Stamford approves growing Harbor Point, but limits size
Barry Lytton
STAMFORD — The Planning Board had a reflective moment this week as it weighed a proposal to change city plans to facilitate another high rise in the South End, a neighborhood with a housing density now rivaling downtown.
“We have to think about what are we doing to the neighborhood,” board Chairwoman Theresa Dell said. “Are we taking away the neighborhood feel of the South End? Is that what we’re determining for the South End ... a high rise, transient community.”
After a decade of erecting apartment towers in the South End, Building and Land Technology was in front of the board with a change for land outside its Harbor Point development, a $3.5 billion overhaul of abandoned industrial land.
The request, likely the first of a few more to come — BLT has at least one other block of development in the neighborhood — prompted the Planning Board to question the board’s vision for the neighborhood since the decade-long building boom is now bleeding into the old South End.
In short, BLT wants more building with higher housing densities. Neighbors want less. On Tuesday night, the Planning Board struck down the middle, allowing for more density, but reducing the number of units allowed on one site by around a third.
BLT eventually hopes to built some 670 units on the block between Walter Wheeler Drive and Woodland Avenue, split between three buildings — ranging in height from five to 22 stories — and others next door.
To do so, BLT needed the Planning Board to extend the mixed-use category of the city’s Master Plan map to the north, allowing high rises outside of the Harbor Point district, which houses towers and urban-style high rises closer to the water.
BLT will later need a new zone written into the city regulations to make such a building a reality, so this will next go to the Zoning Board, which is already mulling another BLT pitch to allow for a 365,000-square-foot office addition to the Charter Communications headquarters being built near the train station.
The proposal stoked fear in neighbors concerned they were being surrounded by high rises and riled two business owners who shared the block with BLT.Although there was no public comment, nearly a dozen citizens attended the meeting. Carmine Tomas, whose family owns two buildings on the block, and Bob Katchko, whose construction company operates from there, listened as the planning board deliberated.
Both followed along, occasionally rolling eyes as the fate of their block was decided. One part of the proposal that particularly drew their ire was the city requesting a density change for their property on the block.
“We’re small businesses,” Katchko said quietly. “I grew up here ... they just want to steamroll us, they’ll sell each building, clear $100 million and when it all goes to Section 8, to co-op city, they’re long gone. We’re still here. We live here.”
Tomas was also unhappy with the city and a developer revamping his block, and questioned whether any change would cost him more in taxes if it made the land more valuable.
The Planning Board decided to allow more density on the block, but limited BLT to two thirds of its request, cutting the number of units the developer can build.
The board changed the northern half of the block to a high-density housing category instead of urban mixed use.
Ted Ferrarone, BLT’s chief operating officer, said it was too early to say what the change means for the proposed building.
“We’re working through it, we’re trying to be sensitive to everybody’s desires,” he said.
Federal brownfield grant could be key to developing downtown Meriden property
Mary Ellen Godin
MERIDEN — A plan to apply for a brownfield grant to clean up a small downtown lot for development is now headed to the City Council.
The council’s Finance Committee approved a plan Wednesday night to apply for the federal grant to clean up 69 E. Main St., a quarter-acre city-owned lot on the corner of St. Casimir Drive that was formerly a laundromat.
The total cost is estimated at $200,000. The city would have to fund 20 percent of the cost of the project – about $40,000 – said Economic Development Director Juliet Burdelski.
The city had an informal agreement with the owners of Tacos Mi Nachos to pay $25,000 to build a restaurant on the site, but the deal was scuttled because the city did not have cleanup funds.
”Right now it has a negative value,” Burdelski said. “The idea is to make it a positive value.”
City Councilor Walter Shamock, a member of the Finance Committee, at first balked at the request because Burdelski couldn’t promise the city would recoup the $40,000 at a future sale.
“If someone can assure me we’re going to get the $40,000 back, I’ll vote in favor of it,” Shamock said during Wednesday’s meeting.
Burdelski said that a cleaned site could generate between $25,000 and $50,000 but she could make no guarantees on future market conditions.
Councilor Brian Daniels, also a member of the Finance Committee, explained the property is in a desirable location but is currently not marketable. The sale and any future development would generate tax revenue.
If we don’t do this, “we are sitting on dirty property,” Daniels said. He also said a requirement that a buyer produce at least $40,0000 could harm a potential sale if a buyer offers $39,000 and wants to build a $250,000 restaurant. He said it wouldn’t be unreasonable to ask the city’s Economic Development Task Force to request that the city recoup its investment.
He also reminded Shamock that any sale would have to be reviewed and approved by the City Council.
“Let’s wait and see what the proposed use for the property is,” Daniels said.
The committee eventually passed the measure unanimously.
CT's toll-wary truckers tally their economic benefits
Gregory Seay
Connecticut's trucking industry delivers some $3.2 billion in pay to its workers annually, and that's just the tip of the iceberg in calculating the sector's financial and other contributions to the communities it serves, fresh data shows.
Connecticut's 58,400 trucking jobs annually earn an average of $54,350 per worker, says the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI). Based in Arlington, Va., ATRI jointly released its data Thursday via the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut (MTAC) in Hartford.
"These numbers prove once again what the hard-working men and women in the industry already know; the trucking industry provides good-paying jobs and great career opportunities," MTAC President Joe Sculley said in a statement.
"Our employees also know that the trucking industry is the backbone of the economy," he said.
The ATRI data comes amid growing concerns among Connecticut's truckers about the potential for state lawmakers in the upcoming legislative session to seriously weigh tolling state highways to fund road maintenance and other transportation infrastructure.
A transportation working group formed by Gov.-elect Ned Lamont recently recommended a broad tolling policy that would include all vehicles. However, the policy would conflict with Lamont's campaign promise to start by only tolling tractor-trailer trucks, which has raised the ire of the trucking industry.
The policy recommendation came after the state Department of Transportation (DOT) in November released a study that said installing 82 tolling gantries for all vehicles across Connecticut could raise nearly $1 billion a year in revenue by 2023.
Sculley pointed to ATRI data that show 94 percent of total manufactured tonnage is trucked in this state, and that 86 percent of Connecticut communities depend exclusively on trucks to move their goods.
"What this means is that essentially everything we buy was on a truck at some point,'' he said. "Policymakers should keep this in mind when crafting legislation that impacts the trucking industry. The effects will be felt by all consumers – their constituents."
The ATRI data also highlights taxes paid by the industry. A typical five-axle tractor- semitrailer combination pays more than $17,500 in combined state and federal road taxes each year.
"Let there be no doubt that our industry pays its fair share of road taxes," Sculley said. "In fact, we are paying more than six times our fair share. The industry pays 32 percent of all road taxes, even though it accounts for just 5 percent of miles traveled in the state."
Sculley also repeated MTAC's assertion that out-of-state trucks do not travel through Connecticut tax free. It collects about $25 million to $30 million in taxes/fees from out-of-state trucks annually, because of the state's participation in the International Fuel Tax Agreement and the International Registration Plan.