Group Pushes Big-Box Restrictions

By KATIE MELONE
Courant Staff Writer

September 28 2005

SIMSBURY -- A residents group's push to discourage the construction of large retail stores in town was met by a standing ovation Tuesday night at a packed planning commission meeting.

The group, Simsbury Homeowners Advocating Responsible Expansion, hopes the commission will incorporate its anti-big box store provisions in the town's plan of development. The plan is being revised and will eventually be presented in public hearings.

Duncan MacKay, a lawyer who lives on Hopmeadow Street, made a nearly hour-long presentation to the commission on behalf of the group at Simsbury High School. Commissioners asked a few questions, but did not comment afterward; the presentation was part of an information gathering process of the commission undertakes every 10 years when it revises the plan.

SHARE, which claims to have 1,200 members spread across town, began mobilizing against so-called big box stores this summer when a regional developer began to vet with residents his plan to build a shopping center on the Connecticut Light & Power property in the south end of town.

It is unclear exactly which large retailers would inhabit a retail center on the property, or what the center might look like. Michael Goman, Konover & Associates Inc. CEO and a school board member, has yet to submit a formal application to the town's land-use boards. He has said a "large format" retail store is necessary for the success of any retail center, and that it would be tastefully done using design details in keeping with the character of the town.

Goman, who attended a school board meeting also scheduled for Tuesday night, declined to comment for this story.

MacKay's presentation Tuesday evoked whoops and hollers, sounds not typically heard at the commission's staid meetings.

"I don't recall any other standing ovation," Chairman John Loomis said of the response to the presentation.

Speaking for his group, MacKay said the town should consider limiting retail stores to 30,000 square feet and that Route 10 should remain a two-lane road, two recommendations that, if implemented, could essentially prevent any large national retailer from coming to town. By comparison, MacKay said, Andy's, a supermarket in the center of town, is 26,000 square feet.

The group says it is not opposed to development in general, and would support office buildings or active adult housing for retired seniors in lieu of large-scale retail, which they view as "anathema" to the town.

"It's a place whose character ought to be preserved and ought to be protected," MacKay said.

The group also brought in Fred Carstensen, a University of Connecticut professor and the director of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis. Carstensen told commissioners Tuesday that retail centers don't always provide an economic boon to towns.

For example, he said, they can often result in pressure for further development in the same area, and can lead to lower property values in and around the shopping center, undercutting any benefit first envisioned.

In 1999, the property became the subject of an intense political battle after the town's planning commission rejected a plan to subdivide a portion of the property for an office park. Some town officials contended that the decision cost Simsbury more than $1 million a year in tax revenue.