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9.0 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

9.1 Overview of the State and Region

The Connecticut economic picture is relatively strong, coming out of the recent recession. The state retains one of the highest national per capita income rates, along with high resident earnings and property tax income. The effects of the recession were somewhat cushioned by the state's history of a strong, balanced economy which depended on manufacturing (especially for defense needs), foreign markets, and multinational corporate headquarters. The recession pushed down personal income and decreased the employment base over the labor force, which had always been higher than the job base due to commutation into New York City and Westchester County. Relative to the other fourteen labor markets in the state, the Danbury metropolitan area has retained some strength, with the third highest per capita income and the third lowest unemployment rate (following Stamford and Norwalk). The Danbury area has a substantial pool of skilled labor which has made it attractive for corporate and industrial move-ins, as shown by Duracell International locating its headquarters in Bethel's Berkshire Corporate Park. Despite the small decrease in the labor force between 1995 and 1996 (see Table 16), the local area appears to be stabilizing again following the recession: the unemployment rate remains unchanged in the past year and the various employment sectors are showing either small decreases, no change, or slight increases. This small improvement is not yet enough to calm worry about economic security or concern about long-term underemployment. All too many regional households now understand the pressures of global competition, industry downsizing, and corporate rootlessness.

9.2 Labor Market

The Connecticut Department of Labor reported in January 1996 that the Danbury Labor Market Area (in which Bethel falls) had a civilian labor force of 108,200 persons, with a total of 4,500 persons unemployed. This unemployment rate of 4.2% is unchanged from one year ago. Over the year, the total civilian labor force declined by 2,600 residents and the number of unemployed fell by 200. In the various employment sectors, total non-farm employment lost 800 jobs: the goods producing sector lost 300 jobs and the services producing sector lost the remaining 500. Goods producing industries had 81,800 wage-earning and salaried employees, while service producing industries had 60,000. In the goods sector, there were more than seven times as many in manufacturing than construction, with the bulk of these in machinery and electric equipment, chemicals, instruments, and printing and publishing. In the service sector, most are employed in services and trade, followed (in order) by government, FIRE (finance, insurance, and real estate), and transportation, communications, and utilities. The largest changes in employment over the pass year were in manufactured durable goods (-22.2%), other nondurable goods (-11.8%; durable and nondurable not broken out in the table below), FIRE (-8.1%) and state and local government (-8.8%).

Over the past 25 years, the non-agricultural employment picture in Fairfield County has improved, showing a gain of nearly 98,000 jobs or 32.2% between 1970 and 1994 (see Table 17). In recent years, employment dipped from a steadily increasing amount in 1991 and 1992 and then began to climb again in 1993. Given this decrease, the average annual employment rate for the county for the years 1990-1994 (non-agricultural) was -4.9%. The change in employment by industry over the years is apparent in the table below. In ten years, between 1980 and 1990, nearly a quarter of all manufacturing jobs were lost, with losses still continuing into this decade. Huge increases have been posted by FIRE and service industries: nearly twice as many jobs have been created in these industries as those lost in manufacturing.

9.3 Housatonic Valley Region Economic Development Summary

In April 1994, the Housatonic Valley Economic Development Partnership released a study prepared by Mt. Auburn Associates. The report, Building on Our Strengths: An Economic Strategy for the Housatonic Valley Region, discussed the region's economy, resource base, and competitive position, and presented a strategic plan for enhancing the region economically. The study emphasized that while the region had fared well in the past twenty years, its strong and diversified economic base was in danger of erosion should the region "coast" on its past success. The towns of the region would need to find "an economic development path that regains the economic momentum, sharpens the Region's competitive strengths, and then continues to build upon them... [without compromising] in any way the quality of life [residents] cherish." In the rest of this section we paraphrase the report's findings on the Housatonic Valley's economic strengths and weaknesses.

The population of the Housatonic Valley Region is affluent compared to other regions. The region's per capita income is 15% higher than the state's and 61% higher than the nation's. Bethel's per capita income (1989) was $20,528, above New Milford and Danbury, with the highest being Reading's at $37,193.

The regional economy grew at rates above that for the rest of the state and New England over the past decade, and is rebounding from the recent recession. The region's employment rate grew by 11% between 1980 and 1992. Employment and job creation have shifted up and down but with an increasing trend. Danbury is the primary economic center (54% of all jobs in the region are located here), with Bethel, New Milford, Ridgefield, and Newtown, making up the region's economic core in their vote, as the region's secondary economic centers. The surge in the regional employment rate has been driven by three interconnected factors: the arrival and expansion of companies in the region, large population increases due to in-migration (one-quarter of the region's population was living elsewhere in 1990), and an increase in the number of employed persons commuting out for their jobs. Bethel's share in these factors can be seen: between 1980 and 1992, 1,064 new housing units were authorized, the population grew nearly 11%, and 1,720 nonagricultural wage and salary jobs were added, an increase of 40%.

The regional economy has "stretched" beyond a historic dependence on one industry to rely on an increasingly diversified base. The early reliance on agriculture gave way to hatting, which then yielded to defense. With the "evaporation of demand" in the latter two industries, the region has had to found its growth on non-manufacturing sectors such as health services, business services, retail trade, government, and construction. According to the Mt. Auburn report however, the region remains dependent on "a handful of large manufacturers," some of which themselves are dependent on defense contracts. The largest sectors within manufacturing are metalworking and advanced manufacturing equipment (ultrasonics, test equipment, and robotics makers).

Other significant industries are pharmaceutical, medical and biomedical products, energy-related products, photonics and optics, printing and publishing, telecommunications, paper products, and electronic equipment. The report makes the interesting point that "at many sites of manufacturing companies, there is not a blue-collar in the place. A significant portion of employment in the Region is at headquarters facilities, the most notable one being Union Carbide." Some of the manufacturers are not the blue-chip, established ones such as Union Carbide and Duracell, but are start-up firms involved in new technology and product development: the Greater Danbury region is one of the top ten technology centers in New England. Bethel itself is home to several high technology companies listed below.

Figure 18a: Views of Bethel Businesses and Employers

Figure 18b: Views of Bethel Businesses and Employers

The weakness in the region's economic base lies in the overreliance on large manufacturers. Mt. Auburn reports that half the region's manufacturing employment is provided by only eleven firms. This lack of diversity fails to protect the Housatonic Valley region against an economic crisis if any of the large manufacturing sectors suffers a downturn. The report attempts to redirect economic strategy towards the various industrial concentrations, in order to diversify the economic base. A concentration is a collection of firms sharing a common technology, customer base, supplier base or unique resource. The region's concentrations are defense, photonics/optics, advanced manufacturing technologies, metalworking, medical and biomedical supplies, specialty chemicals, and advanced materials. Bethel is home to five of the 20 photonics firms.

Aside from manufacturing, there are concentrations in competitive business and engineering services, and tourism. Opportunity for economic development lies within these and the above mentioned concentrations as they have already shown the region to be a competitive location. As they grow, they will directly provide more jobs and will indirectly support economic growth in related or supplier sectors.

Factors Affecting Potential Economic Development in Bethel

The Mt. Auburn report investigates a number of issues with economic development consequences: the availability and quality of the region's work force, the availability of finance capital, regional education and job training resources, and institutions of higher learning. With most of these, the Bethel Planning and Zoning Commission can have little or no impact. However, regarding two issues, the Commission can make a contribution, especially if it works with other municipal agencies: the availability and quality of physical infrastructure and the creation of development sites with regional economic development potential.

Physical Infrastructure: While rail freight is not critical for most businesses, it continues to play a role in Bethel, having expanded somewhat over the past decade. Bethel should support the use of rail freight. The widening of I-84 and the major upgrading of Exit 8 should be pursued to accommodate ever-increasing traffic volumes. Improvements to Route 7 and 25 will not directly impinge on Bethel, but would improve the overall accessibility of the region.

Public Transit: HART bus service has been expanded to link major commercial/industrial sites in Bethel, Danbury, New Milford, and Brookfield. Two-thirds of bus trips are now work-related; employment growth in the region will need to be served by a growing bus network. Commuter rail service links the Housatonic Valley towns with employment centers in Danbury, Norwalk, and New York City. A feasibility study was completed looking at extending service to the I-84/Route 7 interchange. The owners of Berkshire Corporate Park have indicated interest in locating a new station on their property at this interchange. There is insufficient parking at the new railroad station in Bethel. This is under study by the town and Metro North.

Public Utilities: Bethel forms part of the region's economic core as it provides the basic utilities of water, sewer and gas to its commercial centers and is willing to plan for expanded services in order to attract new businesses. Generally speaking, water is not an important factor in economic development, while sewerage can be a limiting factor. A commitment to economic development necessarily means a commitment to bringing water, sewer, electricity, telecommunications, and possibly natural gas to land identified as prime for commercial and industrial development.

