Last night there were two meetings on two different projects at Irondequoit Town Hall. In one, the Town Board voted to accept the terms of a tax agreement with the developer of the Medley Centre project.

In the other, the Planning Board held a public hearing on the environmental statement for the Newport project on Irondequoit Bay. The dense residential project includes boat docks and a community center

But it only took one speaker to make a really good point; town resident Irv Spalty said these projects will be in competition because both have a high-end residential component.

What's more, he said, another hotel is in development along Ridge Road. (The Medley Centre project includes two hotels.)

"All of this construction is within two miles of the Newport area," Spalty said.

Town officials appear to back the Medley Centre plan. The growth will be good for the town in terms of tax revenue, jobs, and amenities, they say.

But growth for its own sake hasn't proved to be valuable to the economy - local or otherwise. After all, over-reliance on growth has helped caused sprawl, vacant buildings in community cores, toxic mortgages, and outsourcing.

The environmental review for the Newport project lays out some vague notions of Irondequoit's need for the project, as told from the developer's perspective, which usually means nonpublic market research done by the developer. What it doesn't include - and what these environmental reviews rarely, if ever, provide, is some accounting of the regional need for these projects. That should be a bigger issue with Newport, since it's adjacent to some very sensitive environments.

But property owners have a right to develop their land, and town officials can only have so much influence on how they do it -zoning laws are their biggest tool. So with both projects, town officials should aggressively push for what's best for the town and its residents; growth and revenue should be single considerations among many others.