Sprawl and its prescribed antidote – called “smart” or “responsible” growth – become ever more urgent issues in Connecticut, as highways jam, gasoline prices rise and green space vanishes.

CCM has long supported smart growth efforts and now is cooperating in the latest effort to put in place measures that discourage sprawl.

The State’s new Smart Growth Working Group was organized by Deputy House Majority Leader Brendan Sharkey of Hamden.

Formed in late spring, it brings together experts and stakeholders to focus on four distinct areas that impact sprawl for better or worse: land use, tax policy, regional efficiency and economic development.

The idea is that this diverse group of sometimes adversaries will work towards consensus on a comprehensive package of legislation to be passed by the 2009 General Assembly.

A Hartford Courant editorial lauded the Working Group concept in an editorial that said with rising gas prices the state must get serious about reversing sprawl.

“You have to recognize this is a complex issue,” Sharkey said, in explaining the need for the group. “If you are going to address it, you have to pull different facets together.”

As an example, Sharkey said it is counterproductive to try to preserve farmland without also cleaning up contaminated brownfields for development.

CCM is playing an active role in all aspects of the Working Group, including its various subcommittees. The activities of the Working Group and its subcommittees can be tracked – and commented on – on its website, www.forums.cga.ct.gov/smartgrowth/.

CCM Executive Director & CEO Jim Finley applauded Sharkey’s work, saying the Working Group’s “deliberate effort at consensus building holds out the promise of enacting real reform in 2009.”