Julia Bergman
Groton — Electric Boat has purchased two homes on Eastern Point Road, and is in various stages of discussions with seven other homeowners, as part of the company's efforts to ease the concerns of neighbors who will be most directly impacted by its $850 million expansion plans.
"We've had a positive response from most of the homeowners," Maura Dunn, vice president for organization and facilities development, said by phone late last week. "In some cases, they want to talk about how long they can live in the house. Others are asking how fast they can get to settlement or are talking with advisers."
Dunn said no decisions have been made about what to do with the homes, and that the focus is on addressing the concerns surrounding construction.
The majority of the expansion, the result of a boost in submarine production, is happening in the south end of the shipyard. A new facility will be built there to assemble a new class of ballistic-missile submarines. The facility is expected to be about the same size as the iconic green building on the waterfront where attack submarines are being built. EB is in the design and permitting phase for the project, with construction expected to begin later this year.
EB largely has been unaffected by the partial government shutdown but is waiting on feedback from the Environmental Protection Agency on a permit filed with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Given the timeline for the project, the company is concerned that if the shutdown extends much longer, it could slow down the permitting process.
In early November of last year, EB made offers on 11 homes on Eastern Point Road, its way of extending an olive branch to address concerns from neighboring homeowners. Homeowners have said they are worried about their property values going down, losing their view of the Thames River and New London, and the noise and congestion that come with living next to an active construction site.
The company has purchased the two homes on either end of the stretch. Of the 11 homes, two are rental properties. Six of the homeowners are either current or former EB employees.
The company purchased 224 Eastern Point Road, an unoccupied building adjacent to one of its parking lots, for $97,500 at an auction in August 2018. The property, which EB previously owned, also was owned for a period of time by Big Brothers-Big Sisters of Southeastern Connecticut.
EB purchased 306 Eastern Point Road for $195,000. The sale was recorded on Nov. 9, and the assessed value of the home was $186,060, according to land records from the Town of Groton.
Two homeowners have indicated they do not intend to sell.
One of them is Frank Ricci, a retired engineering supervisor who worked at the company for 34 years. He has lived for 45 years at 276 Eastern Point Road with his wife, who currently works at EB. Ricci said he enjoys living in an area where the neighbors all get along, and with picturesque views of the Thames River. Ricci said he and his wife still think they will have some type of view — toward the south — even after the expansion is complete.
Plus, with the money spent on additions to their home, "we'd never get it back" by selling it, Ricci said by phone Monday afternoon.
While the individual offers themselves differ depending on the size of the home and the lot, these same terms were offered to all homeowners: a tenant improvement fee, which is over and above the fair market value of the home, and if an owner accepts, he or she can stay in the home for up to two years after it's purchased.
Several homeowners have told The Day that they think EB's offer is lower than the value of their home.
The offers were calculated by real estate professionals, who referred to recent sales of comparable properties in the area, as well public information about the properties. Owners are able to get estimates by two licensed appraisers, and submit those to EB for recalculation, if they believe the offer undervalues the home.
Getting There: Is 30-30-30 plan for Metro-North off the rails?
Would you like a faster ride on Metro-North?
Who wouldn’t?
How about a 30-minute ride from Hartford to New Haven, from New Haven to Stamford or from Stamford to Grand Central?
That’s the vision announced by Gov. Ned Lamont in his inaugural address. It’s known as the 30-30-30 plan and sounds good compared to current running times (52 minutes, 55 minutes and 48 minutes, respectively). But how can such vast improvements be done? Ask Joe McGee, vice president of the Fairfield Business Council who’s been pitching this idea for years.
McGee was so confident of this concept that his council recently paid $400,000 to Ty Lin Consulting of San Francisco to study it. And which railroad expert did Ty Lin hire to spearhead the study? Joseph Giulietti, former president of Metro-North who was recently named Connecticut’s new transportation commissioner.
Although Ty Lin’s study has not been released, McGee admits the 30-30-30 idea is more of a goal than a possibility. Yet, for as little as $75 million to $95 million, Ty Lin thinks significant improvements can be made to speed up service by accelerating Metro-North’s return to a “state of good repair.”
While president of Metro-North, Giulietti said it would take five years to get the railroad back in shape after years of neglect. Metro-North now says a more realistic time frame is 10 years.
McGee claims service will improve quickly — shaving 24 minutes off the current 103-minute ride from New Haven to Grand Central — by fixing rail ties and overhead power lines to improve speeds on curves, restoring the fourth track east of Milford and adding express trains (at a premium fare). That would make it a 79-minute run, but not 60.
But wait. If this was Giulietti’s idea as a consultant, why didn’t he make it happen when he was running Metro-North? Or how will he now, as commissioner of the state DOT, get his old railroad to adopt Ty Lin’s ideas? I asked, but he isn’t saying.
Seasoned professionals at the DOT have told me the Ty Lin ideas will cost billions of dollars and take a decade. In other words, there’s no quick, cheap fix.
Meantime, Metro-North is planning to add six to 10 minutes of running time to all New Haven line trains for the spring timetable to better reflect the reality of delays due to work.
For 2018, the railroad had an on-time performance of just 88%. By extending the train schedule on paper, on-time performance will go up and riders will have a more dependable, albeit slower, ride.
Lengthening running times, even on paper, “is not acceptable,” said McGee, who hopes to release his Ty Lin study in about two weeks. He fully expects significant pushback from the railroad and East Coast consultants beholden to the MTA.
But it’s really the Federal Railroad Administration that has been the biggest hurdle to speeding up the trains. It has required slower speeds after the 2013 Bridgeport and Spuyten Duyvil derailments. Those limits will not be increased until the FRA is convinced the railroad is safe.
So let the debate begin: Is 30-30-30 possible or just a fantasy? Did Giulietti create his own nightmare by proposing as a consultant what he may not be able to deliver as DOT commissioner?
Jim Cameron is a longtime Connecticut commuter advocate. Contact him at CommuterAction Group@gmail.com
New Milford considers ways to fix a failing bridge
Katrina Koerting
NEW MILFORD — The town is trying to fix one of the five worst bridges in Litchfield County — but it’s not easy.
The location, state requirements and neighbors’ concerns are making it difficult to determine the best way to accomplish the task.
The Merryall Road bridge, which spans the West Aspetuck River near West Meetinghouse Road, has a rating of four out of 10 and is classified as “poor condition.”
The town’s public works department hopes to start construction next year.
Public Works Director Mike Zarba presented a few options to the Town Council recently to fix the bridge, ranging in price from a little over $3 million to $5.48 million.The problem is the cheapest option, which would build a new bridge slightly north of the existing one, cuts into nearly 200 feet of private property. The Schipuls, who live there, oppose the idea and town officials don’t seem eager to follow that route either.
“This is extremely invasive to someone’s property compared to reconstructing where it already is,” Councilman Paul Szymanksi said.
The Schipuls said their children swim in the river through the property and they have been good stewards of the land, purchasing and donating a nearby parcel to a local land trust so it can preserve the natural beauty of the area.Zarba told the council members he had to present the options because cost tends to be a big factor in the council’s discussions about projects. He said they’ve been working with the Schipuls and weren’t considering eminent domain.
But while the new bridge is the cheapest option now because a standard box culvert can be installed at a narrower part of the river, it doesn’t account for the money that would be needed to purchase the land from the Schipuls, which several council members said will be more expensive either in purchasing land or in legal fees for an eminent domain case.
“This is not what our town is about,” said Councilwoman Lisa Hida. “We are about neighbors and families.” The other options include rebuilding the bridge in place, either by closing the road, using a temporary bridge or doing it one lane at a time to keep it open during the construction. These are more expensive because a deep foundation needs to be made to support the new bridge. The angle and width of the river doesn’t allow for a box culvert
Council members asked Zarba and Town Engineer Dan Stanton to explore ways and costs to build the bridge faster. They also nust find out how the design and costs could change if the town didn’t use state money and not have to meet certain state requirements.
Among the requirements is a 90-foot entry that leads into the bridge.“That’s two Greyhound buses in a rural area,” Richard Schipul said. “That’s crazy.”
The plan is to have the town cover 53 percent of the costs and the state pick up the remaining 47 percent.
Some council members estimate that by using only local money, they could have a design that better suits the rural nature of the area. They also think the town can finish the project faster and cheaper, especially if public works does the administration parts and they don’t have to set aside such a large amount for contingencies. “To me it’s absurd that we’re going to spend this much on one bridge,” Szymanski said.
Another challenge with this project is that residents of northern Merryall told town officials at a public meeting that they did not want the road closed for the work. That caused the town to go back to the drawing board and look at the option of building a new bridge in a new place.
Zarba said a project done in Merryall years ago, before he joined the department, encountered a delay which caused the road to be closed for two years. He suspected that might be why the residents were so opposed to the road closure option this time.
Merryall has about 630 daily vehicles at the bridge and West Meetinghouse has about 850 daily vehicles.
Prospective road detours clock in at around 12 minutes. Town Council members also requested the actual time it took to complete the three most recent bridge projects compared to the estimates so they would have a better idea of a closure before making a decision.