How some of $5.38 billion in federal funding could be spent on I-84, rail line in Danbury
DANBURY — The Hat City could be among the big winners of a
federal infrastructure package that could fund improvements to Interstate 84 and
the Danbury rail line.
These long-discussed plans to alleviate
traffic on I-84 through Danbury and create a faster train line from
the Hat City to New York City are among the priorities for the $5.38
billion Connecticut will receive in infrastructure funding.
“It’s a historic breakthrough, literally,” U.S. Sen. Richard
Blumenthal said outside the Danbury train station Wednesday morning when
touting the federal package approved last week. “It’s going to benefit Danbury
more than most other towns in the state because I think you are truly poised
for progress.”
Money could also go toward the long-time goal of expanding
rail service to New Milford, as well as improving roads, bridges, sidewalks and
broadband in the Danbury area.
I-84 project
The funding could allow construction to start sooner than
the projected mid-2030s at exits 3-11 on I-84, said Francis Pickering,
executive director of the Western Connecticut Council of Governments. Officials
have discussed widening I-84.
“Adding resources to that program will potentially
accelerated it,” he said.
The state cited the need to improve I-84 in the Danbury area
as early as 2000. A report focused on exits 1-11 found that the highway needed
safety improvements for acceleration and deceleration lanes, local road improvements,
and widened and improved lane continuity at exits 3-4 and 7-8, according
to the I-84 Project website. Access needs to be improved between exits 3-8,
too.
The project remains a high interest at the state level.
“The governor has specifically referred to this project as
one of the most advanced in terms of planning,” Blumenthal said.
He noted heavy traffic clogs up I-84 where it intersects
with Route 7.
“Right now, it creates bottlenecks, even at non rush-hour
times,” the Democratic senator said. “Any time you travel from Waterbury,
you’re going to encounter that traffic which keeps people away from Waterbury.”
Maybrook line
If a faster train could be created from Danbury to New York
City, that could reduce traffic, too. That’s one of the reasons reopening the
Maybrook line is one of the priorities for funding.
“It’s a huge plus for us economically, and traveling on the
highway as (Blumenthal) said, there’s bottlenecks,” Mayor elect Dean Esposito
said. “There’s bottlenecks through 84, 684, and they’re going to relieve that.”
Pickering added this will be better for the environment
because it could reduce emissions from cars.
Officials may hear within a couple months the results of
a study on
the feasibility of reopening the Maybrook line, Cavo said. The project could be
more important than ever because of the large number of New Yorkers who moved
to this region, he said.
“With the influx of folks that have been moving here over
the course of the pandemic, it gives them tremendous opportunities to get back
to the city,” he said. “We’re really excited about that.”
This potential line is the best example of how
“transformative” the package is, Blumenthal said.
“I would put it at the very top of the priorities for the
state, not just for Danbury,” he said.
The Danbury rail line has “untapped potential,” not just for
the city, but for the towns at the stops along the way, Blumenthal said. Adding
the Maybrook line would “explode the potential economic development” for the
region, he said.
Danbury as a ‘regional hub’
Before any projects begin, the U.S. Department of
Transportation will need to release the money to the state, who will plan and
design the work. Some money will go directly to the state Department of
Transportation and Metro-North, while the state will need to apply for other
competitive grants, Blumenthal said.
Danbury is a prime area for the state to focus on because of
its rail line, proximity to New York and its airport, among other factors, he
said.
The city is the link between Fairfield, Litchfield and Westchester
counties, Pickering said.
“Danbury has been an incredibly vibrant economy, sub
regional economy, regional economy,” he said. “The challenge for us largely has
been our infrastructure.”
Mayor Joe Cavo said he wants Danbury to remain a “regional
hub.”
“We have been the economic driver of this region for quite
some time,” he said. “We’ve been on the forefront of a lot of these projects,
trying to get the funding for them.”
Blumenthal estimated the projects across the state will
create thousands jobs, as well as support Danbury and the region’s economy.
“It’s a job creating program,” he said. “By creating new
infrastructure, we’re creating a new economy. It is the single most significant
investment in rail and roads in a century, maybe even in history.”
2 New Haven developers want lower taxes on affordable housing. This committee said no
Mary E. O’Leary
NEW HAVEN — A committee that vets tax abatement requests on
affordable housing has recommended higher taxes than two builders have proposed
— one of them almost four times as high.
The Low Income Supportive Housing Tax Abatement Committee took
up four proposed developments and recommended taxes of $1,500 per
housing unit with a 3 percent annual increase for three very different
projects.
The three projects recommended for $1,500 per unit annual
tax with a 3 percent annual increase for 17 years include Beacon Communities,
Fairbanks and Vessel.
The committee consensus was to make all the payments the
same, though Alders Anna Festa, D-10, and Abigail Roth, D-7, said in a later
discussion that the circumstances were different for each, particularly Beacon.
Roth said the tax abatements previously approved “are all
over the place.”
Beacon Communities, out of Boston, is a known entity in New
Haven as it owns the Residences at Ninth Square downtown and Monterey Place in
the Dixwell neighborhood.
It has a complicated history on this tax abatement request
as having proposed to pay $600 in taxes per unit for 48 affordable units when
it was talking about 60 proposed apartments at 300 State St. last year.
It withdrew that plan when LISHTA recommended $400 in taxes per
apartment for two other low-income affordable housing proposals. The committee
said it went along with the $600 at that point because it was what Beacon
offered.
Since its proposal last year, Beacon bought more property
downtown and has a plan to build a total of 79 apartments with 44 in a new
building at 300 State St.; 26 at 742-746 Chapel St.; and nine at 756-760 Chapel
St. It now is proposing $400 in taxes per apartment.
Together the properties constitute a major corner downtown
with housing in one new, 4-story building and the rest on the upper floors of
the historic Chapel Street buildings. It also would have 23,000 square feet of
ground-level commercial space.
A total of 63 Beacon units would be deeded as affordable
with 16 at or below 30 percent of average median income; 33 at 50 percent of
AMI; 14 at 60 percent of AMI; and 16 at market rate and fully taxed.
The new project also proposes to designate 20 percent of the
apartments as “permanent supportive housing units” that would provide job education
training and financial literacy, among other services.
Some 10 percent would be accessible to persons with mobile
and sensory disabilities.
Beacon, in its cover letter to the alders, said, like the
Residences at Ninth Square, its new proposal “will promote economic integration
and expand housing opportunities for households at every income band.”
It said a feasible financing plan would require local
support for tax abatement as it also seeks state and federal subsidies. Beacon
said this particularly is true when building affordable units that don’t
generate much rental income.
It was hoping to get into the November round of Low Income
Housing Tax Credits offered through the state but it would need the alders to
be on board with the abatement plan. Beacon also has proposed entering an
Extended Low-Income Housing Commitment for at least 40 years to protect the
affordability and rent levels.
The second project was a request from Vessel, which proposes
to buy 136 Hemingway St. from the city and build 27 apartments on land
bordering Hemingway Creek, wetlands and a flood plain.
It submitted a tax proposal in which it would pay 6 percent
of revenue for the first 10 years; 8 percent of revenue through year 20; and 10
percent through year 30. It proposed further not to pay taxes on unoccupied
units.
The third project under review to keep the tax level of
$1,500 per unit was one for 121 apartments at Fairbanks, which has been taken
over by Community Preservation Partners.
The new owners plan to put $7 million into renovations in
the property in the heart of Fair Haven at Ferry Street and Grand Avenue.
Also, they are making all 121 units affordable at or below
60 percent AMI, lowering it from 80 percent AMI for only 100 of the apartments.
The breakdown is 79 percent of the apartments at or below 60
percent of AMI and 21 percent at or below 50 percent of AMI.
The fourth development under review was from the Glendower
Group, which is the construction
arm of Elm City Communities, the Housing Authority of New Haven, which has
a special arrangement with the city.
LISHTA agreed with its $350 tax per unit with a 3 percent
annual increase as proposed by Glendower. That project consists of 32
low-income units at 210-290 Valley St., with 8 market units that would be fully
taxed.
Standards
Festa and Roth, nearly a year ago, had asked that the Board
of Alders develop standards against which these abatement requests could be
measured, but that has not happened.
The standards would look at such things as need, the amount
of affordable units and the income level of the tenants.
Given the recommendations out of LISHTA, the two alders said
the need for standards remains, something the board already has done on
requests for tax assessment deferrals from developers.
In their letter recommending a workshop on LISHTA last
December, Roth and Festa quoted a member of LISHTA who said they were given
guidelines in 2018 on what LISHTA was “all about ... but not what we ought to
charge.”
Festa and Roth said guidelines would ensure consistency and
could incentivize housing aimed at lower-income tenants or for families. They
also recommended a review of what other cities were doing.
Attending the LISHTA meeting this week was Alder Sal DeCola,
D-18; Acting Assessor Alex Pullen; Arlevia Samuels, director of the Livable
City Initiative; and Deputy Economic Development Director Steve Fontana.
This week’s meeting of LISHTA, for the first time, was
public on the Zoom platform, but there was no recording. It is an internal
administrative review group put in place in 2018, but there has been a push to
open it to public scrutiny.
Its recommendations go to the aldermanic Tax Abatement
Committee and sometimes the Community Development Committee.
Waterbury dealing with contaminated at parking lot
MICHAEL PUFFER
WATERBURY – The city must pay an extra $250,000 to complete
a 119-space surface municipal parking lot off Prospect Street after a
contractor encountered unexpectedly large amounts of contaminated soil.
The city’s Board of Aldermen, at its meeting Monday, will be
asked to approve the increase in its contract with Dayton Construction Co.,
bringing that expense to $1.7 million.
The city’s original estimate anticipated 1,650 tons of
contaminated “urban fill.” Contractors needed to remove 4,962 tons of
contaminated soil, three times the original estimate, according to Thomas Hyde,
interim head of the Waterbury Development Corp.
The rising price will not affect the deadline for
“substantial” completion by Dec. 24, with all punchlist items finished by Jan.
23, according to a summary by Hyde.
Hyde said contractors might have been able to reuse some of
the contaminated material underneath the lot, but did not want to be delayed
waiting for needed approvals from the state Department of Energy and
Environmental Protection.
The soils were contaminated with polyaromatic hydrocarbons,
which can be generated from auto exhaust, diesel emissions, wood burning,
roadway dust or petroleum products. Most was sent to a quarry in Massachusetts
specializing in reuse of urban fill. About 320 tons was shipped to Clean Earth
Connecticut in Plainville, which treats contaminated soils by burning off
pollutants.
The parking lot is being built on a 1.3-acre site between
Prospect and North Main streets just north of the city’s downtown Green.
The property used to host a public ramp garage and a former
alley, both of which were abandoned and then torn down due to advanced decay.
The absence of the two dilapidated structures was seen as a
victory against blight. This new parking lot is seen as a benefit to ongoing
efforts to revitalize downtown, and could help support the city’s efforts to
repopulate empty commercial buildings around the Green.
The new parking lot will include landscaping, lighting,
fencing, four spaces with outlets for electric cars, security cameras and
emergency call boxes marked by blue lights.
The Hartford to spend $2.5B to address climate change, support renewable energy
Property and casualty insurer The Hartford plans to spend
$2.5 billion over the next five years to address climate change and support
renewable energy initiatives.
In a statement, company officials said The Hartford will
invest the money in “technologies, companies and funds which are advancing the
energy transition and addressing climate change.” The firm also plans to exit
all tar-sands investments by Dec. 31, two years earlier than projected in The
Hartford’s 2019 coal and tar sands policy.
The company expects to exit certain coal investments by the
end of 2023.
“As a 211-year-old insurer and asset manager, we view the
transition to a greener society as a business imperative, and we are doing our
part,” said Chairman and CEO Christopher Swift. “We are demonstrating our
environmental commitment through our actions across the business, ranging from
insurance solutions that encourage sustainable construction to investments by
the company in renewable energy.”
The Hartford also announced that it has signed the United
Nations Global Compact, a non-binding pledge encouraging businesses to adopt
more environmentally and socially sustainable policies and report on their
progress toward those goals. Company officials said the firm is one of the
first property-casualty insurers to sign the compact.
The Hartford first announced plans to scale down investments
connected to fossil fuels two years ago. At the time, executives said they
would not provide any new underwriting or investments for the construction or operation
of new coal-fired power plants, or for companies that derive more than 25% of
their revenues from thermal coal mining or the extraction of oil from tar
sands.
The Hartford met its goal of 100% renewable-energy-source
consumption for its facilities last year, 10 years before its self-imposed
deadline.
Technology will create natural gas from cow manure at Oakridge Dairy in Ellington
Joe
Chaisson / Journal Inquirer
ELLINGTON — Officials with Oakridge Dairy, the town, and
contractors broke ground Tuesday at the 131-year old farm on Jobs Hill Road for
an anaerobic digester that’s expected to reduce the pervasive odor of manure.
The 2 million-gallon facility is designed to extract methane
from cow manure and process it into natural gas, which will be sent to New
Jersey for Elizabethtown Gas customers.
On hand for the event was the Seth Bahler, CEO and owner of
Oakridge Dairy; Lori Spielman, recently re-elected as the town’s first
selectman; Rep. Jamie Foster, D-Ellington; Bryan P. Hurlburt, commissioner of
the state’s Department of Agriculture, and officials from SJI and REV LNG LLC,
companies involved with building the facility.
SJI is funding a large portion of the project, Bahler said,
and REV LNG will build and maintain the digester. Oakridge Dairy will supply
the manure and get a percentage of the revenue generated.
“We’re super excited to have this digester project finally
come to the building process,” Bahler said. “We talk about sustainability, and
one portion of sustainability is to be able to run a multigeneration family
farm into the future. You have to make the right business decisions and be able
to hand it off to the next generation, and we want to hand it off better than
what was handed down.”
REV LNG specializes in the development, production, and
transportation of renewable natural gas, liquified natural gas, and compressed
natural gas in North America. They were founded in 2013 and are headquartered
in Mendon, New York.
SJI is an energy infrastructure holding company based in
Folsom, New Jersey, that delivers energy services to customers through two
primary subsidiaries: SJI Utilities and SJI Energy Enterprises.
Spielman noted that she and Bahler have been working
together on the project for about five years and said she hopes the facility
can assist with the smell of manure around town.
“We get quite a few calls, and you can always tell when a
new family moves into town because the first thing they do is call up the Town
Hall and complain about the smell,” Spielman said. “Hopefully with the digester
it will help that out.”
She added that even though the town will not receive any of
the energy produced from the anaerobic digester it will help the grand list of
taxable property grow.
“It’s just very smart if you can contain that methane and
re-use it,” she said. “We’re moving in the right direction and we’re proud to
have the largest dairy farm in Connecticut.”
The farm is home to roughly 3,000 cows that produce about
25,000 gallons of milk per day.
Hurlburt praised Bahler’s efforts and his progressive
thinking.
“Wherever I go I make sure I talk about agriculture and
Connecticut’s farmers as innovators and entrepreneurs and this is the
demonstration of that. It takes forward-thinking business leaders to be
constantly thinking about ‘what do we need to do next,’” Hurlburt said.
The project is expected to be operational by September of
next year and is expected to produce 60,000 dekatherms of renewable natural gas
per year.
Biden: Infrastructure bill will ease economy woes, just wait
JOSH BOAK and COLLEEN LONG, Associated Press
BALTIMORE (AP) — President Joe Biden touted his $1 trillion
infrastructure plan Wednesday as an eventual fix for the nation's inflation and
supply chain woes — if Americans just have the patience to wait for the
construction to begin.
The president toured the Port of Baltimore at the start of
what is likely to be a national tour to showcase his signature legislation that
cleared Congress last week and that he intends to sign on Monday. He declared
that the spending would improve transportation of products and supplies from
overseas and within the U.S. to help lower prices, reduce shortages and add
union jobs.
That message is becoming more critical as the government
reported Wednesday that consumer prices in October climbed 6.2% from a year
ago. Inflation has intensified instead of fading as the economy reopened after
the coronavirus pandemic, creating a major challenge for Biden whose
administration repeatedly said that the price increases were temporary. During
remarks at the port, he acknowledged that consumer prices remained “too
high."
“Everything from a gallon of gas to a loaf of bread costs
more,” he said. “We still face challenges and we have to tackle them ... we
have to tackle them head on.”
Higher prices have eaten into wages and turned public sentiment
on the economy against Biden in polls. One of the obstacles for reducing
inflation has been backlogged ports with ships waiting to dock at major transit
hubs, causing shortages and leaving some store shelves depleted ahead of the
holiday shopping season.
“Many people remain unsettled about the economy and we all
know why,” Biden said.
He offered his infrastructure plan as the solution, albeit
one that will take time to manifest. Better infrastructure — whether roads,
bridges, ports or whatever — would give more capacity and resiliency for the
supply chain. There would be more capacity to unload ships and move goods,
which in turn would reduce price pressures and shortages.
Biden said the infrastructure spending would create jobs
paying $45 an hour, nearly 50% above the current national average. It would
create a wealth of jobs to fix aging pipes, bridges and roads, and boost clean
energy and cybersecurity. And most wouldn't require college degrees.
"This is a once in a generation investment,” he said.
The president pointed to Baltimore’s port as a blueprint on
how to reduce shipping bottlenecks that have held back the economic recovery.
The facility is adding container cranes as well as a 50-foot berth where ships
can be unloaded. Baltimore’s port is also benefiting from grants to upgrade the
Howard Street Tunnel, a brick-lined underpass for trains that opened in 1895.
The tunnel would be expanded so that shipping containers could be
double-stacked on railcars, making it easier to move goods out of the port.
The president, who consulted with the CEOs of Walmart, Target, FedEx and UPS on Tuesday, emphasized that these investments are part of a national effort to relieve supply chain bottlenecks in ways that can aid broader growth.
His administration also announced new investments to reduce
congestion at the Port of Savannah in Georgia, nearly a month after the
administration helped broker a deal for the Port of Los Angeles to operate
nonstop.
The president has been trying to explain that the port
congestion shows just how strong the economic rebound from the pandemic has
been. A forecast by the National Retail Federation suggests a record level of
imports this year.
The inflation phenomenon is also global in nature, with
Germany and China recently reporting high levels.
The president made his case Wednesday in a city of nearly
600,000 people that supports him. Nearly 90% of voters in Baltimore backed
Biden in last year’s election. The president also stopped in the city for a CNN
town hall on Oct. 21.
Baltimore embodies the complexities of an increasingly
diverse America at a time of heated national politics.
Many Americans have seen a TV version of the city's poverty,
crime, political corruption and vacant row houses on shows such as HBO’s “The
Wire.” Unrest following the 2015 death of Freddie Gray from injuries in a
police van helped to propel a national movement for respecting the rights and
lives of Black Americans.
But Baltimore also contains deep pockets of wealth and
prosperity in what is a microcosm of the broader inequality confronting the
nation. There are the mansions of the Guilford neighborhood, elite private
schools, celebrated restaurants and the prestige of Johns Hopkins University.