Concrete storage lot on country lane near future Danbury school isn't 'appropriate,' leaders say
DANBURY — Two city leaders who opposed a 2019 plan by a
Danbury company for a “sizeable” building to store concrete trucks on a
one-time country lane said they object even more to the resurfaced plan because
it’s downhill from the proposed west
side academy.
“I would ask that you deny this,” said Paul Rotello, the
City Council’s Democratic majority leader, at a Planning Commission hearing
this week. “Danbury is in the process of negotiating to acquire a parcel to
build a high school and a middle school (nearby)… and at the end of the day
(the concrete company storage site) is not particularly appropriate for that
spot and for that road.”
Rotello was referring to plans by Hat City Concrete Pumping
to build a 17,000-square foot building and concrete materials storage yard on a
1.5-acre site on Ye Old Road, downhill from a 24-acre office building last
occupied by Cartus Corp. that Danbury wants to transform into a $164 million
career academy for upper grades.
Rotello downplayed the fact that the Hat City Concrete site
on Ye Olde Road off busy Kenosia Avenue is zoned for light industrial use,
noting that the company still needed to obtain a special permit to store
construction and building materials.
“As that road travels west, it is just old houses and
farmhouses in there,” Rotello said during the public hearing on Wednesday.
“Once you go a couple hundred feet from Kenosia it’s like you’re on a different
planet — it’s like you’re in Vermont. You could make a movie there and claim
that you shot it in Vermont.”
A Ye Olde Road resident agreed.
“We have a school going in up the road, and this seems like
a great spot to live,” resident Austin Fraley said during the Planning
Commission hearing. “I feel like this business is going to drive me off the
road. The people who live and work on the street are hoping you reject this
application.”
Opposition to the Hat City Concrete proposal followed a
presentation by the project’s engineer, who said activity on the site would be
contained and inconspicuous.
The engineer added that little had changed in the blueprints
from the 2019 proposal, which Hat City Concrete withdrew after opposition.
“They are proposing a sizeable building so they can bring
their concrete pump truck into the building and extend the boom and pumping
apparatus to the full extent to maintain, repair and replace parts as necessary
in the comfort of a shelter,” Brookfield engineer Dainius Virbickas said during
the Wednesday hearing. “There will be no processing or manufacturing of
anything at this site…that would generate smoke, noise, glare or any of the
other non-desired elements associated with other types of industrial uses.”
The building would have an industrial look with concrete
blocks along the foundation and fluted metal siding panels, with a bank of
windows in the front and six overhead doors in the back to garage as many as
“four concrete pumper trucks, a boom truck, a hook truck and 4-to-6 trucks for
personal transport and small hand tool delivery.”
“On a typical day at this business, you have six to seven
employees who arrive at 7 a.m. to drop off personal vehicles and go to the
(construction) sites or pick up employees from homes — people don’t necessarily
come to the building as much as one would think and there are seldom, if ever,
any visitors to the site,” Virbickas said. “We are confident that we will have
a successful business at this location and not compromise the neighborhood’s
ability to travel on Ye Old Road.”
City Council member Ben Chianese disagreed.
“Very little has been spoken about noise — large vehicle
trucks coming up that road will make a lot of noise,” Chianese said during the
public hearing. “I am opposed to this plan as well.”
The Planning Commission will continue the hearing in
November.
“I would ask you Dainius to do your best to respond to some
of the concerns that were raised by the opposition,” Planning Commission
Chairman Arnold Finaldi said to the engineer. “Hopefully at the next meeting
these things will be addressed.”
194-Apt Plan Approved For The Hill
LAURA GLESBY
Make way for 194 new apartments on Congress and Davenport
Avenues, now that a California-based developer has won a key — and
hotly contested — city approval.
Local land-use commissioners took that vote Wednesday night
during the latest regular monthly meeting of the City Plan Commission. The
six-hour meeting took place online via Zoom.
The three commissioners who remained on the virtual meeting
all the way through voted unanimously in support of the site plan for a new
five-story, 194-unit apartment complex to be constructed at 354
Davenport Ave.
The developer, a company called Catalina Buffalo
Holdings, plans to demolish
several half-empty industrial and office buildings as well as two occupied
multi-family homes at 859, 865, and 879 Congress Ave. and 326, 354,
370, 380, 384, and 348 Davenport Ave. in order to make this new complex
a reality.
Wednesday’s site plan vote came a day
after a dozen Hill neighbors put up a last-ditch effort to stall the
project — and the City Plan Commission vote — by emphasizing concerns they’ve
expressed for weeks about rising rents and gentrification. Those same
neighborhood activists had called on the City Plan Commission to table the site
plan review until another meeting and to open the technical review process up
to public comment.
