usernamedunbeentaken t1_itx66gl wrote on October 26, 2022 at 11:18 PM

Reply to comment by ertebolle in How can we incentivize real discussions around solutions to home affordability in CT? by otter_spud

Where are the vacant commercial buildings in Wilton?

More dense housing brings more traffic and clutter and incremental expenses that are disproportionate to the tax revenue generated from dense housing.

And our schools (I have kids in Wilton public schools) may have excess physical capacity (or not I'm not exactly sure which schools you are referring to), but more kids would require more teachers and other expenses. Wilton schools are the way they are because of the wishes of the people of Wilton... we vote for taxes and budgets and cramming more kids with the same number of teachers and aides, or hiring more teachers and aides, are not what Wilton voters want otherwise we wouldn't have the current teacher to student ratio etc.

And the type of people who move to places like Wilton would have school children... the schools are the primary draw. Empty nesters tend to sell to move to cheaper places with lower taxes, and young workers without kids would tend to want to live in more exciting places like Norwalk or Stamford.

Whaddaulookinat t1_itxe4db wrote on October 27, 2022 at 12:18 AM

So not many single people would live in Wilton without kids if available, increasing the tax base with little additional strain to community resources (oh btw Wilton has had severe under enrollment for almost a decade before the COVID surge came in saving the town). I went to school in Wilton, many of my friends grew up there, I worked there for a long long time...

What you're describing is an utter fantasy dear Lord I am honestly just sure you don't interact out know the town as well as you seem to think. It's hard to debate people like you honestly because of the divorce of perspective

ertebolle t1_itxajlo wrote on October 26, 2022 at 11:51 PM

Route 7. Which is already cluttered and ugly and jammed with trucks, and as far as traffic costs go, it’s a state road so any extra paving costs or whatever are their problem.

They fret about declining enrollments at every Annual Town Meeting, and as for capacity I was specifically thinking of Miller Driscoll (which was overbuilt even at the time) but if enrollment is declining then that necessarily means every school now has more room.

And yes, there are marginal costs, but they’re lower than the current per pupil cost. We spend millions of dollars a year running half empty buses because they have so much ground to cover and we only have one school for each grade - you could add a bunch more students without significantly increasing the money we spend on those, not to mention that we’d be spending the same amounts on utilities and IT and coaching and assistant principals and curriculum / testing people and so on.

As for apartments adding lots more kids, they discussed enrollment projections a few BoE meetings ago - they don’t expect apartments to make that much of a difference even if every current proposal gets built, enrollment will still decline.