Six months remain for the state’s Responsible Growth Task Force to form, have its debut meeting, develop growth standards and recommendations, and subsequently present them to Gov. M. Jodi Rell.

The task force’s Feb. 15, 2008, deadline has been moved back from Oct. 1, which was the date announced when Rell discussed the growth components of her proposed biennial budget last February. As the 19-member task force awaits its six appointments from the Legislature, a developer in Redding is looking ahead to opening his model for smart growth in 2009.

The Georgetown development, built on the site of the former Gilbert & Bennett Manufacturing Co. in Redding, appears to hit on all of the key points Rell has been stressing as ways to reduce sprawl. It is a brownfield remediation project – complete with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, authorization – that rehabilitates a former wire factory site into a mixed-use development centered on the reopened Metro North train station.

“We’re hitting sustainability on a lot of levels,” said Stephen Soler, president of Georgetown Land Development Co., which purchased the 55-acre site in 2002. “I think the state’s ready for [Rell’s anti-sprawl initiatives]. I think it’s timely.”

Highlights of the development include 416 units of housing, such as loft-style apartments, townhouses and single-family homes; over 300,000 square feet of commercial space with offices, restaurants and shops, as well as light manufacturing; a performing arts center; a health club with a 50-meter pool; and the railroad station, which Soler estimated has been shut down for 40 or 50 years.

A 650-car garage at the station will serve commuters, people going to the adjoining health club, or any of the commercial or retail outlets in the development, Soler said. The garage is part of 1,800 parking spots planned for the development, he said, but the community will have an emphasis on being pedestrian-friendly, with none of the residences more than a 10-minute walk to the train station.

“I think you’re going to see more and more of [pedestrian-friendly developments] in Connecticut,” Soler said.

‘A Real Emphasis’

The concept appears to be gaining popularity nationwide, according to Oakland, Calif.-based Reconnecting America, a national nonprofit that encourages transit-oriented development.

There are 100 transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use developments around the country, with 100 more in various stages of planning, according to Reconnecting America.

“There is a real emphasis on mixed use,” said Sam Zimmerman-Bergman, project director with Reconnecting America. “It’s not just about building next to transit. It’s also about providing all the daily needs within a walking distance.”

This type of development not only can reduce sprawl, but also the number of cars on the road, he added.

On average, households in pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented developments have half a car less than households in the surrounding region, Zimmerman-Bergman said.

“Often, cities can reduce parking requirements because there is not as much ground floor needed for cars,” he said. “That leaves more land for green space, retail or another use.”

People who live within a half-mile of a transit center will walk or bike to that transportation hub three-and-a-half times as much as people who live outside that distance, he added.

While proximity to a transportation center is a key, there is another important factor.

“What makes some of these places more successful is the extent of the transit network,” Zimmerman-Bergman said. People living in cities such as Boston and New York can understand the value of living next to a link in those networks, he added.

As planners work on building more transit-oriented developments, “it helps to articulate a regional vision,” he said.

That’s one of the concepts in Rell’s anti-sprawl plan that has been keeping W. David LeVasseur busy.

An undersecretary from the Office of Policy and Management, LeVasseur is trying to meet and coordinate with each of the state’s 15 regional planning authorities to unify the smart-growth efforts. He also heads an interagency steering council that has been meeting since March to review projects and develop policy initiatives that eventually will go before the state’s Responsible Growth Task Force.

The council is familiar with the examples of transit-oriented development in other states, as well as those like Georgetown in Redding.

“We’ve looked at all of them – Oregon, Massachusetts, Maryland and New Jersey – with an extremely close eye,” LeVasseur said. “We have to take into consideration the idiosyncrasies here in Connecticut.”

For example, “our development patterns are much more checker-boarded,” he said, explaining that different types of development can be found within a relatively short distance.

In addition to looking at different types of developments, “we’re going to be looking at a lot of different types of incentives over the next year,” LeVasseur said. “Mandates by themselves do not work. We have to create incentives.”

Establishing a new model for growth also will take time, he said.

“We’re not going to reverse 50 years of sprawl overnight,” LeVasseur said. “But we have an opportunity here. We’re trying to build a process and a structure here that will survive gubernatorial change. The governor sees there is no silver bullet to sprawl.”

Soler, of Georgetown Land Development Co., said he hopes the next few weeks will bring the various state approvals for his remediation plan for the Georgetown site. With those approvals in hand, construction could begin next spring, with people and businesses moving in by the summer of 2009, he said.