New Wilton police station will meet PD's needs 'for generations' — pending Planning and Zoning's OK
Jarret Liotta
WILTON — As they gear up for their first presentation before
the Planning and Zoning Commission Monday night, town officials expect a smooth
approval process for the new police headquarters.
Sanctioned by voters last May in a town-wide
referendum, the $16.4 million project would nearly double the size of the
station at 240 Danbury Road to almost 19,000-square feet and, if approved,
require approximately 20 months of construction.
"Following the public hearing on Monday, at a future
meeting P&Z will meet to discuss the project and ultimately vote,"
explained Christopher Burney, director of planning, design & construction
for Wilton, who is hopeful things will run smoothly.
"I am not aware of any issues that P&Z may bring
up," he said.
"The design team has worked closely with the Wilton
Police Department to put a project together that we believe meets the needs of
the department for generations to come," Burney said. "We are hopeful
that during the coming review process, the community and the Planning &
Zoning Commission will share our enthusiasm for our design."
The current two-story station has served its purpose for 48
years. The Wilton Plan of Conservation and Development from 2019, however,
found that the station had "several major deficiencies that need to be
addressed," including inadequate infrastructure and insufficient space.
"Since the station was built, the size of the
department has almost doubled, leading to overcrowding and a loss of
operational and functional space," the plan reported, according to the
236-page special permit application submitted to the P&Z.
Thomas Conlan, Wilton's newly appointed police chief, has
watched the need for a new station increase over the years since first joining
the department.
"The current police building was built in 1974 for a
25-person, all-male police force," he said. "Today it serves 48
employees — 45 officers and three civilian staff — including eight women."
"The new building will be almost twice the size of the
old one and will bring the department up to current policing and building code
standards ... A new police facility will have a tremendous benefit to the
department, as well as the town," he said.
Michael Wrinn, director of planning & land use
management, said he expects the P&Z to examine the project plans
objectively and thoroughly on Monday evening.
"They are very thorough in their review, so I am sure
there will be questions," he said. "If the applicant can answer
those, (it) should go smoothly."
Wrinn noted that the new construction will not create any
additional traffic, was approved by voters and has a demonstrable need, all of
which would ultimately encourage approval.
Burney said that the design leadership would be in
attendance with him at Monday night's meeting.
"We are prepared to deal with any questions,
recommendations and suggestions that may arise," he said.
"After we deal with any required changes and receive
approval, we will finalize the bid documents and put the project out to
bid," Burney said.
Conlan said that if all goes according to schedule, the hope
is to break ground for the new building in late May or early June.
"With any project like this we do anticipate that there
will be some disruption to access and parking around the construction area, but
we are working closely with Mr. Burney on site logistics to try and make the
process run as smooth as possible," he said. "We do not foresee any
issues to the public accessing the current police building during
construction."
On behalf of his department, the new chief expressed his
gratitude for the project.
"Obviously there is a lot of excitement among the
department members to get this project completed and to move into the new
building," he said. "We appreciate all of the support Wilton
residents have given to this project."
Norwalk's Webster Street parking lot to be transformed into 500 apartments in $250M-$300M project
NORWALK — Within five years, the Webster Street parking lot
will be reinvented into a 500-unit apartment complex with a 1,100-space parking
garage, with a price tag of between $250 million to $350 million.
In an event Friday morning at office space of 50 Washington
St., Gov. Ned Lamont met with local and state leaders to discuss plans to
improve the Washington Street area.
In December, the state announced a $2 million grant to improve the Martin Luther
King Jr. Corridor, remediating a nearly 5-acre plot in South Norwalk.
Located at 55 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, the 4.97-acre parcel is a
city-owned parking lot. The grant was part of $24.6 million the state
distributed to combat blighted properties.
The remediation and redevelopment will be overseen by the
Norwalk Redevelopment Agency and its executive director, Brian Bidolli.
The overall development costs, including construction of the
apartments, will be between $250 and $300 million, while the remediation costs
will be about $5 million, Bidolli said.
“Then we’re looking at about an eight-to-10-month period to
actually structure the deal for the city and then about a 24-month construction
period,” Bidolli said.
While the city requires 10 percent of apartments in a
complex to be affordable housing, the agency is striving for 20 percent,
Bidolli said.
“Phase one needs to be constructed so we can replace the
parking to free up the development potential for the rest of the site,” Bidolli
said. “The intent is to increase the amount of parking overall, across the
board. We are going to be replacing the public parking, which is about 650
parking spaces, and then there’ll be a development program. The parking
estimate is 1,100 across whole site.”
The first phase of the project is to assess and develop the
parking garage portion of the parcel, Bidolli said.
“That’s what this environmental brownfield grant will be
used for, the actual clean-up of the property to construct the parking garage,”
Bidolli said.
