Zach Murdock
DANBURY — An expansion is on the way for the Victorian Meadows apartment and townhome complex on Osborne Street.City officials have given the green light to a plan to add 13 more rental units to the back end of the property situated next to the Danbury Hospital and Western Connecticut State University campus.The addition will bring the complex to 52 units in total, including seven apartments that must meet affordable housing requirements, and will add to the surging number of rental units in and around downtown.
“We haven’t had one building that hasn’t been fully rented before it was completed,” developer Bob Botelho said. “So it’s been well received by the general public.”
Victorian Meadows was first approved by city leaders in late 2009 under the city’s housing incentive option to encourage developers to hold rents low for some units in exchange for allowing more density for their projects.
The original 39 units at Victorian Meadows were built in phases over the subsequent six years and have become home to many hospital interns and staff because of its proximity to the city’s largest employer, Botelho said.
The addition will be built on two properties Botelho’s company is purchasing to the southeast of the current Meadows buildings closest to Cleveland Street. An existing home on one of the properties will be demolished and two new buildings will go up in its stead, according to the plans.
Botelho has not yet provided an estimated start date for construction.
Buildings 6 and 7 will include four two-bedroom units, five three-bedroom units and four one-bedroom units. One affordable, handicap accessible unit will be included in each building — a one-bedroom and a two-bedroom — and will meet the city’s affordable housing guidelines based on the average income in the city, putting potential rents in the range of $1,200 to $1,400 per month.
The exterior of the buildings will look similar to the style of the existing complex, some of which include red wrought iron pieces imported from Italy, city staff said.
“We don’t do anything that is off the book, it’s always something very custom,” Botelho said. “We get together with my trimmers and do something different for every building.”
The project received a final blessing from the city Planning Commission earlier this month without any opposition from neighbors and glowing reviews from city leaders.
“Tonight went lickety-split,” Commissioner Joel Urice said at the end of the meeting. “Part of the reason, for me, is I’ve seen the work.
“They built quite honestly a stellar development over on Osborne Street,” he added. “It’s a great piece of Danbury, so I have less issues with this developer than I might have with someone we’ve had less than a pleasant experience with.”
New Britain mayor withdraws support for Tilcon plan
LISA BACKUS
New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart announced Wednesday that she has revoked the city’s participation in the proposed Tilcon mining expansion.
Tilcon followed suit shortly after with company president Gary Wall telling the mayor in a letter that he “concurred” with her decision.
“We agree with many interested parties that the Lenard (environmental) Study and the public have raised several issues which would require further review before any such project could move forward,” Stewart said in a letter dated Wednesday to John Betkoski, the head of the state’s Water Planning Council.
Stewart then went on say that due to the cost of further studies, she was withdrawing her support for the project. The city spent $350,000 to get an environmental impact study that was widely viewed as inadequate and skewed in favor of the mining project.
“I have concluded that the most prudent course of action at this time would be withdrawal of the proposal from further consideration,” Stewart said.
The move effectively killed the proposal since the project would have allowed Tilcon to mine 74 acres of protected watershed owned by the New Britain Water Department but located in Plainville. Tilcon would have mined the property for 40 years before returning the quarry back to the city as a “storage reservoir.” The city would have been paid an undisclosed amount for the mining rights to the land.
A spirited opposition to the project worked for more than two years to inform state residents of the dangers of the plan, including the possible pollution of New Britain’s water supply.
“The mayor testified before the legislature in March 2016 that ‘this has the ability to make extraordinary quality of life changes - for the better - in our communities for generations to come.’ The public overwhelmingly disagreed, this was an indefensible proposal with disastrous consequences to the environment and the New Britain and Southington water supply systems,” said Paul Zagorsky, an attorney who helped found Protect Our Watersheds CT to battle the plan. “It’s about time - and long overdue - that New Britain’s interests and voices are put ahead of Tilcon’s. What about the fact the city spent, at her request, $354,000 on a study that has been found to be flawed and incomplete?”
A similar plan proposed by Stewart’s father, Mayor Timothy Stewart, was also rejected under heavy opposition in 2007.
“This was long overdue for a number of reasons,” said retired Central Connecticut State University President Richard Judd, who worked with Zagorsky and the group to defeat the plan. “The first of which was the study done by Lenard which was a very poor study with a lot of lack to it.” Judd called every drop of water for New Britain residents “precious” and speculated that the proposal “won’t come back to bite us.”
The Water Planning Council and the state Council on Environmental Quality panned the project earlier this year after examining a 500-page study done by Lenard Engineering on the potential impacts of the plan on the watershed. Both agencies were preparing to file documents with the state legislature on their findings and to submit hundreds of public comments against the plan that have been received in recent months, when Stewart sent the letter indicating she was pulling the plug on the deal.
Since the project would have required a change in the use of a protected watershed, the plan was required to be reviewed by the legislature and the state Department of Public Health.
Although Plainville officials didn’t openly oppose the plan - with Tilcon as their second largest taxpayer - the Southington Water Department announced in recent weeks that the existing quarry is already damaging their water supply by shifting the water flow toward the quarry and away from Crescent Lake.
Tilcon wanted to expand the quarry to within a half-mile of Crescent Lake, which is used to augment water flow in the Quinnipiac River during periods of drought.
