Open Land Proposal Sets Aside $1 Billion To Preserve Connecticut Land

Still another plan for saving Connecticut's open land - this one backed by more than a dozen major environmental groups - will be proposed at a Capitol news conference today. The co-chairmen of the legislature's environment committee and representatives of groups as diverse as the Housatonic Valley Association and Audubon Connecticut plan to announce a "Face of Connecticut" campaign to direct $1 billion in state spending for open land over the next 10 years.

Connecticut loses more than 10,000 acres of farmland and forest every year, and development pressure along the I-395 corridor in eastern Connecticut and southern Litchfield County threatens to accelerate the loss of green space. A variety of bills have already been proposed to protect vital parcels before they are lost to development, and Gov. M. Jodi Rell proposed in her new state budget last month that the legislature authorize some $35 million in new bonding to buy development rights to farmlands and to purchase forest acreage.

But the new alliance wants to remove any uncertainty about whether bond funds actually get spent by passing legislation that would guarantee about $100 million a year in direct state spending for open lands. The Face of Connecticut plan proposes two scenarios to raise the annual $100 million, or $1 billion over 10 years. One plan would raise the funds by a combination of expenditures from the state budget surplus, direct appropriations and bonds. A second "revenue bonds only" plan would require diverting funds from an existing state tax or dedicating a small increase in the sales tax to supporting open-space bonding.

"We're trying to show that this big idea, saving the face of Connecticut, has broad support across many environmental and civic groups," said Jiff Martin, project director for the Working Lands Alliance, a farmlands preservation group that supports the new campaign. Martin pointed out that many business and commercial groups - watershed associations that sell drinking water, the forest and tourism industries - support the new alliance and have millions of dollars in annual revenue that are protected by land conservation.

"Connecticut has shortchanged open space and farmlands preservation over the past decade," said state Rep. Richard Roy, co-chairman of the environment committee. "With all of the development pressure in Connecticut now, I can sense a groundswell of support for saving open lands and we should seize the day."



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