The commissioners ultimately decided not to do that, citing
the limited purview commissioners have when deciding whether or not to approve
a site plan.
“I still haven’t seen anything in what I’ve read that deals
with the narrow scope of our review, for whether this meets zoning
regulations,” City Plan Commissioner Carl Goldfield said when explaining his
vote to turn down a public hearing request. “We’re gonna potentially
kill this project … As everyone’s aware, interest rates are rising, the cost of
materials are rising, developers really in this environment need to get into
the ground as soon as possible.”
“The issues of affordable housing and gentrification need to
be addressed somewhere else,” he said.
Thanks to the city’s
inclusionary zoning ordinance, 5 percent of those apartments — or 10
units in total — will be set aside at below-market rents. The remaining units
will rent out at market rates, with the developer estimating that one-bedroom
apartments could cost around $2,000 to $2,300 per month.
Now that the developers have won site plan approval to move
ahead with the as-of-right project, they can proceed with purchasing the
properties and then pulling permits to demolish the existing buildings and
construct the planned new complex.
At Wednesday’s City Plan meeting, one of the designers on
the project, Brian Pratt, revealed that the group will be including 137 parking
spaces, five of which will be disability accessible and most of which will be
in a below-ground garage.
The building will include two L‑shaped “towers,” as
architect Jeremy Jamilkowski of Fuss & O’Neill described,
connected by a three-story segment with a roof deck facing Davenport
Avenue and a one-story entrance at Congress Avenue.
The building itself will run entirely on electricity and
will provide electric vehicle charging stations.
The rain infrastructure will result in a “significant
reduction of stormwater onto the street,” Pratt said.
Catalina Director of Investments and Operations John
Lockhart repeated during the meeting that 10 of the apartments will be set
aside for tenants earning 50 percent of the area median income (AMI), complying
with the city’s new inclusionary zoning law. That means that a one-person
household making $39,450 per year would be able to pay 30 percent of their
income on rent.
“We have said we cannot increase to more than
5 percent” affordable units, local attorney Carolyn Kone said during
Wednesday’s meeting. “There is absolutely no margin for [Lockhart’s
company] to have more.”
The proposed rents for the apartment ignited neighborhood
pushback. In community
meetings and protests,
Hill residents expressed fear that the building — the latest of several luxury
apartments aimed at housing hospital staff to arrive in the Hill over the last
few years — would contribute to the gentrification of their neighborhood.
Neighbors called for the developer to include more affordable housing in
the proposal.
Lockhart has promised to work with Casa Otonal,
a Hill-based housing organization for elderly and disabled tenants, to
house some of their clients. He also stated that he would allow community
members to plan meetings or events in the complex’s courtyard and rooftop
garden. And he’s committed to hosting a job fair aimed at hiring local
residents for construction opportunities related to the development.
Earlier in Wednesday’s meeting, the commissioners debated
whether or not to delay the site plan vote in order to hold a public
hearing, as some neighbors and Hill community leaders had requested.
The commissioners had voted at a previous meeting not
to hold a public hearing for the technical site plan review for this
project. On Wednesday, they considered a host of new letters from
community members and politicians calling for a public hearing, and
weighed whether any of the letters presented “new information” that would
impact their previous decision not to hold a public hearing.
Two commissioners, Goldfield and Joshua Van Hoesen, voted
against having a public hearing, which could have delayed the process by
a month. That was enough to sink the public hearing request, because there
were only two other commissioners on the call who had not recused themselves from
the vote.
Commissioner Van Hoesen asked Wednesday night about the
building’s entrance mid-block on Congress Avenue, across from
Evergreen Cemetery.
“People are gonna want to cross right in front and may get
smacked,” he said. “Has there been discussion about adding
a crosswalk at that location?”
“We did consider that,” answered Pratt. “We know
people will go across, but unfortunately there’s not enough pedestrians that
would warrant that.”
“I would strongly suggest that you figure out some plan for how
people are gonna get safely across the street … People drive like nuts down
there,” Commissioner Goldfield said later in the meeting. He added that the
building should include more bike storage space, under the assumption that many
hospital workers living in the building would want to bike to work.
Pratt and Lockhart said they would consider an education
initiative about safe street crossing for tenants of the building, and that
they would expand the bike storage space.
Commissioner Adam Marchand asked about the “permeability”
of the building: “To people who aren’t living there, are there gates, are
there locked doors? If people want to cut the corner while driving, it seems
like there will be a way to do that [through the garage].”
“There will be security on the vehicular points.
I don’t think we’ve nailed it down exactly whether it’s gate or
a door,” said Pratt. “There will be fencing around the perimeter. It
will prohibit pedestrians from cutting through the property.”
“You made statements earlier about community access to some
of your amenity spaces. How do you imagine that happening?”
asked Marchand.
“The idea would be for planned events” by community groups,
responded Lockhart. “It’s definitely not gonna be a kegger on the
rooftop deck. The whole idea is that we want to be inclusive. Some people have
not received it that way, but we’re in this for the long haul.”
By the time of the vote, at 10 minutes to midnight,
Commissioner Edwin Martinez logged off the call. The commission’s chair, Leslie
Radcliffe, had voluntarily recused herself from the matter earlier that evening
based on advice from the city’s corporation counsel. She explained that she had
sent an email to fellow Hill neighbors about the matter, and that “in my
communication, I stressed why it was important to attend … Concern was
expressed about my ability to act impartially on this matter, because my
statements could be construed as biased.”
During deliberations, Marchand addressed community members
opposed to the project: “I think we should just acknowledge that we’ve
heard loud and clear from members of the community that there is a housing
crisis and that they really, really want a housing complex where they will
be able to rent.”
“I am disappointed in the amount of affordable units within
the development,” said Van Hoesen. “I would highly suggest to the Board
of Alders that they increase that requirement [for affordable units under the
Inclusionary Zoning law] … but under the purview of our commission, I am
supportive of this development.”
Marchand, Van Hoesen, and Goldfield then voted unanimously
to approve the site plan.
Berlin officials hoping to secure funding for HVAC upgrades in schools
BERLIN – Town officials are hoping to secure a small portion
of the state’s $150 million funding package for heating, ventilation and air conditioning
(HVAC) upgrades in schools.
The Berlin Town Council is hosting a public hearing Nov. 2
at 7 p.m. on an ordinance that would authorize $4.9 million in bonds for this
project.
“The ordinance would suffice as proof the town is committing
funds locally,” Berlin Finance Director Kevin Delaney said. “This doesn’t
require borrowing $4.9 million but it does meet the criteria the state has.”
Over the summer elected officials earmarked $4.9 million in
American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds the town received toward upgrades to HVAC
systems in the Willard, Hubbard and Griswold School communities.
That would be considered the town’s commitment of local
funds towards this project, required by the grant program.
“It’s not something we cannot do,” Town Manager Arosha
Jayawickrema said of making improvements to heating and air systems in the
town’s three elementary schools. “I’d rather use state funding than pay for the
whole thing ourselves.”
Councilors asked Delaney about the town’s chances in
receiving funds through this program.
“$150 million is a lot of money, however, when you consider
the number of school districts in Connecticut there is going to be a lot of
competition,” Delaney said. “We pursue the grants and hope for the best.
Ideally we win money for all three schools but any money we get from the grant
program would be a winner for the taxpayers in town.”
The town’s Public Building Commission will take lead on the
project along with Berlin Public Works and Facilities Departments. A
construction manager is expected to be hired to plan the scope of work and
oversee construction.
“Let’s hope we have some luck in getting this funding,”
Mayor Mark Kaczynski said.
The deadline for applications is Dec. 1.
Another plan for warehouse on Bristol-Myers site in Wallingford
Kate Ramunni
WALLINGFORD — Plans to build a warehouse on the former
Bristol-Myers Squibb site on Research Parkway are once again before the town
for approval after two previous attempts to build warehouse facilities on the
site were rejected in the face of public opposition.
It is the third application for the property in the past
four years. The first two applications were for Amazon warehouse facilities,
and while the end user has not yet been identified for the most recent
application, it too is for a large warehouse.
In 2015, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced it would be closing
its facility at 5 Research Parkway and moving research facilities out of state,
though some employees could remain in Wallingford. But three years later those
hopes were dashed when the company announced it was moving all of its
operations out of Connecticut.
The 180-acre property was sold to Calare Properties of
Hudson, Massachusetts, a real estate development company that specializes
in "acquiring and managing warehouse, manufacturing, research and
flex/office assets primarily in the Northeast," according to its website.
Calare applied to construct two buildings totaling more
than a million square feet in 2018, a plan the Inland Wetlands and Watercourses
Commission approved. But the Planning and Zoning Commission denied the
special permit needed to move forward with the project. The property would have
been used by Amazon, which operates a sortation center down the
street at 29 Research Parkway.
After marketing the site for a year, Calare began demolition
of the 815,000 square-foot building in May 2019. The following year, Montante
Construction, a New Jersey developer, applied to the Inland Wetlands and
Planning and Zoning commissions for construction of a 219,000 square foot
"delivery station," again on behalf of Amazon.
Again, Inland Wetlands approved the project but the Planning
and Zoning Commission denied it based on traffic issues, the size and
intensity of the proposal, the incompatibility with the characteristics of the
neighborhood and the lack of town staff to enforce all suggested conditions of
approval.
Neighbors came out to oppose that application, voicing fears
of increased traffic and the impact of truck traffic entering and leaving the
facility at all hours of the day and night. The first application also drew
opposition, and neighbors also are expected to oppose the application currently
before zoning.
The Inland Wetlands Commission on Oct. 5 approved the
new application, which Calare officials described as “significantly smaller”
with “significantly less impact.” The Planning and Zoning Commission cannot take
up an application until it has won Inland Wetlands approval.
P&Z Chairman Jim Seichter said this is not the same
application as those before the commission in prior years.
"There have been two other applications on this
property which are different from this application," he said. This
application is for a 450,000 square foot warehouse, he said, but couldn't say
who is the target tenant. "We have not opened the application so we have
had no presentation from the applicant," he said. That presentation is
expected to take place at the commission's Nov. 14 meeting.
Public hearing not required
There won't be a public hearing on the application, he said,
but residents will have the opportunity to speak on the proposal.
"This doesn't qualify as a public
hearing," Seichter said. "The applicant has indicated that
at least from a traffic generation standpoint, it generates less than 100
vehicle trip hours during peak times during the day. If it generated more than
100 peak trip hours, then it would generate a public hearing but because it
doesn't, this would be a site plan application."
It's likely the application will be before the commission
past the November meeting, he said.
"I'm sure there will be an extensive presentation and I
expect the staff and commission members would have questions on
it," Seichter said. "And while it's not a public hearing,
the commission always allows the public to speak on applications so certainly
the public will have the opportunity to make their comments, to ask
questions.
"Depending on how the hearing goes, it's always
possible that the commission could act on the application," he said,
"but it's always possible that it could be extended to the next month
depending upon the presentation and questions that people may or may not
have."
Mass. company plans cannabis growing, retail operations on Brainard Road in Hartford
Massachusetts-based cannabis company Insa plans to build a
large marijuana cultivation facility and a retail shop on Brainard Road in
Hartford.
According to applications to the city’s Planning and Zoning
Commission, Insa plans to retrofit existing buildings at 165 and 167 Brainard
Road. One property currently hosts the Chowder Pot of Hartford restaurant. The
second is a vacant retail building that previously hosted Restoration Lighting
Gallery.
Insa describes itself as a “vertically integrated medical
and adult-use cannabis company operating in multiple states.” The company had
cultivation centers in Massachusetts, Florida and Pennsylvania. It currently
operates dispensaries in Massachusetts and Florida and is moving to open its
first store in Ohio.
Connecticut granted Insa a provisional cultivator license in
August, making the company the first to get the green light to establish
recreational cannabis operations in the state. The company has also applied for
a hybrid retailer license.
Insa will also need regulatory approvals from Hartford’s
Planning and Zoning Commission to pursue its plans for Brainard Road, which are
part of the commission’s Oct. 25 agenda.
The company has purchase agreements for both properties, and
plans on ultimately combining the two parcels, according to its application to
the commission.
Insa would renovate the former Restoration Lighting space
into a 7,600-square-foot “state-of-the-art” retail and educational space for
adult use and medical cannabis sales, according to its application. The retail
shop will also offer a view into the neighboring cultivation facility through
3-inch-thick clear glass.
Insa’s plans call for a renovation and expansion of the
restaurant building at 165 Brainard Road – the Chowder Pot – into an
83,441-square-foot growing and production facility for cannabis products.
Roughly one-third of the space would be dedicated to production, office and
support services, with the rest set aside for cultivation.
Attempts to reach an Insa spokesperson were not immediately
successful Thursday morning. A representative of the Chowder Pot was not
immediately available for comment.
Connecticut adds 4,400 jobs, unemployment to 4%
The unemployment rate in Connecticut continued to fall in
September, according to the most
recent jobs report out of the Connecticut Department of Labor (CTDOL).
The state added 4,400 positions in non-farming industries in Connecticut,
bringing the unemployment rate down to 4% from 4.1%.
The Construction and Mining industry saw the greatest
percentage of growth, adding 1,300 jobs for a 2% increase in September. The
Leisure and Hospitality industry, meanwhile, added the largest number of
positions with 2,000 jobs for a growth of 1.3%. Government added 1,300 jobs,
Education and Health Services added 700, while Trade, Transportation, and
Utilities added 200.
“July and September were both strong job growth
months, but most importantly, Connecticut has now seen a notable nine
consecutive months of job growth,” said CTDOL Director of Research Patrick
Flaherty in a statement. “Seasonal factors are coming into play with summer
workers going back to school, school system payrolls expanding, and the leisure
and hospitality industries seeing big gains.”
Not all sectors saw a September job growth. The financial
sector, Professional and Business Services, and Manufacturing all lost a few
hundred jobs, amounting to less than half a percent of decline each.
Information was the only sector that remained unchanged month-to-month.
The Department of Labor says, thanks to the pandemic job
losses, the last two years have represented the strongest job growth since
economists started seasonal adjustments in 1990.
According to the report, 50,000 additional people have
joined Connecticut’s labor force since December of last year. That includes all
workers who are currently employed and looking for work. Connecticut’s total
labor force is 1.9 million.
The Connecticut
Business and Industry Association (CBIA) is still concerned about an
overall reduction in that labor force since the start of the pandemic.
“The jobs are there—114,000 open positions as of August.
What employers need are the workers to fill those jobs and it’s concerning to
see another 1,800 people leave the labor force last month,” said CBIA President
and CEO Chris DiPentima in a statement on the report. “Our labor force has
declined by 47,100 people since February 2020, or 43% of the region’s losses—we
have just two-thirds of the available labor pool needed to fill those open
jobs.”
The overall positive CBIA statement also noted that
Connecticut’s voluntary quit and separation rate is among the lowest in the
country.
Labor crunch could ‘rob the US’ of critical infrastructure: McKinsey
The federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is
expected to create hundreds of thousands of new job openings over its roughly
five-year duration, but worker shortages in construction and related industries
could stymie the effort, according to new analysis from management
consulting firm McKinsey.
McKinsey estimated the shortfall attributable to the
infrastructure act by 2028 will be more than 160,000 workers in the contractor
and subcontractor sector, 145,000 workers in the materials sector and 40,000
workers in the engineering and technical-services sector.
Not addressing the issue soon threatens to waste the
potential of the historic funding for U.S. infrastructure. “Failing to do so
may rob the United States of tens of thousands of miles of roads, thousands of
bridges, and miles of water and electrical infrastructure that could have been
funded by this bipartisan investment and made our lives better for years to
come,” the authors wrote.
The construction industry already has a persisting labor
shortage, and the $1.2 trillion IIJA is occurring alongside the $52 billion
CHIPS Act and the $700 billion Inflation Reduction Act investments, which will
also likely increase labor demand in the building and related industries.
As funding from the infrastructure act starts to flow and
work ramps up, so will job openings for construction workers. If left
unchecked, labor demand challenges could also spur inflation, according to
McKinsey
Because of the interconnected nature of the building
industry, lack of capacity in one area can have cascading and far-reaching
impacts in others. That said, labor shortages vary by state, sector and
occupation, so solutions must be tailored accordingly, McKinsey said.
The interconnected nature of supply chains and the labor
force also means that companies may compete for the same workers and materials.
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For example, labor strain will likely be disproportionately
concentrated in states that manufacture and export materials to other states.
On the other hand, projects in states with limited manufacturing capacity may
have increased risks associated with getting materials, which could further
drive price increases.
Solutions to the labor crunch
While nuanced and locally adapted approaches are needed,
McKinsey pointed to four strategies to mitigate the construction labor
shortage:
Draw more workers into construction: Upskill and
reskill the workforce to fill targeted roles, showcase the wide variety of jobs
available and hire workers from nontraditional segments such as formerly
incarcerated individuals and veterans. To attract young workers, start
apprenticeships at lower ages, such as for high school students, and emphasize
the non-financial value the industry can offer, such as flexible hours.
Improve productivity in design, manufacturing and
distribution: Accelerate investment in digital tools, from digital twins
to jobsite management tech.
Rethink delivery methods: Ditch lump-sum, fixed-price
contracts. Rather, engage contractors up front in listening sessions, allow
them to execute over a flexible time horizon and optimize resources and make
room in the process to adapt to feedback from the market on elements that could
affect the project.
Coordinate more effectively: Coordinating
infrastructure efforts at the regional or federal level can boost efficiency.
A “dig
once” strategy — bundling projects that require dirt work in the same
area — has multiple benefits, like allowing builders to better manage supply
chain challenges and worker shortages.
This issue is longstanding, but it’s a challenge we must
rise to, McKinsey said.
“Thoroughly assessing the mismatch between worker demand and
supply and implementing collaborative, creative approaches could help us
embrace this generational opportunity to the fullest,” the authors wrote.