Torrington council authorizes mayor to award contract to raze Southeast School
BRUNO MATARAZZO JR.
TORRINGTON – Southeast School faces an impending death sentence.
The City Council on Monday unanimously voted to authorize Mayor Elinor C. Carbone to award a contract to Standard Demolition Services of Trumbull for $248,290. The old neighborhood school, which was built in the 1930s, will be razed in the months to come.
Southeast hasn’t been a school since 2005, when the alternative high school program was moved to Torrington High School. After that, day care centers and after-school programs leased the space, including Shookie Recreation, but the building has sat empty since 2011.
The city has tried to sell the building over the years but without success. It has cost the city about $20,000 a year to heat and maintain the building, even though it was barely used.
In 2014, the Board of Education took possession of the building again and mulled reopening it with new programming. Public Works Director Jerry Rollett said it would cost $2 million to remediate the building at the time, but school officials put the figure at $3 million, with state grants picking up most of the cost. Upgrading would have included bringing the building up to code, remediating the asbestos and lead, and adding a new roof for permanent use.The demolition eventually will give the street department, which abuts Southeast School on the western side, another access road and more space. Though the street and parks departments merged several years ago, they are in separate buildings, with tools scattered in different buildings around the city.
“We agree with many interested parties that the Lenard (environmental) Study and the public have raised several issues which would require further review before any such project could move forward,” Stewart said in a letter dated Wednesday to John Betkoski, the head of the state’s Water Planning Council.
Stewart then went on say that due to the cost of further studies, she was withdrawing her support for the project. The city spent $350,000 to get an environmental impact study that was widely viewed as inadequate and skewed in favor of the mining project.
“I have concluded that the most prudent course of action at this time would be withdrawal of the proposal from further consideration,” Stewart said.
The move effectively killed the proposal since the project would have allowed Tilcon to mine 74 acres of protected watershed owned by the New Britain Water Department but located in Plainville. Tilcon would have mined the property for 40 years before returning the quarry back to the city as a “storage reservoir.” The city would have been paid an undisclosed amount for the mining rights to the land.
A spirited opposition to the project worked for more than two years to inform state residents of the dangers of the plan, including the possible pollution of New Britain’s water supply.
“The mayor testified before the legislature in March 2016 that ‘this has the ability to make extraordinary quality of life changes - for the better - in our communities for generations to come.’ The public overwhelmingly disagreed, this was an indefensible proposal with disastrous consequences to the environment and the New Britain and Southington water supply systems,” said Paul Zagorsky, an attorney who helped found Protect Our Watersheds CT to battle the plan. “It’s about time - and long overdue - that New Britain’s interests and voices are put ahead of Tilcon’s. What about the fact the city spent, at her request, $354,000 on a study that has been found to be flawed and incomplete?”
A similar plan proposed by Stewart’s father, Mayor Timothy Stewart, was also rejected under heavy opposition in 2007.
“This was long overdue for a number of reasons,” said retired Central Connecticut State University President Richard Judd, who worked with Zagorsky and the group to defeat the plan. “The first of which was the study done by Lenard which was a very poor study with a lot of lack to it.” Judd called every drop of water for New Britain residents “precious” and speculated that the proposal “won’t come back to bite us.”
The Water Planning Council and the state Council on Environmental Quality panned the project earlier this year after examining a 500-page study done by Lenard Engineering on the potential impacts of the plan on the watershed. Both agencies were preparing to file documents with the state legislature on their findings and to submit hundreds of public comments against the plan that have been received in recent months, when Stewart sent the letter indicating she was pulling the plug on the deal.
Since the project would have required a change in the use of a protected watershed, the plan was required to be reviewed by the legislature and the state Department of Public Health.
Although Plainville officials didn’t openly oppose the plan - with Tilcon as their second largest taxpayer - the Southington Water Department announced in recent weeks that the existing quarry is already damaging their water supply by shifting the water flow toward the quarry and away from Crescent Lake.
Tilcon wanted to expand the quarry to within a half-mile of Crescent Lake, which is used to augment water flow in the Quinnipiac River during periods of drought.
Torrington council authorizes mayor to award contract to raze Southeast School
BRUNO MATARAZZO JR.
TORRINGTON – Southeast School faces an impending death sentence.
The City Council on Monday unanimously voted to authorize Mayor Elinor C. Carbone to award a contract to Standard Demolition Services of Trumbull for $248,290. The old neighborhood school, which was built in the 1930s, will be razed in the months to come.
Southeast hasn’t been a school since 2005, when the alternative high school program was moved to Torrington High School. After that, day care centers and after-school programs leased the space, including Shookie Recreation, but the building has sat empty since 2011.
The city has tried to sell the building over the years but without success. It has cost the city about $20,000 a year to heat and maintain the building, even though it was barely used.
In 2014, the Board of Education took possession of the building again and mulled reopening it with new programming. Public Works Director Jerry Rollett said it would cost $2 million to remediate the building at the time, but school officials put the figure at $3 million, with state grants picking up most of the cost. Upgrading would have included bringing the building up to code, remediating the asbestos and lead, and adding a new roof for permanent use.The demolition eventually will give the street department, which abuts Southeast School on the western side, another access road and more space. Though the street and parks departments merged several years ago, they are in separate buildings, with tools scattered in different buildings around the city.