As part of the project preparation, the city and
Redevelopment Agency will begin conducting public outreach in March, to gauge
interest and opinions, Bidolli said. At present, the project only includes the
portion of the land owned by the city, but the public outreach will include
speaking with adjacent landowners to determine their interest in being involved
with the project.
In redevelopment plans designed by construction firm
Quarterra, formerly known as LMC, the plot will include about 472 affordable
mixed-income apartment units, 57,786 square feet of retail space and 25,000
square feet of office space, according to the governor’s statement on the funding.
The funding is released through the state’s Brownfield
Remediation and Development Program, which is administered by the Connecticut
Department of Economic and Community Development, according to the statement.
Lamont said remediation on properties in some of the state’s
fastest-growing cities, like Norwalk, is about reusing existing land rather
than adulterating green spaces.
“This is just example of how these puzzle pieces have to fit
together as you keep the economy going, the state going, that we not only have
workers, but we have a place for the workers to live,” Lamont said. “One last
thing on brownfields, I know it’s not very sexy and I know the developers would
just as soon go build in green fields, we don’t have that many green fields
left. We are trying to protect our open spaces as best we can.”
The city is working and developing to ensure that people who
want to move to Connecticut and Norwalk can, by increasing housing and housing
affordability, said state Sen. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk.
“We like to say this is not a chicken and egg scenario,”
Duff said. “Employers will not come to Connecticut if we do not have the
employees willing to fill those jobs, and we do that by making sure we have a
good transportation network, we have good schools, we have diverse housing for
everybody.”
As floods worsen on Danbury’s Still River, Army Corps of Engineers returns to tackle the problem
DANBURY – Not since 1955 has the Still River washed out the
city, making lakes of the airport, the fairgrounds and the rail yard, and
putting parts of White Street under six feet of water.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers put an end to that, sinking
the Still River below downtown streets and into concrete sleeves with walls so
tall that it’s easy to forget there’s water there at all.
But as the Danbury grows, so, too, does its flooding woes –
especially in the upper reaches of the Still River corridor from the spot the
Army Corps’ flood control measures stop at Rose Street to Lake Kenosia on the
booming west side.
Since 2007, Antonio Iadarola, the city engineer and public
works director, has tried to convince the engineers that flooding on Kenosia
Avenue and West Street are connected to development damage to the Still River
and its flood plain that could be fixed if the federal government would commit
its resources.
But it wasn’t until Iadarola began collecting field data
during storms to compile a comprehensive flood report for the Army Corps in
2021 that federal engineers took notice, and recently committed to a $1 million
study.
“Every project that these (Army Corps) grants support has to
have a real benefit that can be seen, and we were able to show the real
magnitude of the flooding and pinpoint some of the activity we believe is
contributing to it,” said Iadarola. “We are kind of ecstatic that we are in
this program and have a partner that has more resources than anyone else.”
The two-year study, which requires the city to contribute
$450,000, will recommend solutions, along with a cost-benefit analysis, that
would set the stage for the Army Corps to implement flood control
measures.
“The Sixth Ward has been suffering from the flooding issue
forever,” said Paul Rotello, the City Council’s Democratic minority leader,
shortly before a unanimous vote earlier this month to approve the contract with
the Army Corps. “We would just like a little help so it doesn’t flood every
time it gets cloudy out. If we could do that the people in the Sixth Ward would
be immensely grateful.”
GOP Mayor Dean Esposito agreed, saying, “This is a long time
coming.”
The Army Corps’ plan to study Still River flooding where
engineers left off after completing flood control measures to prevent another
1955 disaster comes after the state completed work last year to stop
the flooding on south Main Street at Elmwood Place.
Iadarola said the city’s Engineering Department traced the
problem to a blocked culvert and submitted the evidence to the state, which
until that point was convinced that the flooding problem was too expensive to
fix.
"Being able to solve part of that problem gave me the
incentive to keep moving with the Army Corps,” Iadarola said.
River hydraulics
The Army Corps study will focus on three key problem areas
that Iadarola’s department believes are responsible for the flooding that has
plagued the upper reaches of the Still Water basin.
The first focus area is where the Still River meets the
Kissen Brook on Segar Street near the railroad crossing. The Still River snakes
in a drastic way, which is not good hydraulics for storm drainage.
“Water likes to go as straight as possible, but here is it
hydraulically restricted, so what happens is the velocity slows down and the
water accumulates and overflows,” Iadarola said.
A second area of focus is on West Street approaching the
downtown, near the rail bridge and a small strip mall.
“The river does a hard ‘S’ there where there used to be a
pond, but it got filled in" by development, Iadarola said. “It's is a
focal point to understand what can be done there, because that is one of the
major arterial roads that leads into downtown Danbury, so it is a super
critical area.”
Another area of flooding concern is a privately owned dam
off Beaver Street constructed in the late 1800s or the early 1900s, harkening
to an era in Danbury when homes and industries used the Still River as a sewer.
“An old factory used the dam to divert water through basement,
where a turbine generated electricity for manufacturing power,” Iadarola said.
"After studying it and capturing the data during flooding, we believe the
dam is creating a backwater effect and flooding West Street.”
Iadarola said the data collection and investigation into
historical events that have impacted the river make him hopeful that solutions
can be identified to the decades-old problem of upper Still River flooding.
“We also have to be aware of what happens when we fix
it,” he said. “What is going to happen to the downstream section? We don’t want
to just shift the flooding downstream.”
Branchville a more 'pedestrian friendly community'
RIDGEFIELD — The town just got the green light from the
state Department of Transportation to go ahead with a years-long project to
improve the walkability of the Branchville part of town. The work is set to
begin in a few months.
The
$2.3 million streetscape project involves creating a sidewalk that
will begin at the Wilton-Ridgefield line, heading north on Route 7. It will
continue north to Tusk & Cup Fine Coffee, to the intersection with Route
102. There will be a walking bridge over a brook. The sidewalk will continue
north across the street.
"The width of Route 102 where it meets Route 7 will be
narrowed so you won't have to run out of breath trying to get across
there," Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi said. "There'll be
walking signs, crosswalks and the sidewalk will continue up to the Norwalk
River. A sidewalk will continue all the way up Florida Road as well, with a
crosswalk over to the Ancona Plaza."
The project also includes installing decorative lighting as
well as the realignment of Route 102 with Route 7 with new traffic
signalization and crosswalks at that intersection.
"This is about the future of Branchville and getting
the infrastructure in place to actually begin a transit-oriented development
that will have multi-family housing, a train station, bus service on Route
7," Marconi said. "It's an improvement, an investment in Branchville."
A grant for the project was obtained through the Transit
Alternative Program, where the town had to match 20 percent — about $400,000,
which was already approved by voters.
J Iapaluccio contractors in Brookfield are expected to do
the work.
Marconi said with the project, he's trying to create a more
"pedestrian-friendly community" in that area of town.
"Branchville has been the forgotten child for many,
many years," Marconi said. "This finally is going to begin after
many, many years of applications and studies. We're finally putting a shovel in
the ground to make some improvements."
Bridge replacement, track crossing
The second portion of the project involves the design of a
new bridge at Depot Road.
"We're 90 percent complete in the designing phase for a
new bridge, which is at the Route 7 and 102 intersection," Marconi said.
After that bridge is replaced, a new bridge will be
constructed on Portland Avenue.
"A new bridge will go in there as well as a new
intersection with a left turn lane and a thru lane, as well as a widening of
the track crossing at Portland Avenue," he said.
He said the plan is to begin that work this year and
continue it over the next three to four years — "not necessarily on
(Route) 7 but definitely with the bridge work."
"It's all to improve the train station, traffic movement, (and) pedestrian
movement," he said.
He added the state has recently received, from U.S. Rep Jim
Himes through the Western Connecticut Council of Governments, an announcement
that a grant of $200,000
is being earmarked to study the feasibility of connecting Branchville to the
Georgetown-Redding sewer plant.
The goal of that grant is also for the purpose of
revitalizing the Branchville neighborhood.
Next steps
Once the contract is signed with the bidder, Marconi said
he'll have more information as to the start date of the project.
A Transit Oriented Development study was done years ago and
the project is necessary to develop Branchville for the future, Marconi said.
"It's looking at how do we keep cars off the roads,
reduce the carbon footprint, provide transportation, the electrification of the
Branchville line," he said. "All of it is how we provide housing and
a living environment that is clean and enjoyable. That's the long-term vision
for Branchville."
Millions more needed as thousands still have homes with deteriorating foundations
Eric Bedner
With an additional $100 million needed to entirely fix the
state’s crumbling foundations, lawmakers are once again pushing for assistance
for the thousands of homeowners still affected.
But a proposal that would eliminate millions of dollars in
funding also is on the table.
One of the most significant proposed bills calls for more
borrowing for the Crumbling Foundation Solution Indemnity Co., or CFSIC, the captive
insurance company that has been fixing foundations, primarily in the
northeastern section of the state.
While it is still early in the legislative session and there
is not yet a dollar amount attached to the bonding bill, its sponsor, Sen. Jeff
Gordon, D-Woodstock, said the final proposal could range anywhere between $50
million and $100 million.
That would be in addition to the $100 million in debt that
has already been approved by the legislature, $25 million of which has been
allocated, as well as nearly $12 million a year from an annual insurance
surcharge deposited in the Healthy Homes Fund.