Sites with Regional Economic Development Potential: At present, the region has a large inventory of buildings and land zoned for commercial and industrial use. Office space is in good supply with a vacancy rate of about 18%, while industrial space is limited with a vacancy rate of about 11 percent. The usable industrial vacancy rate is probably lower: much of what is available is older space dating from before 1970 and is too large and too old for modern users. The region has over 5,000 acres of land zoned for office or industrial use in the six towns making up the economic core, and very little of this abundance is land serviced by utilities. Land zoned for industrial use is increasingly occupied by office and other corporate uses, thereby reducing the true amount of land available for strictly industrial use.

There are three key sites in Bethel for economic development. These are sites whose development would have regional economic ramifications.

Francis J. Clarke Industrial Park: The report advised that Bethel must now advertise for tenants, and not rely on its initial "build it and they will come" popularity, as the regional market conditions have changed.

Berkshire Corporate Park: This is the home of Duracell headquarters. The 300-acre park lies in three towns and is owned by Steiner, Inc. which recently enhanced the already attractive and competitive location by constructing a bridge connecting the corporate park with the Route 7 service road. The site is improved with water, sewer, gas, and electricity - and the presence of Duracell. The town can aid Steiner, Inc., (and all commercial and industrial property owners in Bethel) in marketing their locations by determining whether the length and complexity of the current site development approval process attracts or scares off desirable businesses.

Route 6: Continued commercial expansion here will provide missing goods and services for Bethelites living in the central and northern part of town. In particular, a large supermarket would serve the Chimney Heights and Stony Hill communities, which now travel more easily into Danbury for groceries than to other parts of Bethel. The largest vacant commercially-zoned site on Route 6 lies at the intersection with Old Hawleyville Road. A possible assemblage here could be made of the site on the corner and the adjoining site which most recently housed a plant nursery. This site has sufficient size and regularity of shape to be attractive to a single, large use such as a regional supermarket or a smaller anchor and strip mall stores. Route 6 has other smaller sites which are either vacant or underutilized, one of which houses a vacant and decrepit house. According to the Plan of Development Public Opinion Survey, development on any of these parcels, large or small, should be attractive, low-scale, and aimed at community needs rather than regional needs.

9.4 Bethel Economic Development Commission

Bethel's Economic Development Commission (EDC) was founded in 1979. The Commission consists of seven volunteer members from the town. Its primary purpose is to promote and develop the business and industrial resources of the town, study and investigate conditions affecting existing Bethel industry, business and commerce, and promote and encourage the preservation, expansion and development of the town.

According to the Chairman of Bethel's EDC, the Commission has spent most of its seventeen years studying, developing, and promoting the 220 acre Francis J. Clarke Industrial Park. The industrial park has been a joint effort between the State of Connecticut and the town. Consequently, all of the EDC's funding has been for the sole purpose of promoting the Industrial Park. Future development in Clarke Park may be encouraged by the construction of Trowbridge Road deeper into the next four to six lots.

Projects on the horizon for Bethel's EDC include the future development of Route 6, Greenwood Avenue, and the Stony Hill area. The EDC will also continue to market Bethel's business districts, and work in conjunction with the State of Connecticut's EDC. The Housatonic Valley Economic Development Partnership has prepared a set of promotional maps and overlays to assist Bethel and the EDC in recruiting new businesses.

Although other towns may describe the work of their EDCs as "very weak", relying on volunteer boards which receive little funding to accomplish their goals, Bethel's EDC should not be labeled in this way. Bethel's EDC did, in fact, accomplish its goal of creating a publicly owned industrial park, and received funds to do so. Today, Francis J. Clarke Industrial Park employees 750 people, and generates a sizeable amount of income for Bethel - a considerable feat for Bethel's EDC.

9.5 Overcoming Negative Business Factors

A common problem in attracting economic development lies in the unwittingly contradictory messages sent by a municipality. On the one hand, a town may have land zoned for commercial purposes in locations well served by the local and regional road network, and the land may even be served by utilities. Despite this apparent readiness for development, the town may have site development approval processes and requirements that thwart development, pushing away attractive businesses. In a survey done by Mt. Auburn Associates, nearly 19% of the local business respondents said that zoning was one of the fifteen worst business factors in the region. The Mt. Auburn report warns, "Most of the towns in the Housatonic Valley Region are still perceived as anti-development. The changing attitudes about economic development in the towns have not resulted in easing the regulatory and permitting process that businesses must go through." In Bethel's case, the Planning & Zoning Commission should work with the Bethel Economic Development Commission specifically to address this issue. Questions to be looked at might include the impact of parking requirements on development and occupancy in the downtown, streamlining and shortening the approval process, improving coordination among reviewing departments and commissions to allow for simultaneous rather than sequential review, fast-tracking small projects, and the ability of the town to pre-qualify certain sites for specific types of development.

