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Legislative Alert
The Connecticut House of Representatives may be voting on a solution to fix the Special Transportation Fund as early as next week. Use this link https://www.votervoice.net/CCIA/campaigns/58617/respond
to call your State Representative tell them to vote in favor of using the existing car sales tax to fix the funding shortfall in the Special Transportation Fund.
Make the call. Leave a message. $4.3 billion of projects are at stake! Please forward this message to as many people in your organization as possible!Getting There: Blame Legislature if fare hikes, service cuts take effect
I’ve been writing for weeks about the profound impact the state Department of Transportation’s impending bus and rail service cuts and fare hikes will have on commuters, local businesses and real estate values.
But with just weeks to go, the folks who can prevent this pain — the state Legislature — appears to be doing nothing.
The proposed cuts will go into effect July 1. A 10 percent fare hike on Metro-North will be coupled with the elimination of off-peak trains on the New Canaan, Danbury and Waterbury branch lines as well as Shore Line East.
How are local officials responding? By complaining the proposed cuts are not fair.
“Don’t cut my mass transit, cut someone else’s,” they seem to cry. “Why is my bus service being cut, but Hartford and Stamford’s isn’t?,” one official asked me.
I told him he was asking the wrong question. Instead, he should ask why any bus or train service was being cut.
It’s as if a crowd was trapped in a burning building with one narrow fire escape and everyone’s screaming: “I deserve to survive. Let the others get burned,” while nobody is working to douse the flames.
The answer isn’t to push away the pain onto others, but to turn off the pain at its source.
Legislators can easily stop the state DOT’s plans by just raising the gasoline tax four cents a gallon and diverting the car sales tax into the Special Transportation Fund. Instead, they’re blaming everyone but themselves for the mess they created.
Remember: It was the legislature that pandered to voters in 1997 by lowering the gasoline tax 14 cents a gallon, a move that cost the STF $3.4 billion in lost transportation spending that could have repaired roads and fixed bridges.
Now the Republicans are so focused on the fall campaign they’re deceiving voters in a PR move only Sean Spicer could enjoy: Arguing the proposed highway tolls are “taxes.”
They are not. Tolls would be a user fee, paid only by those who drive on those roads. Train fares aren’t taxes, are they? You only pay those fares if you take the train.
Do Republicans really think voters are that stupid? Apparently so.
The pols are also piling on the state DOT for being late in opening the new Hartford Line, the commuter rail line between New Haven, Hartford and Springfield, Mass. Our Legislature can’t even deliver a budget on time, let alone understand the complexity of a $769 million railroad construction project that’s taken more than a decade.
It’s not by chance the Republicans are known as the “party of no.” For all their complaining, they have offered no new ideas or embraced the ones that thoughtful observers think are obvious: Asking motorists to pay their fair share with gasoline taxes and tolls.
Metro-North riders already pay the highest commuter rail fares in the U.S., fares that have risen 53 percent since 2000, while motorists haven’t seen a gas tax increase in 20 years. How is that fair?
If the July 1 service cuts and fare hikes go into effect, commuters should know it’s their Legislature that’s to blame.
Pedestrian bridge increases Ansonia’s Riverwalk
ANSONIA — The city’s Riverwalk just got a little bigger.
But it took nearly nine hours Saturday and several months of planning before the 130-foot pedestrian bridge was placed over the Waterbury-Bridgeport rail line on Pershing Drive.
Now pedestrians can walk from downtown Shelton through Derby cross Division Street near Stop & Shop and walk to Pershing Drive just before Pelin Pizza.
Nearly three dozen people watched from Pershing Drive as well as the Riverwalk as crews from Waters Construction, of Bridgeport, and Luchs Consulting Engineers/DeCarlo and Doll, of Meriden, carefully guided the 80,000 weathered steel bridge between two concrete segments at 1 p.m..
“This took a tremendous amount of planning,” said Mario Smith, Waters’ president. “We had to coordinate with Metro-North for an opening and hope the weather held up. They were doing maintenance today so no trains were coming through.”
They had to hope for no wind “Wind really affects the crane,” Smith said. “We couldn’t have done this in the wind on Friday.”
Smith said a five-inch concrete pad will cover the bridge’s deck. They’ll then build walkways on both sides of the bridge, hydroseed the sides and place riprap along the river’s banks. The bridge is expected to open next month.The $2.3 million project was funded by the Federal Highway Administration and state Department of Transportation with a 20 percent city match.
“This isn’t the end,” Mayor David Cassetti said. “I’m hopeful that within the next year we start segments 3 and 4 which will loop residents from the bridge to behind Target and back onto Division Street. The centerpiece of that segment, pending approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be a 35-foot lighthouse perched atop a Naugatuck River levy. Plans are for the lighthouse to have an observation deck. “It’ll be a nice touch,” Cassetti said. “People could walk up and look out to either side of the Naugatuck River.” mCassetti already picked out a name — Charger Point Light — using the high school’s nickname. He envisions it as “the beacon of the Valley and a source of pride for Ansonia residents.”
Last summer, the city received $1,368,494 in funding for that segment of the project. The money came from the Federal Highway Administration’s Transportation Alternatives Program, the state Department of Transportation, the Bridgeport Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments.
“We have the money,” said Sheila O’Malley, Ansonia’s economic development director. “We expect to go out to bid in June. But Cassetti’s main goal. is to have the Ansonia Riverwalk continue to Seymour.
“I’d like to see it cross Olson Drive into Riverside Drive up through the woodlot and along Route 8,” he said “There is such beautiful scenery along the Naugatuck River especially when the leaves are changing in the fall. People could get off, have lunch at one of our downtown restaurants and then continue. You’d be able to walk from Shelton through Derby and Ansonia into Seymour.”
Dawn Wulff and her eight-year-old son, Marcus, were among those on the Ansonia Riverwalk on Saturday. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Developer has mixed-use plan for downtown Derby
DERBY — It’s been about 35 years in coming, but a developer has stepped forward with a concrete proposal for downtown.Calling themselves Derby Downtown LLC, the development team has unveiled initial plans for two multi-use buildings, each with 100 apartments, street-level retail and a possible 20,000-square-foot extension of Housatonic Community College on the former Housatonic Lumber site.
“We’re very excited,” said Carmen DiCenso economic development liaison for Mayor Richard Dziekan. “We see this as the first domino falling in place.”
DiCenso said Dziekan’s administration has been working with Derby Downtown since December.
“The difference between this and other past proposals is the Barretta family owns the property,” DiCenso said. “Its their development. That’s the key.”
Chris and Jena Barretta, of Milford, operate Barretta Landscaping and Garden on the Factory Street site. They have owned the nearly 5 acres comprising the former Housatonic Lumber site for 11 years.
Joining them in Derby Downtown are Steve and Jim Lepore of Lepore and Sons, a design and construction firm in West Hartford. The team hired Rob Rowlson, the former West Hartford economic development director who runs the RM Rowlson LLC real estate firm, and Karl Nilsen, a land use planner who owns Zoning Info LLC in Derby, as consultants
All were gathered in City Hall last week to review their proposal with DiCenso. The night before, they showed their Factory Square development to a Planning and Zoning Commission subcommittee.
“Finally, the people of Derby are starting to see some action on the south side of Main Street,” Dziekan said. “My administration is committed to being business- and development-friendly, and we will continue to do whatever we can to accommodate everyone involved in development within our city’s borders.The next step will be to negotiate changes with Planning and Zoning in the Center Development District regulations, and the submission of final site plans.
“We’ll be meeting with them every month from now until the project is approved,” Nilsen said. Nilsen, Rowlson and Chris Barretta said they hope to begin their project around the same 2019 date when the state Department of Transportation starts widening Route 34, which runs alongside Factory Street “We want the first 100 apartments in place when they are done,” Jim Lepore said.
Their preliminary rendering shows a block-long building with six sections of alternating shades of brick face —similar to the downtown factories of a century ago. The proposal calls for retail on the street level and apartments on the upper three levels “We want ma and pa shops — a lot of different ones,” Barretta said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Suburban Hartford apartments sprout along I-91 corridor
Housing developer-landlord Roberto Arista struck gold converting a pair of derelict Hartford commercial buildings, 179 Allyn St. downtown and the former Hartford Office Supply in the shadow of the state Capitol, into 175 apartment units now in high demand. Both are close to full occupancy.
Now, Arista, principal of Massachusetts-based Dakota Partners, is bringing his Midas touch to a suburban apartment development underway in Suffield, called Brook Hill Village. The first 36 of 84 units for the estimated $40 million, twin-phase development will be ready for occupancy by summer, Arista said. Dakota Partners is also involved with the $58 million mixed-use "Columbus Commons" development in New Britain that will include 160 residential units.
Both projects are part of a fresh apartment construction wave underway in Greater Hartford that will add over the next 18 months at least 500 new "lifestyle'' apartments in a region in need of replacements for its aging inventory of approximately 40,000 units, according to developer-landlords and realty advisers.
Some of those new units will debut just as a fresh crop of job-seekers, with undergraduate and graduate degrees in tow, begin looking for what is perhaps their first full-time jobs — and their initial places to rent. May, June, July and August tend to be prime time for apartment leasing, landlords say.
In Glastonbury, Continental Properties is nearing completion of the first units of its planned 145-unit Glastonbury Mews, at the corner of Hebron Avenue and House Street. In the last five years, Continental has built nearly 500 apartment units in Rocky Hill and South Windsor.
In Bloomfield, Heirloom Flats, the town's first luxury-apartment development in decades, recently began leasing its first 215 units, located between Bloomfield and Jerome avenues, in the town center. Fairfield developer Andrew Montelli says demand is such that construction of Heirloom's 200-unit second phase could start by yearsend.
In Windsor Locks, the $62 million redevelopment of the former J. R. Montgomery Co. mill into 160 apartments is underway in the shadow of what will be the town's relocated rail station. Leaseup is due to start in summer 2019.
In Windsor, developer-landlord Martin Kenny watched his $23 million, 130-unit Windsor Station Apartments, across the street from the town's train station, fill up eight months after opening doors in March 2017. Kenny says Windsor Station appeals to Millennials and empty-nesters, as well as commuters into Springfield, Mass., to work at MGM Resorts' downtown casino set to open in September.
Kenny, one of downtown Hartford's earliest apartment developers who built Trumbull On The Park and who last spring opened the 230-unit The Tannery in Glastonbury, has another development brewing — The Borden, a $34 million, 150-unit apartment community at 1160-1178 Silas Deane Highway in Wethersfield. CLICK TITLE CONTINUE
Meriden affordable housing project to use German 'super energy efficient' model
The affordable housing project slated to go up later this year in downtown Meriden may look conventional, but it's not.
The 81 new apartments and townhouses will be built to "passive house" standards, a rigorous, super energy efficient design popular in Europe, but still relatively unknown in the United States.
As a result, the units will use much less energy than conventional or even other types of green buildings, producing big savings that will be passed on to the tenants, said Andy Davenport, vice president of Michaels Development Company, the project's developer. The New Jersey-based firm, the nation's largest private owner and builder of affordable housing, has done energy efficient projects before, but this will be the first built to passive house standards, he said.
"We like to be pushing the envelope on green and sustainable development," Davenport said.
Key to realizing the development, named 11 Crown Street after its address, were tax credits provided by the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority in part for the use of passive house technology, Davenport said. Michaels will receive $1.7 million in tax credits from CHFA, a quasi-public agency that promotes affordable housing, he said.
Davenport declined to disclose the overall price tag of the project.
CHFA spokeswoman Lisa Kidder said that the 11 Crown Street project, to be built on the site of the former Meriden-Record Journal building, is among the first to receive agency tax credits for using passive house technology. The agency in 2016 added the building standard to the basket of factors it considers when weighing applications for the credits, she said.
European roots
Passive house technology was developed in Germany in the 1990s, and most of the more than 10,000 passive house buildings worldwide are located there and in neighboring Austria and Switzerland.
The technology aims to seal buildings as tightly as possible. This is achieved with super-insulated walls and triple-glazed windows and by situating buildings to maximize passive solar heating. In warm weather, the process reverses itself to keep buildings cool. To keep interiors fresh, passive houses use air exchange systems that constantly circulate air in and out of the structure.
Some passive houses report being as much as 80 percent or more energy efficient — they often do not require a conventional furnace — than conventional buildings. Davenport said he did not have a specific estimate on how much more efficient the 11 Crown Street project will be, but said it would be significant, likely at least 50 percent or greater.
Davenport estimated that using the passive house standard would push up the price tag of 11 Crown Street about 8 to 10 percent. Project architect Ken Boroson of Boroson Architects in New Haven noted that while the cost of using passive house technology may be higher, owners will recoup the difference over time through lower energy costs. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
CT Airport Authority hopes to acquire UTC parcel abutting Bradley
John Stearns
The Connecticut Airport Authority is hoping to acquire a roughly 19-acre parcel next to Bradley International Airport that's currently owned by United Technologies Corp.
UTC said it is not currently marketing the parcel, located adjacent to the airfield between state Route 20 and Park Road, near the airport's Runway 6-24, but the airport says it's negotiating for the property.
"We are still interested in the parcel, and we are still in the process of discussing specifics with UTC," CAA Executive Director Kevin Dillon said.
In the short term, CAA anticipates using the site as a staging area for construction equipment when it starts construction on a ground transportation center, a project expected to be completed about 2021.
After that, "we can start looking towards the potential of developing the site for other purposes," Dillon said.
UTC's parcel was formerly used as a recreation area for Hamilton Sundstrand employees who worked at the nearby facility that's currently a UTC Aerospace Systems site. There is still a picnic pavilion on the property and UTC uses the property for equipment storage, UTC said.
"Because of where it's situated, there's unique benefits to the airport versus anyone else acquiring that parcel," Dillon said.
With the property, the airport could protect airspace by controlling building heights on the site, Dillon added.
"We do believe there are other potential benefits to the airport because it could have direct access to the airfield," he said, including the possibility of airport maintenance facilities.