MIDDLETOWN >> A six-story, multimillion-dollar apartment-and-retail development will undergo more investigation before the city council will consider it.
The Finance and Government Operations Commission grilled city planning and development officials Monday about a proposal to build an apartment complex with ground-level shops adjacent to the MiddleOak building. In December the city announced that Massachusetts-based Hajjar Management intended to build a $12-million complex on what is now an unoccupied plot of downtown real estate. The proposal included shops on the first floor and studio and one- and two-bedroom apartments ranging from 570 to 1,100 square feet, with rents between $1,100 and $2,300 per month. But some current and former members of the Common Council are calling the proposed tax abatement plan into question. In particular, some are questioning whether the city offered Middlesex Mutual Assurance an abatement to develop the very property in question. Vincent Loffredo, who had sat on the council in 1987 when that deal went forward, wrote to the Press that the city might be offering a second abatement on similar projects, and questioned whether that would be appropriate.
Loffredo and Majority Leader Thomas Serra said it was not yet clear whether the city actually delivered benefits for the development, which would have been the third stage in a larger project. The first two stages, an 11-story office tower and a parking garage, are already complete. Middlesex Mutual joined in 2006 with Holyoke Mutual Insurance to form MiddleOak.
“If they were granted the abatement for the third stage and it was never build then this situation needs to be looked at again,” Serra told the Press. The current proposal would reduce the property owners’ tax liability for the first seven years. Other commission members took issue with the project itself. “I don’t think there’s any credibility to what you’re proposing,” Councilman David Bauer told planning Director Michiel Wackers. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Malloy ready to debate funding mechanisms, including tolls to imoprove the states infrastructure
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy tried to give himself more flexibility Monday to re-establish tolls, warning he would force a Capitol debate in 2015 on the cost of upgrading the state's long-neglected transportation network. And while the governor insisted on the campaign trail last fall that two conditions must be met for tolls to be considered, he abandoned one of them - a precipitous drop in federal transportation funding - on Monday. "What I've been working on is actually having a mature and detailed discussion on what it will take to turn transportation around in Connecticut," Malloy said while answering reporters' questions after announcing the appointment of his legal counsel.
The governor cited a report last week that attempted to analyze what Connecticut's clogged highways and rail lines cost Fairfield County, where traffic is heaviest. Statewide, the value of lost revenue and time to individuals and businesses "is in the billions of dollars," Malloy said. "This didn't happen overnight, but we probably underinvested in transportation for the better part of two generations."
The governor added that his next biennial state budget proposal, due to the legislature on Feb. 4, would launch a review that would rely heavily on input from Connecticut businesses and taxpayers.
"Tolls are a way to pay for it. There are other ways to pay for it," Malloy said. "I think the first and most important question is: Do the people of Connecticut want to have a world-class transportation system and a competitive transportation system? And that's the discussion that I intend to lead." The Democratic governor had been less warm toward tolls over the last six months, as he campaigned for a second term amid nonpartisan projections of a $1.3 billion hole in the next budget.
Malloy told The Mirror during a one-on-one interview in late July that "I'm not proposing tolls."
NEW BRITAIN - Contractors will be refurbishing the West Main Street bridge over the Pan Am Southern railroad line starting Jan. 30, the state transportation department announced.
Motorists should expect detours oon weekends and lane closures on weekdays while New England Infrastructure Inc. of Hudson, Mass., does the nearly $7 million project. The schedule is for completion by Aug 22.The bridge is at the intersection with Burritt Street, approximately 400 feet west of the Route 72 overpass.
The work includes reconstructing the deteriorated wingwalls and concrete sections of the abutments, and installation of abutment extensions to support a wider superstructure.
"New mini-pile supported, reinforced concrete stub abutments will be constructed on the existing substructure," the DOT said in a written statement. "A precast, pre-compressed, concrete and steel composite superstructure will be placed on the new stub abutments and concrete abutment extensions."
The bridge will have 18-foot clearance. The roadway on the bridge will stay configured the way it is, but an exclusive left turn lane will be added to the west approach. West Main at Burritt wil be closed from Arthur to Lincoln streets from 8 p.m. on Fridays to 5 a.m. on Mondays while workers remove and replace structural components. Signs will route motorists through Corbin Avenue, Black Rock Avenue and Lincoln Street to bypass the closure.
