STAMFORD -- The Zoning Board authorized Building and Land Technology to begin using extra entrances and exits added to a parking garage it built at an office and residential complex across from the Stamford train station without permission. Earlier this year, the board threatened to order the developer to demolish the unauthorized lanes, but on Monday night the body revised the general development plan for the Gateway project to incorporate a minimum of 100 units of housing at the development and obligated BLT to build a section of walkway to link with the Mill River Collaborative's planned greenway. The developer would have to submit plans for the riverwalk before getting a certificate of occupancy for two 10-story office towers that are the central part of the project. The board reserved the right to tinker with lane configurations, depending on future evaluations of whether traffic is backing up outside the garage, especially south on Washington Boulevard. The board granted BLT the right to begin renting 500 of the 2,000 planned spaces in the garage, recognizing strong demand for spaces near the station. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Senate tires of patching highway programs
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate delivered an unexpectedly strong vote Tuesday in favor of taking action later this year to resolve the chronic funding problems that have bedeviled highway and transit programs, a sign that Congress may have reached the limit of its patience with short-term fixes. The bill, which passed 79 to 18, provides $8.1 billion to keep the federal Highway Trust Fund — the chief source of highway and transit aid to states — solvent through December. That's enough time, supporters said, for Congress to return to work after the November election, when partisan fervor will have cooled, and make the politically difficult decisions on whether to raise federal gas taxes or find some other means to shore up the fund. The House passed a bill last week that would provide $10.8 billion to keep transportation aid flowing to states through May of next year, with GOP leaders saying more time is needed to deal with the issue. But the Senate rejected that plan in favor of a short-term patch now while setting up a showdown on the matter later this year.
"The Senate has now made a clear and undeniable statement in favor of action on a long-term transportation bill in this Congress," declared Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., one of three lead sponsors of the bill passed by the Senate. But he also cautioned, "We have a lot of work in front of us to strike the principled compromise that will be needed to pass" a long-term bill. The trust fund is in its current straits because the federal 18.4-cent-a-gallon gas tax and the 24.4-cent-a-gallon diesel tax— the fund's chief sources of revenue — haven't been increased in more than 20 years, while the cost of maintaining and expanding the nation's aging infrastructure has gone up. The fuel efficiency of cars and trucks is also increasing while people are driving less per capita. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Residents in 2013 approved a $51.695 million project to renovate and expand the high school.
The state has agreed to reimburse the town for 52.5 percent of the project costs. Included in the documents that the board of education reviewed and approved was a series of “add/alts” – additions and alternatives. “These are items that can be added if the funds permit,” Marshall said. The building at present is underinsulated and, in some instances, is devoid of insulation altogether, Marshall noted.
The design for the renovations calls for major efforts to improve its energy efficiency. Not only will insulation be added, by a 50-year-old furnace is scheduled to be replaced. Among the “add/alts” is funding for a solar hot-water heater as well as a geothermal heating system that carries an estimated cost of $1.7 million, Marshall said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Meriden Public Works updates State Street sewer line
MERIDEN — The Water and Sewer Department is in the process of making infrastructure improvements downtown in advance of some of the larger projects expected to come to fruition in the coming year, including the new train station and the Hub park. A metal bypass sewer line will run over the State Street sidewalk for about a week as a 24-inch sanitary sewer line is installed. A crew was working Tuesday afternoon along State Street. Department Director Dennis Waz expects work to continue through the end of the week. “We had to set (the piping) up in order to bypass that section being replaced,” Waz said. “It’ll be about a week.” The ongoing State Street project stretches more than 750 feet adjacent to the Hub site and is estimated to cost $100,000, Waz said. The piping being replaced dates back to the 1920s, Waz said. “It’s really old,” he said. “They had all sorts of factories and businesses in the area that it connected to.” Some of the piping it likely connected to years ago was recently dug up on the Hub site as part of the ongoing Hub redevelopment. Large sections of piping were in a pile on the east side of the Hub Tuesday near Pratt Street. The piping, unused for years, connected to various businesses and ran along the abandoned streets that crossed through the Hub from Pratt to State street, Public Works Director Robert Bass said. As for the pipes still in use, Waz said some work was already completed earlier this summer along State Street, in addition to Cross and Brooks streets. The rehabilitation of the sewer lines was necessary and Waz said the Water and Sewer Department wanted to avoid interfering with upcoming projects like the new train station. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Carpenter's council protests at New Haven work sites hit with stop work orders
NEW HAVEN >> Only four protesters stood Tuesday in front of the building at 205 Church St., but they made their voices heard — fist-bumping, waving and handing out fliers to passers-by. The site is one of two in the city where the state Department of Labor issued stop-work orders Friday, after allegedly finding no payroll records and, at one site, workers being paid in cash. “This is not the way business is done in New Haven,” said New England Regional Council of Carpenters representative/organizer Tim Sullivan. “This is not acceptable.” The subcontractor, Regional Wall Systems of Florida, had 24 people doing drywall at 205 Church St., and workers fled when the Department of Labor showed up. HG Painting, the New Haven subcontractor at the other site, 205 Elm St., was unable to show payroll records and could show no proof of having workers’ compensation coverage for employees, the Labor Department said. The workers were not fined, and the stop-work order will be lifted when proper documentation can be shown to the Labor Department. The stop-work orders remained on the doors Tuesday. Neither Regional Wall Systems nor HG Painting could be reached for comment. Sullivan said the goal of the protest was to call for enforcing accountability and to promote local hiring. “We read about the tremendous amount of unemployment in the city,” he said. “This would have been an opportunity to do something about it.” Carpenters union organizer David Jarvis said a larger demonstration would be held at 3:30 p.m. Thursday near the Green. “It’s educational,” he said. “We are not really causing trouble.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE