Welcome and...Preserve Landing Hill!

On July 15, 2008, the East Haddam Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Commission (IWWC) approved an application for seven four-bedroom houses to be built on a 27-acre parcel of land off of Orchard Road, also known as Landing Hill. This is formerly the land of Anna Morgan, an iconic figure in the town who recently passed away. Morgan had kept the land undeveloped during her lifetime and had expressed to friends and relatives a wish to keep it that way.

This blog has been created to increase public awareness of the positive alternative of preserving land in the Landing Hill area, rather than developing it. Residential development has multiple drawbacks for the town. This blog reflects the opportunity to do something different with land. Instead of building houses, we propose that it be preserved for the community to use to foster its connection with the natural world while avoiding construction of more suburban infrastructure in our rapidly changing, rural town.

This proposal offers the chance to change what has become a deeply ingrained pattern of development that harms the town both fiscally and psychically, yet continues to relentlessly gobble up open space, vistas, natural areas and habitat for other-than-human creatures.

Both residents and visitors to East Haddam uniformly share the perception that there is an inherent beauty to the town and the landscape upon which it exists. Day by day, development by development, this landscape is being eroded. We offer this blog to anyone that wishes to express their opinion and ideas for finding a better way.

The development in town is like a tapeworm that is eating us from the inside. Proposals for the construction of ever-larger tract homes are passed with the belief that we are serving the owners right to do-what-they-wish with their properties while creating some kind of economic development. Yet study after study demonstrates that this kind of residential development costs the town more in the long run, never returning as much tax revenue as it consumes in services. As a town, East Haddam is currently working to bear the brunt of the cost of the new $35 million middle school. Coupled with the present economic conditions in the country, this has lead to the current budget crisis.

Even though it is common knowledge among town leaders that residential development hurts the town financially, the developers pay fees that are viewed as revenue. This revenue helps pay the salaries of the employees of town hall. When construction activity dips, the town selectmen observe a corresponding dip in revenues and are forced to face the fact that taxpayers are bearing a larger share of maintaining the current level of staff and commission activity. This leads to a subtle yet powerful bias toward keeping the development happening. Thus the tapeworm feeds itself - offering the perception of short-term revenue while deferring enormous infrastructure improvements for the future. While this is politically acceptable, the reality has come home to roost in East Haddam and in many towns across the country.

In approving the Morgan Estates application, the IWWC explained away or dismissed expert opinion brought in by a group of intervening neighbors (Intervenors). State law allows such intervention. The group presented information from a state-licensed professional engineer and a Brown University-educated biologist that argued the development was flawed for a variety of scientific and technical reasons. Neighbors and concerned citizens argued more subjectively that the development was inappropriate because of its affect on the character of the neighborhood and the land itself. Intervenors consistently pointed to the option of establishing a preserve on the site as the most prudent, reasonable alternative. PLH finds this idea consistent with its mission.

In addition to the proposal to develop an ideal site for a preserve, Intervenors claim that the town's regulations are not currently fully supportive of preservation and need improvement.

The approval of the Morgan Estates application sets the stage for the next step in the process of development, an application to the Planning and Zoning Commission (PZC). Concerned citizens may also appeal the IWWC decision in Superior Court. Correspondingly, Preserve Landing Hill (PLH), formed through grassroots efforts to promote the positive alternative of preserving this scenic area between the villages of Moodus and East Haddam, sees the activity at the former Morgan property as pertinent to our mission.

Using face to face conversations, email, letters, this blog, fundraisers and other means of getting the word out, PLH's message is PRESERVE LANDING HILL!

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