Officials work behind the scenes on Bethel elementary renovations
BETHEL — School officials said they are making progress on the Rockwell and Johnson elementary schools renovation projects.
Administrators and members of the Public Site and Building Committee will soon interview firms interested in being the construction manager for the $65.8 million project.
Superintendent Christine Carver told Board of Education members at a recent meeting that the group plans to interview four firms on Saturday. Six firms originally applied for the job, she said.
Meanwhile, architects continue to receive feedback from staff on design details. Crews conducted a traffic study last week and began drill testing. “It’s been a fluid, but kind of fast-paced process,” Carver told school board members.
The district expects to learn in April or May whether Bethel received a state grant that would cover 45 percent of eligible cost of the project. If the town earns the grant, construction would begin next winter on both schools. Work is scheduled to take more than two years.
Gas plant’s $2M to city in limbo
BRIDGEPORT — It would seem this city, with its tight budget and high taxes, would rapidly claim $2 million offered by a local company.
But Bridgeport has been unable to find a way to accept and deposit a $2 million contribution that was a condition for construction of a new natural gas-fired power plant in the South End.
As part of a 2016 deal ensuring city leaders and community groups would not oppose PSEG’s controversial facility, the New Jersey-based company made several commitments. One was a $2 million payment to be divvied up as grants among municipal departments and other entities for public health and environmental initiatives.
That money was supposed to be deposited into an interest-bearing “environmental benefit fund” within 30 calendar days of PSEG receiving its final approvals and permits for the Bridgeport natural gas plant.
Those approvals and permits were issued around six months ago. The $2 million remains unpaid.
The hold-up is not on PSEG’s end, but the city’s. First, there were delays in forming the volunteer environmental task force of mayoral and City Council appointees and community leaders who would decide where to deposit the $2 million.
That task force is finally in place.
Under the terms of Bridgeport’s deal with PSEG, the $2 million was to be managed, withdrawn and dispersed by “Fairfield County’s Community Foundation (in Norwalk) or other similar established charitable organization or entity recommended by the task force.”
The problem is, no one told Fairfield County’s Community Foundation, a tax-exempt public charity. And the foundation has since determined it cannot legally take on the responsibility of PSEG’s $2 million.
“We really didn’t know very much about how this (arrangement) happened,” said Juanita James, the foundation’s president. “We never knew we were named (in the city’s deal with PSEG). We didn’t have the opportunity to advise and say, ‘That’s nice but we can’t do that. It’s outside our scope.’ ”
James said even if it could distribute the money, the foundation would not be in the best position to help Bridgeport’s environmental task force decide who should get it.
“We’re really focused on women and girls, education,” James said. “Environmental is not an area of expertise we have on staff. Stuart Sachs, the task force’s chairman, acknowledged that the handling of the $2 million is more complicated than it seemed when Mayor Joe Ganim and PSEG finalized the gas plant deal two years ago.
Sachs said the task force is trying to work through various issues — like how to screen and judge applicants for the money — and to find a new partner for depositing and dispensing the fund. He said one possibility is the Bridgeport Regional Business Council.
Mickey Herbert, head of the BRBC, said: “What they need is a fiduciary agent ... In the past years we’ve had a number of grants we’ve (through a foundation) been a fiduciary agent for, so this is a role our foundation would be comfortable with.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Groton will reconsider whether to renovate old schools or build new
Groton — Groton is revisiting the question of whether to renovate its two existing middle schools into elementary schools or level the old buildings and build new schools, said Rick Norris, project manager for the town.
The state authorized three school construction projects for Groton during the 2017 legislative session, including converting the two middle schools into elementary schools. The town also is building a new middle school.
The approvals would not change. But Groton must now demonstrate to the State Office of School Construction Grants & Review that renovating existing middle schools and converting them into elementary schools is the most cost-effective plan, Norris said.
“Not only does the state require it, but it potentially could be a less expensive option to build a new school," he said.
Norris briefed the Town Council on the projects earlier this week.
Groton would receive three different reimbursement rates for the three buildings. The state is expected to provide 47.5 percent reimbursement to Groton for the new middle school, an $86 million project. After reimbursement, the town’s portion is estimated at about $45.2 million, according to the latest financing projections.
The state would provide 80 percent reimbursement to turn Carl C. Cutler Middle School into an elementary school, because the school is intended to correct a racial imbalance in the district. After reimbursement, that building would cost about $45.9 million, with the town paying about $9.2 million.
The state would provide 57.5 reimbursement for the third project, renovating West Side Middle School and converting it into an elementary school. The project would cost an estimated $48.5 million, with Groton covering $20.6 million.
An architect is working on the schematic design of the middle school and construction is expected to begin later this year, Norris said. The new school could open in the fall of 2020. Work would start on the two elementary buildings after students leave the existing middle schools.
However, if the town opts to build new elementary schools rather than fix up old buildings, construction on the future elementary schools could begin sooner. The town wouldn't have to wait to open its new middle school in order to empty the existing middle schools for renovations.
Instead, contractors could start work on the existing middle school sites before the old buildings are gone and when they remain occupied. Construction costs escalate with time, so building sooner rather than later could reduce state and town costs, Norris said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Infill paces Greater Hartford's surging development projects
Want a sure sign the real estate market in your neighborhood is healthy and ripe for expansion?
Notice how fast — or slowly — the vacant or underdeveloped lots or blighted buildings in a community are transformed into houses, apartments/townhomes, or office-retail space, says Alan Mallach, a New Jersey urban planner, author and adviser to municipalities on creating better living environments and other "infill'' development.
"Infill thrives,'' Mallach said, "where you have a strong [real estate] market environment.''
In Greater Hartford, a raft of infill developments are underway or seeking approval, some of it driven by the emergence of central Connecticut's busway/rail corridors, experts say. Others are taking place in more in-demand realty markets. Among them:
• In West Hartford, a Torrington builder wants to erect 25 homes priced from the high $600,000s to $700,000s, on 1.3 acres of West Hartford's former Gledhill Nursery site, off Mountain Road. Across town, there is a proposal to convert the former Patrissi Nursery site, off Park Road, into five buildings containing 25 units of attached luxury dwellings — The Townhomes at Ringgold Estates.
At 243 Steele Road, where six luxury apartment buildings with 160 units of the Residences at Steele Road bowed within the last two years, Farmington developer Metro Realty Group recently was granted permission to add a seventh building, with 30 more units.
• In Glastonbury, the same Torrington builder has applied to erect 18 houses on a cul-de-sac abutting Holy Cross Cemetery. Also contributing to the town's infill expansion is the 145-unit One Glastonbury Place apartments, rising off Hebron Avenue, and an $18 million redevelopment and expansion to 72 units from 34 of the town's Center Village seniors housing complex, at the corner of Salmon Brook and New London Turnpike.
• In Southington, Groton developer Hunter Build LLC is proposing a $3 million, 40 unit age-restricted multifamily project. That would follow on Hunter's first development of an adjacent 19-lot, single-family subdivision.
• In Windsor Locks, work has begun to convert a vacant mill site into the 160-unit Montgomery Mills. One of the latest examples of transit-oriented development, it will be adjacent to a downtown train station planned for the upcoming Hartford Line.
• In Hartford, the city is soliciting fresh proposals to redevelop its four parcels of approximately 20 acres of primarily commuter-event parking fronting Main Street in the Downtown North (DoNo) quadrant, encompassing the ballpark, into housing and commercial spaces.
Those projects are just the latest wave of infill development sweeping central Connecticut in the wake of the state's huge transportation investments in the CTfastrak busway and Hartford rail line, which debuts in May, observers say. New Britain, Newington, Meriden, West Hartford, Windsor Locks are among communities with private development underway or planned for apartments and retail space close to planned busway and railway stations.
The Capitol Region Council of Governments (CRCOG), a Hartford nonprofit advisor to municipalities on public policy and economic development, says there are more than 150 tracts in Greater Hartford suitable for infill development close to busway and rail stops.
"There's a lot of potential out there," said Mary Ellen Kowaleski, director of policy and planning at CRCOG.
Connected neighborhoods
Infill has been a development phenomenon since builders began erecting houses and commercial buildings, initially in densely packed urban areas, moving later to suburban markets as populations spread there, planning and land-development experts say.
For cities and towns, infill development offers a route to restoring vacant, blighted or underused tracts to productive reuse, including lifting municipalities' revenue streams by collecting permitting and building fees, and, ultimately, as improvements boost the properties' value, greater property-tax collections.
Infill offers other benefits. Roads and electricity, water, sewer and natural-gas lines already in place save developers money when building new or repurposing a property, said Emily Hultquist, principal planner and policy analyst at CRCOG.
It also "can help create a more connected neighborhood,'' Hultquist said. "And those are the types of neighborhoods that Millennials and the senior population are interested in.''
Hartford Planning and Economic Development Director Jamie Bratt said the city's revised plan of conservation and development and new zoning rules "gives us a really good tool'' for encouraging and reviewing infill development.
"Our zoning along the CTfastrak corridor," Bratt said, "essentially mirrors the achievable density of downtown.'' CLICK TITLE TO CONTNIUE
PURA revisits electricty supplier’s license after Suzio’s billing complaint
The Public Utility Regulatory Authority voted Friday to revisit its decision to license a third-party electricity supplier, a move prompted by a complaint earlier in the week from State Sen. Len Suzio, R- Meriden.
PURA also requested data from Eversource and United Illuminating on the electronic transfer of billing information. A PURA spokesman declined to say why the agency is seeking the data.
PURA will revisit its 2010 decision to grant a license to Texas-based Spark Energy to be a third-party energy supplier in Connecticut. While residents must have their electricity delivered by Eversource or UI, state law allows them to choose to purchase that power from a third-supplier supplier.
A spokesman for Spark said in a statement Friday that the company “intends to work with PURA to resolve this matter.”
Suzio filed a complaint with PURA accusing both Eversource and Spark Energy of providing misleading pricing information on his monthly bills. Frankly, you can point the finger at everybody — they’re all to blame,” Suzio said Friday.
Suzio filed a complaint with PURA stating his bills contained inaccurate or misleading information. His monthly Eversource bills would indicate the supply charge in his next bill would be 7 cents per kilowatt hour, but he was then charged 12.99 cents per kilowatt hour.
He noticed the discrepancy for six months.
In a letter to PURA Monday, Suzio urged the agency to investigate Eversource for “knowingly disseminating information to thousands and thousands of ratepayers on their electric bill.”
Eversource spokesman Mitch Gross said the problem, however, is with Spark Energy. Gross said third party vendors are responsible for putting their pricing information in an electronic billing system.
“The third-party suppliers are entirely responsible for their rate,” he said. “They’ve chosen to do business here, and part of that responsibility is making sure that the information is provided in an accurate and timely manner.”
Gross said that Suzio is among the roughly 28 percent of Eversource’s customers that have opted to purchase electricity from a third-party. He added Eversource will cooperate with PURA’s data request. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Gov. Malloy Refuses To Approve $30 Million To Towns For Road Repair
Mayors and first selectmen from all 169 cities and towns are calling upon Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to release $30 million in crucial road-repair funds as the pothole season approaches this spring.
The momentum to seek the funds has been building to the point where the two main lobbying groups for municipalities have made formal appeals to obtain the money for towns stretching from Greenwich to Stonington to Thompson. Facing other cuts in state aid, some cash-strapped towns have cut programs or issued supplemental tax bills to local property taxpayers.
Despite requests by the towns, Malloy did not place the money on Friday’s agenda for the State Bond Commission, saying the state does not have the funds to pay for transportation projects.
“We are absolutely, on an ongoing basis, making strategic decisions about the allocation of limited resources’’ in state coffers, Malloy told reporters Friday after the bond commission meetings. “Those decisions are under review on an ongoing basis. … All of those things are an ongoing discussion’’ within state government.
“Nobody should be surprised that we are being selective in spending the limited resources that we now have,’’ Malloy said.
Malloy said the $30 million is being withheld for the same reason that the state has postponed $4.3 billion worth of transportation projects. In order to pay for improvements, Malloy has proposed installing electronic highway tolls and increasing the state’s gasoline tax by 7 cents per gallon over four years.
The 25-cents-per-gallon tax has not increased since the 1990s, when it was cut sharply under Republican Gov. John G. Rowland. Lawmakers have noted that cars have increasingly gotten more miles per gallon, meaning that fewer gallons will need to be purchased in the future. As a result, state officials are projecting that the money from the gas tax will remain relatively flat at $500 million per year for at least five years.
But the towns say they need the money in the short term as the second half of $60 million that they were promised for local road repairs.
"Town aid road grants are critical to Connecticut's small towns in maintaining the transportation infrastructure needed to support local economies,’’ said Betsy Gara, executive director of the Council of Small Towns. “Towns have to go out to bid and enter into contracts now to begin to move forward with projects in the spring. The uncertainty regarding whether the grants will be released is forcing towns to defer needed road maintenance projects, which will lead to higher repair costs down the line.’’
The road fund issue comes on top of other fiscal problems that the towns are facing, she said.
“Unfortunately, recent cuts in municipal aid have decimated town budgets in many communities,’’ Gara said. “Some towns have been forced to absorb midyear cuts in education funding because boards of education have refused to cut education budgets. This has already wreaked havoc with road projects. Failing to release the second installment of the funding is another unwelcome turn in what has been a roller-coaster budget year.’’ CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE