Voters choose open space over new housing

Simsbury to help buy Meadowood; Southington to preserve golf course

Simsbury and Southington voters on Tuesday approved multimillion-dollar initiatives to preserve open space and head off the threat of new subdivisions bringing more students into their schools.

Residents in Simsbury agreed to put $2.5 million toward buying the 288-acre Meadowood property for open space, and Southington voters decided to pay $4.5 million for the development rights to the Southington Country Club.

Both measures passed by hefty margins in referendums, despite warnings from opponents in both communities that the deals would burden local taxpayers with new costs.

The Simsbury decision was a big win for preservationists whofeared the prospect of nearly 300 homes on the 288 acres of former tobacco fields and rolling hills known as Meadowood.

A glitch in counting Simsbury’s results didn’t yield a formal result until Wednesday afternoon. After voting officials handcounted ballots, Registrar Karen Cortes reported that the Meadowood project passed by a 3,022 to 439 vote. Turnout was 18.5 percent for the referendum.

The property has been problematic since tobacco growing ended there more than two decades ago. The owner waged an extensive court fight to win permission for building almost 300 single-family homes, with roughly a quarter of them designated as “affordable.” But despite winning, Griffin Industrial Realty never advanced the project.

Instead, last year it negotiated a complex, $6 million sale agreement with the Trust for Public Land. The acquisition will be funded by the town’s $2.5 million contribution along with private donations and an assortment of state grants for historic preservation, open space acquisition and agriculture.

Under the agreement, the state will get an easement for recreational access for nearly 140 acres. Another parcel of nearly 120 acres, including the former tobacco sheds on Hoskins Road, is to be preserved as farmland.

The town would have about 24 acres set aside, possibly for use as future municipal playing fields. The remaining 4 acres would be designated for historic preservation, including a Martin Luther King Jr. interpretive display, according to the nonprofit Trust for Public Land.

“This vote is a significant milestone in the effort to protect the Meadowood property, which will offer more park access and preserve a piece of civil rights history. We look forward to working with advocates and community members to honor this special place,” said Walker Holmes, state director for the Trust for Public Land.

Most debate over the referendum centered on whether taxpayers could afford to take on another expense in the capital budget. Advocates argued that it would be far less expensive than voting down the sale and risking residential development, which could bring scores of additional students into the school system.

Southington voters didn’t acquire property in their vote, but instead got to ensure that the 97-acre Southington Country Club can’t be developed by the current owners or any future buyers. The property has been a golf course for about a century, but the owners — the Calvanese and Kastner families — have a town-approved plan to build 114 single-family homes there.

Now that plan is off the boards; the $4.5 million will buy deed restrictions that limit the land to being used only as a golf course, passive recreation or open space.

The Southington vote was 2,419 to 719, with roughly 10 percent of eligible voters turning out.

In both communities, advocates argued that more residential development would ruin unspoiled parcels and attractive views. They also said that scores of new families moving in would add costs every year in the future for police and recreation services — and most of all for schools.