The Planning Department and the Town Planning and Zoning Commission is in the process of updating the Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD).
The POCD outlines visions, goals, and strategies to guide conservation and development in Windsor over the next ten years and beyond. Topics include residential development, historic resources, economic development, transportation, natural resources, open space, agricultural resources, community facilities, enhancing the villages, utilities, and the Day Hill Corporate Area.
Several draft chapters are available for your review on the Planning Department website.
We want your input! How can we continue to make Windsor a desirable community to live, work, and play?
mark dressler almost 9 years ago
Windsor must remain attractive to business development in the Day Hill area. Good public transportation to this area is a must! Also, business development in the town center will make it a much more attractive place to live, work and visit.
Lisa Bress almost 9 years ago
Continue developing the center of town and make it accessible to pedestrian traffic, bikes and cars. The Chamber of Commerce does an excellent job of supporting businesses in Windsor and that would continue to encourage businesses to open here. There is a strong relationship between the community and its businesses as well.
Dave Mourad almost 9 years ago
As designed, the Day Hill Road area is the economic engine of Windsor and forms the bulk of the taxbase, and therefore it’s no surprise that it hosts the majority of Windsor’s employment base. However from a regional standpoint there has been no net gain because many of those jobs have merely been the result of operations that have moved in from somewhere else in Greater Hartford. Did they locate there due to favorable tax breaks or was it a geographical proximity to the airport or perhaps some other reason? Ultimately the truer indicator of the strength of the Day Hill Road area is going to be manifested by its attract businesses from outside the region and the state which it has in terms of modern warehouse projects. Ironically it appears that nationally corporate workplaces are shifting away from suburban campuses and back into the central cities. What can Windsor do to prevent a reverse tide back into the cities – or will there be a greater emphasis in regional corporate taxation in the future if Greater Hartford is to be an economic force that competes globally with other markets? The answer for the future lies in deep cooperation with all the towns in the region rather than maintain counterproductive competition against them in what seems necessary given the current economic/taxbase paradigm.
Eric Barz, Town Planner admin almost 9 years ago
Dave,
There are a number of reasons why Day Hill Road has been so successful, starting with the foresight decades ago to invest in the infrastructure that has made its success possible. As I quoted Thomas Edison in the workshop the other day, "Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning." Other issues in Day Hill Road's favor are close proximity to the airport; a central location between Hartford and Springfield, as well as between Boston and New York; available infrastructure; and highway access.
One of the knocks against Day Hill Road relative to other regional employment centers is its lack of amenities for businesses and employees, which we are trying to address with the Great Pond Traditional Neighborhood Design Development. Great Pond will not only provide an attractive mixed-use neighborhood for employees working in the corridor, but would also provide ancillary services like a health club, restaurants, perhaps a gift shop, cleaners, pharmacy, etc. to support both village residents as well as the daytime population.
We can't address the property tax issue and regional competition for economic development alone. Economic Development is often a dog eat dog, zero sum game, but I can say that we do not actively recruit from regional towns. Success begets success and when the unsolicited ING (now Voya) chose Windsor as a quicker alternative to East Hartford to avoid penalties for not leaving their Hartford offices on time, their move probably brought Day Hill Road to the attention of The Hartford which was looking to consolidate its back office functions. I suspect that Amazon will have a similar impact in drawing attention to Day Hill Road and Windsor, though there is limited potential for similarly large distribution facilities in Windsor.
As far as incentives go, those are set at the state level and generally Windsor can only offer as much as the next town, with the exception of the Bradley Development Area and its airport dependent incentives. Our strong, diverse tax base and relatively low mil rate allows Windsor to compete on property taxes before standard tax abatements are even discussed.
While Windsor and other towns are beginning to think and act regionally, I would hate to see Windsor's concerted efforts to address its own tax base benefit other regional bedroom communities with little or no economic development, as it would reward some of them for being deliberately exclusive, and could encourage further sprawl by lowering residential property taxes in outer ring bedroom communities; making Windsor less attractive despite our foresight and efforts to support ourselves.