smart focuses new development in areas with existing roads, water systems, and sewers. In Connecticut, the birthplace of the industrial revolution in America, many of those areas contain environmentally contaminated sites. We must identify those sites and create incentives to clean them up and put them back into productive use.
  This legislation was championed by Senator LeBeau and Representative Berger.:
• Expands the duties of the Office of Brownfield Redevelopment.
• $15 million in a new brownfield account is said to be included in the bond package. (The General Assembly may vote on the bond package in July.), and
• Continues the brownfield taskforce created in 2006.
  
  Other good things we saw this session:
• The state will have to consider transit availability before citing new facilities.
• $1.4 million of the surplus will be dedicated to a statewide Geospatial Imaging System.
• There will be a commission to study both the streamlined sales tax and the property tax cap.
• Program Review and Investigations is conducting studies on regionalism, homeland security and long-range planning.
  
  GOOD IDEAS THAT DIDN’T GO THE DISTANCE
  SB 1057 An Act Concerning Municipal Planning would have created incentives for towns to welcome higher density, affordable housing in certain identified zones. It would have also reimbursed cities and towns for the change in education costs once the units in those zones were occupied. Though incentives for housing in the zones was included in SB 1500, the education cost reimbursement was stripped.
  
  S.B. 1215 An Act Implementing a Process of State-wide Responsible Growth outlined a comprehensive set of policies to strengthen development planning and regional cooperation and to reduce our reliance on the property tax. The bill included many of the recommendations made by 1000 Friends of Connecticut in a report titled Developing Connecticut’s Economic Future. Some elements of the bill are now included in Public Act 07-239. Property tax reform wasn’t one of them.
  
  H.B. 8001, the act concerning the state budget, increases state spending for education and payments in lieu of taxes on exempt property. 1000 Friends recommended an infusion of $1 billion in state funds offset on a dollar-for-dollar basis would bring about noticeable property tax reductions. State funding to municipalities will increase $188 million in the first year of the biennium and $80 million in the second, falling far short of our goal.
  
  An Act Concerning Youth Opportunities and Urban Revitalization
  Smart growth means preserving the character of our communities by creatively reusing historic buildings.
  This legislation included a new, comprehensive tax credit for rehabilitated historic structures to include a mix of uses.
  
  GOOD IDEAS FOR 2008 & 2009
  Our excessive reliance on the regressive property tax compels the state’s wasteful growth pattern. It contributes to racial and economic segregation and educational inequity. The burdens imposed by the state/local revenue portfolio were a compelling theme in the 2007 legislative session. 101 bills were introduced with “property tax” in the title. Clearly, legislators want to relieve the pressure on towns of rapidly rising education costs, and they want to relieve businesses and homeowners of daunting property taxes. Some of the bills included sound policy ideas –increasing Payments in Lieu of Taxes, increasing education costs. Some would have contributed to more sprawl – allowing towns to adopt local sales tax, capping municipal spending unless grand list growth exceeded three percent. Some represented mere tax relief for some property owners, and no meaningful structural change – increasing the individual tax refund to $1000.
  
  Please call your senator and representative to thank them for their work in 2007. Tell them you hope next year they implement a state/local tax system that is progressive and leads to inter-town cooperation for growth in areas where we can sustain it, and conservation where we can’t, instead of forcing our towns to chase after tax generating sprawl.