There are other business factors cited in the Mt. Auburn survey that the Planning & Zoning Commission, Board of Selectmen, and Economic Development Commission should work on together to overcome, making Bethel a magnet for new business. The percentage following each item is the survey response rate: business taxes (65%), housing costs (60.5%), property taxes (49%), cost of utilities (39%), cost of energy (37%), and road quality (19%). Overcoming these issues would require choosing from a menu of established and innovative techniques. These might include offering below market residentially-zoned land to reduce housing costs (which would attract employers with median income employees), tax incentives, low-cost financing, and public-private partnerships to create or improve roads and utility service.

9.6 Recommendations and Potential Build-out

Bethel has sufficient area zoned for commercial and industrial use; there is no need at present to re-zone. There are four non-residential zones, three of which (Commercial-Industrial (CI), Industrial (I), and Industrial Park (IP)) have substantial remaining vacant and developable acreage (see Figure 19). The fourth, zone C (Commercial), is mapped along Grassy Plain Street and Greenwood Avenue, and is virtually fully developed. Development here will primarily occur through change in building use (new stores and offices) and major renovation or replacement of existing buildings, and with some small potential for single-story buildings to be rebuilt with upper stories housing offices and apartments. According to the development potential analysis performed earlier, zone CI has 33 remaining developable acres, zone I has 80, and zone IP has 133. These are acres unencumbered by wetlands, floodplains, or hillsides 20% or greater in slope and with 15% deducted for road and utility construction. Under current zoning, these 246 acres could be developed as-of-right with 3,526,000 square feet of commercial and industrial space.

Berkshire Corporate Park: This successful corporate park, created by Steiner, Inc., has about fifteen subdivided parcels remaining, split between two distinct areas. The plan anticipates that these will be assembled by future tenants in various configurations. The park lies in an IP zone. In the northern end of the park, along the Brookfield town line, there is a total of about 37 contiguous acres, which would yield about 445,000 square feet of light manufacturing or office use. In the southern end, adjacent to I-84 and the Danbury line, there are about 33 contiguous acres, which would yield a maximum build-out of about 395,000 square feet. In both areas, development is constrained by rocky hills; thus, the maximum build-out might well be much less. The park is largely occupied by Duracell's international headquarters. Development in the immediate future will probably result from Duracell expansion and spin-offs, construction by companies which supply Duracell, and other light manufacturers dependent on easy highway access for truck shipments.

Francis J. Clarke Industrial Park: This park is also zoned IP, and has about eleven to fifteen remaining subdivided parcels. Four of the parcels are in the early purchase and site planning stages. These are a variety of sizes, from about 2.5 acres to 19.5 acres, situated on a range of environmental constraints (from flat to wet to hilly). Again, the plan anticipates that some of these parcels will be assembled for development since there are five areas with contiguous parcels. There is a total of about 85 vacant acres, which could yield a maximum build-out of 1 million square feet. This amount of development is unlikely, given the difficulty of the remaining terrain, the distance from major highway access, the height limitation of the railroad overpass immediately south of the park, and the park's established development scale of small-scale facilities, each surrounded by large areas of landscaping.

Figure 19: Economic Development Areas

I Zone East of Turkey Plain Road/Grassy Plain Street (Route 53): This is a substantial industrial zone mapped east of Turkey Plain Road and split by the railroad. Most of this zone is developed, but there are approximately 11 parcels remaining, most of which have serious development constraints. The first four parcels are located east of the railroad (about 8 acres). Two have access from Taylor Avenue; however, the other two appear to be landlocked. These contiguous parcels abut a wetland, thus restricting development. Also, development here would lie behind residences and require careful site planning to fit construction to the narrow, irregularly shaped lot. The next two adjacent parcels directly front the railroad and are approximately 5 acres in size, maximally yielding 100,000 s.f. of industrial space. These parcels are the likeliest development sites. There are no environmental constraints affecting these parcels. The next large parcel (about 6 acres) fronts Diamond Avenue, but has a wetland to its rear. There are two very small contiguous parcels on Grassy Plain Street and Whitney Avenue (1/2 acre total), and finally, two parcels on Grassy Plain Street, near Mansfield Street (2.5 acres total), all of which have wetlands to the rear.

In Chapter 10.0, the plan looks in detail at Route 6 and the downtown, the town's two major commercial districts.