North Haven committee to readjust budget to redevelop middle school
NORTH HAVEN >> Six months after residents approved at referendum redevelopment of the middle school, the price tag spilled $1.2 million over the projected budget, but the committee in charge of the project is working to address that. Gary Johns, committee chairman of the North Haven Middle School project, said in a November meeting that the $69 million project budget the town voted for was not going to cover the projected cost. It was unclear exactly how the price went over the projected budget. But since the meeting, changes have begun being made to meet the budget the town had approved. The goal is to break ground on the project in summer 2015. Johns said items such as adding a running track and a sound system for the auditorium will be bid on as separate packages by the committee.
“I was aware of some of the problems the high school had with their construction. Nothing ever goes smoothly,” said Johns, who has been part of the committee since its inception in late 2013. “I didn’t go into it with blinders on. I expected that there would be issues that come up.”
Johns said the entire middle school renovation is scheduled to be completed by summer 2017, but will be worked on in two phases. The first phase involves building the classroom wing by September 2016. First Selectman Michael Freda said he’s not involved in the middle school building committee, but he expects the group to get the cost within the budget. “The budget is the budget. Their goal will be to get those numbers in line with the budget.” Freda said. “If it ends up with that future projected costs outcome, we will all be concerned.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Tanger pulls out of Chesire outlet project
CHESHIRE >> One of the nation’s largest outlet center developers has pulled out of a project to build a 470,000-square-foot retail center near Interstate 691 in the town’s north end.
Jerry Sitko, Cheshire’s economic development coordinator, said Wednesday that he was informed on Dec. 12 that North Carolina-based Tanger Factory Outlet Centers is no longer a partner in the project with W/S Development of Chestnut Hill, Masschusetts. Sitko said the town has been informed that W/S Development plans to move forward with the development even though Tanger has pulled out of the deal. “We can only go by what they tell us,” Sitko said Wednesday, when asked if he was concerned that future of the project might be in jeopardy. Officials with Tanger, which owns the Westbrook Factory Outlets and is building an outlet center at the Foxwoods Resort Casino. Louis Masiello, vice president for W/S Development said in an e-mail Wednesday that the company has “decided not to move forward with its prior plans to partner with WS in the development of The Outlets at Cheshire.” “This has no effect on WS’s continued intention to develop the property,” Masiello said. “W/S is currently working to complete the regulatory permitting and leasing required to initiate construction.”
The two developers announced in March 2014 that they were entering into an arrangement to become co-owners of the retail center, The Outlets at Cheshire. W/S Development first presented to the town Planning and Zoning Commission in 2008. The recession that year put the project on hold and changing retail trends have prompted a shift from a lifestyle center, a replication of the downtown shopping districts of yesteryear, to an outlet. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
With transportation lock boxes there are lots of ways to pick the lock
Though Gov. Dannel P. Malloy would consider restoring tolls if Connecticut creates a legal “lockbox” to ensure receipts are spent on transportation, other states have struggled to keep their “boxes” locked.
And because Connecticut’s transportation program relies on many funding sources, guarantees to protect toll receipts might mean little if other sources are diverted.
The main purpose of such “lockboxes,” critics argue, is to give political cover to officials looking to raise new fees or taxes for transportation.
“Dedications, restrictions and prohibitions on diversion are not always effective,” researchers for the National Conference of State Legislatures wrote in a 2011 analysis of states with legal mechanisms to safeguard gasoline tax receipts.
Seven states “report recent legislative diversions of transportation funds to other purposes, notwithstanding existing restrictions,” researchers Jaime Rall and Nick Farber wrote three years ago.
At that time, 23 states had constitutional provisions restricting the use of fuel tax revenues.
And this past November, voters in Maryland and Wisconsin ratified similar restrictions.
Still, despite their popularity, there are a host of ways around these “lockboxes.”
Of the 23 states whose restrictions on fuel tax receipts were analyzed in the 2011 report, only six states specifically prohibited their use for anything other than transportation. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
New OSHA reporting rules in effect for 2015
The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration previously announced final rule requiring employers to notify OSHA when an employee is killed on the job or suffers a work-related hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye in now in effect for the New Year.
Under the revised rule, employers will be required to notify OSHA of work-related fatalities within eight hours, and work-related in-patient hospitalizations, amputations or losses of an eye within 24 hours. Previously, OSHA's regulations required an employer to report only work-related fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations of three or more employees. Reporting single hospitalizations, amputations or loss of an eye was not required under the previous rule all employers covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Act, even those who are exempt from maintaining injury and illness records, are required to comply with OSHA's new severe injury and illness reporting requirements.
To assist employers in fulfilling these requirements, OSHA has developed a Web portal for employers to report incidents electronically, in addition to the phone reporting options. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE