Greg Bordonaro
A controversial Simsbury housing development that included an affordable component and has been on the table for more than two decades, would officially be dead if a pending $6-million land sale to a California-based conservation nonprofit is completed in the months ahead.
The Trust for Public Land (TPL), which has been an active acquirer and preserver of land in Connecticut since 1986, is in negotiations to purchase 288 acres of rolling fields and tobacco barns in the northern section of town that would be preserved as farmland and open and recreational space.
The property — situated west of Hopmeadow Street, abutting Hoskins and Firetown roads, and near the International Skating Center of Connecticut — would also pay tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., who worked on Simsbury tobacco fields as a young man during the 1940s.
The land is currently owned by commercial landlord Griffin Industrial Realty Inc., which first proposed its Meadowood residential development in 1999 as a 640-home subdivision that would include around 160 (or 25%) affordable dwellings.
Earlier this year, New York-based Griffin Industrial announced that it was shifting its business model to focus on managing and leasing industrial/warehouse space, which is why the company is seeking to exit the Meadowood residential development, though it remains an alternative use for the site if the TPL deal falls through, according to Tim Lescallet, Griffin Industrial’s senior vice president.
“While we believe the sale to the Trust for Public Land is at a price below the value we could have achieved through a development on the land, we are pleased that by working with TPL we can enable a project that will benefit so many conservation and preservation interests in the community,” Lescallet said.
Simsbury First Selectman Eric Wellman said he believes the conservation land purchase will have the support of residents, who will ultimately be asked to shoulder a third of the purchase price.
Honor Lawler, a Connecticut project manager for TPL, said the Simsbury Meadowood property appeared on her nonprofit’s radar screen about a year ago.
Aside from the opportunity to preserve significant open space, the nonprofit was drawn to the land’s historic roots, she said.
As a student at Atlanta’s Morehouse College, civil rights icon King spent two summers working in Farmington Valley tobacco fields, including in Simsbury farmland, Lawler said.
• 138 acres as open space that could be used for new trails;
• 24 acres for future athletic fields;
• and 117 acres of farmland.
Its mission is to create parks and protect land for public use or conservation.
Its New Haven office has helped protect 93 Connecticut properties spread across 7,600 acres with a fair market value of $150 million, according Walker Holmes, the nonprofit’s state director.
“Our goal is to catalyze communities to be healthier and more connected,” Holmes said. “We work with communities to protect the places that matter most.”
The Meadowood land sits between the Massacoe State Forest and 4,400-acre McLean Game Refuge. The goal is to connect all three sites to create an expansive network of new trails, Lawler said.
About 117 acres would be preserved as working farmland that could be leased to local farms, she added.
The biggest challenge to moving the deal forward is obtaining financing for the $6-million purchase. The Trust is pursuing several capital sources in addition to the town funding, including a state open space grant as well as grants from the Connecticut Department of Agriculture and state historic preservation office.
TPL has signed a purchase contract with Griffin Industrial that expires next February. If the deal isn’t finalized by then, the deadline could be extended another six months, Lawler said.
“We have a really good track record of completing our projects, but it doesn’t come without its challenges,” Lawler said. “We are pretty confident this is what the community wants and it provides a lot of public benefits.”
Some criticism
The move away from an affordable housing project comes as there is growing pressure at the state level to enforce zoning reforms on Connecticut municipalities, especially the state’s wealthier suburbs that often fight residential projects meant for lower-income people.
Earlier this month, a coalition of affordable-housing advocates gathered outside the state Capitol to demand lawmakers to tackle the issue of housing segregation in Connecticut, whose cities have significantly higher populations of low-income residents.
The movement is gaining momentum amid the broader calls for social justice sweeping the nation following the death of George Floyd Jr. in Minneapolis.
Wellman said one of the few complaints he’s heard about the conservation purchase is that it undercuts new affordable housing. However, he said an affordable housing project would be better served being located closer to downtown where there is easier access to public transportation.
Torrington site in need of cleanup ahead of construction of 60-unit apartment complex
BRUNO MATARAZZO JR.
TORRINGTON — More than a century of manufacturing at 100 Franklin St. littered the ground underneath with a mix of contaminants, some of which will need to be excavated in preparation for a four-story apartment complex to be developed on the site.
Mercury, lead, arsenic, copper, extractable petroleum hydrocarbons and PCBs need to be removed and the city will be picking from nine companies that responded to a bid proposal to do the excavation and removal. The bids are in the process of being vetted, but many came in below the city’s estimate, according to Mayor Elinor Carbone.
The city has slightly less than $800,000 in state grants to cleanup Franklin Street as well as $400,000 in a revolving loan fund from the EPA. Carbone said some of the bids were considerably lower, some around $300,000.
A bid is expected to be brought forward to the City Council next month.
The site is the future home of 60-unit apartment complex called Torrington Riverfront to be developed by Pennrose. In March, the Torrington project was awarded $1.35 million in yearly low-income housing tax credits by the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, which administers the U.S. Treasury tax credits.Of the 60 one-, two- and three-bedroom units, 75% will be affordable housing, including 12 units of federally subsidized Section 8 housing.The site was the home of the former Torrington Manufacturing Company and was a complex of connected buildings that dated back to the early 1900s. The entire complex was demolished in 2010. The 2-acre parcel has been reviewed and studied for 13 years in preparation of the brownfield remediation. “We continue to meet with Pennrose,” Carbone said. Only certain areas in the site need to be excavated and removed, according to the remedial action report by GZA GeoEnvironmental Inc.One of the two major sites is the former coal house area at the edge of the property along the Naugtack River where the Naugatuck River Greenway will be built. Since arsenic was found at that area, it will need 2 feet of clean fill to go over the impacted area and landscape areas will need 4 feet of clean fill.The other site is the former “Building F” where mercury impacted soil in a 50-by-120-foot area will need to be removed. That area will be the parking lot for the complex. Some contamination can be capped and some need to be removed and in this case, what’s there needs to be removed,” said Rista Malanca, the city’s director of economic development.Malanca said the goal is to have work start by Aug. 14 and be completed in approximately six weeks. In March, developer Charlie Adams of Pennrose said he hopes to close on the deal and begin construction by the end of the calendar year.
Mayor: ‘We need to cash in’ on chance to lure jet set to Danbury Airport
Rob Ryser
DANBURY — Mayor Mark Boughton got the idea when he noticed Amazon executives flying into Danbury Municipal Airport earlier this summer.
If the city’s two-runway airport were marketed as a key amenity for helicopter owners, jet setters and corporate plane travelers, could Danbury capture a bigger share of the relocation wave from New York to Connecticut?
“The airport is something in the era of COVID with people looking to pull out of New York that we might be able to leverage to bring more business to Danbury,” Boughton said. “I do think there is an opportunity there, and we need to cash in on it.”
In response, the Boughton administration is rewriting the job description of an open position at the airport to focus on economic development and marketing, to “expand the uses and let people know the airport is available if they want to come to Danbury to relocate.”
And while noncommercial flight activity is down at Danbury Airport as it is across the state, there may be new opportunities for growth if increasing numbers of larger aircraft at nearby Oxford Airport force more small-plane traffic to Danbury.“It’s an opportunity for us to pick up smaller planes who don’t want to be in the larger traffic,” said Michael Safranek, the former longtime operations manager at Danbury Airport who was promoted in late spring to replace retiring administrator Paul Estefan. “One of the goals we’re shooting for is to be an economically viable benefit to the city.”
The improving condition of the city airport — which recently underwent a $1.4 million runway surface upgrade — contrasts with 2016, when the Federal Aviation Administration banned bad-weather night landings at Danbury Airport because trees had intruded into the airspace of a landing zone.
The city spent months negotiating tree cutting rights with private landowners while one charter aviation company complained it was losing $50,000 per month because it had to divert flights to Westchester County in nearby New York.
“That was all cleared up,” Safranek said during an interview last week. “Now we’re trying to build this into a stronger economic engine.”
Among the first priorities is the construction of two new hangars, which would be built and maintained with private money, Safranek said.
Also in the works is a $180,000 study sanctioned by the FAA to identify runway obstructions and other airport infrastructure conditions. The city is expected to kick in $4,500 for the study, while the rest is picked up by the FAA and the Connecticut Airport Authority.
The study comes at the same time as a $69,000 federal coronavirus relief check, made out to the airport
Elevating the airport
When Boughton noticed Amazon executives flying into Danbury Airport to prepare a new shipping facility for 400 workers at the former Scholastic distribution center off Interstate 84, a tidal wave of 10,000 out-of-staters — mostly from New York — was already pouring into greater Danbury and Connecticut.
Some out-of-staters were buying homes here to escape the stifling effects of the coronavirus lockdown in New York City, while others were coming for the lower property taxes, real estate agents said. From March through May, out-of-staters requested 1,800 address changes in greater Danbury alone — 83 percent of which were from the Empire State, according to the United States Postal Service.
Boughton began to think there was plenty of space at the city’s 248-acre airport for people to land their helicopters, planes and corporate jets.
“This is vital for us,” Boughton said. “We needs to move from the airport just being a mention to it being a centerpiece or a selling point to various companies looking to move out.”
Meanwhile, Danbury Airport has seen a slight upswing in takeoffs and landings — at least before the coronavirus crisis turned the economy upside down. There were 50,000 combined takeoffs and landings at Danbury Airport in 2019, an increase of 4,300 over 2018. However, that 2019 number is well below the 70,000 traffic count in 2016.
Danbury’s dropping numbers are part of a statewide trend for general aviation airports, fueled by the rising costs of obtaining a pilot’s license and of owning a plane, the Connecticut Airport Authority says.
All the more reason for Danbury to specialize its operations by targeting emerging markets, Boughton said.He added the city will fill the open position created when Safranek was promoted once the new job description is complete.