Gordon said he intentionally left the wording of his
proposal vague, but wanted to make sure it was on the radar of the
legislature’s Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee as well as the State Bond
Commission.
“I want to make certain that we’re thinking strategically
about trying to line up more money,” Gordon said.
The existing bonding that has been approved, combined with
the insurance surcharge funding, is expected to bring in about $170 million by
2030, CFSIC Superintendent Michael Maglaras said.
With an estimated total of about 4,000 affected homes, “we
think exactly another $100 million is what we need,” he said.
To date, more than 700 homes have been fixed, and Maglaras
expects the 1,000 home mark to be hit by the first quarter of 2025.
“None of that happens at all if the Healthy Homes funds are
tampered with,” he said.
Removing surcharge
Perhaps the most controversial proposal related to the
crisis is a bill introduced by Sen. Robert Sampson, R-Wolcott, that would make
a $12 annual surcharge on certain homeowner insurance policies voluntary.
A large majority of the funding goes towards repairing
crumbling foundations, with the remainder going to lead paint abatement.
The most recent installment resulting from the surcharge
provided $11.9 million to CFSIC.
Gordon said he’s well aware of the crumbling foundation
crisis as his district includes parts of Vernon, Ellington, Stafford, Tolland,
and Coventry — a section of the state hit particularly hard.
He’s also a member of the legislature’s crumbling foundation
caucus and has recently been appointed as an ex officio director on CFSIC’s
board.
“I think they’ve been doing tremendous work,” Gordon said of
the captive insurance company.
While noting that more than 700 homes have been fixed, he
said: “There’s a lot more to do.” He does not support cutting funding as
Sampson’s bill would do.
“I believe that this is not a time for us to back away; it’s
time for us to do more to keep the program going,” Gordon said.
Rep. Thomas Delnicki, R-South Windsor, agreed. “I certainly
do not endorse or support that bill,” he said of Sampson’s proposal.
The Healthy Homes Fund, in which the $12 annual surcharge is
deposited, is “a fund to help make people’s homes safe,” Delnicki said. “I
understand where Rob Sampson is coming from, but I certainly don’t agree.”
Sampson did not respond to repeated requests seeking comment
on his proposed bill.
If the $12 surcharge were to become voluntary, likely
leading to it essentially being eliminated, “it will have a devastating impact
on the program,” Maglaras said.
He noted that the timing of the Healthy Homes funding and
existing state bonding being delivered to the captive insurance company
prevents CFSIC from falling behind.
Other bills on table
Several other measures are in the works that aim to prevent
the issue from reoccurring by requiring the quality of concrete used in
residential structures to at least meet the standards for commercial
structures.
Delnicki introduced one such bill.
“That’s a key and critical thing to take a look at,” he
said. “We want to make sure that this problem never surfaces again, that we
never have another home with a crumbling foundation again.”
While testing is now mandatory at quarries for pyrrhotite,
the mineral known to cause concrete to deteriorate, Maglaras notes that not all
concrete aggregate comes from quarries.
Other sources include non-quarry settings, such as when
earth is moved in the building of highways.
“Leaving some source of aggregate behind untested is just
playing Russian roulette,” Maglaras said.
While he said that he doesn’t want to make residential
construction too restrictive, Maglaras does advocate for more quality control
at the moment concrete is poured for a residential foundation.
Another proposal aims to prevent homes from being sold if
their foundations contain pyrrhotite.
The bill, introduced by the legislature’s Insurance and Real
Estate Committee, would require sellers to answer a series of questions,
including whether they have any knowledge of problems with the property.
Information includes when the structure was built, how long
the seller occupied the property, whether the foundation is made of concrete,
if there is water seepage in the basement, and if there has been any testing or
inspection done by a licensed professional related to the foundation.
If the foundation has been tested, the seller would have to
disclose the testing method and provide a copy of the report to prospective
buyers.
The seller also would have to disclose if there have been
any repairs and what they were and disclose whether they have any knowledge of
the presence of pyrrhotite in their foundation.
A real estate agent would not be allowed to complete the
form on behalf of a seller.
A prospective buyer also would be allowed to have a
foundation inspected by a licensed engineer to determine if there is any
deterioration from the presence of pyrrhotite.
Delnicki wants to assure those with crumbling foundations
that lawmakers will continue to push for legislation until the issue is
completely resolved.
“We’re committed to helping the people who are the victims
of crumbling foundations,” he said. “No one’s going to forget about it.”
How to retain workers when a megaproject comes to town
Robyn Griggs Lawrence
With trillions of dollars in new work coming online this
year, contractors — already struggling to retain craft workers during a historic
shortage — now face the challenge of competing with big projects that
come to town with a lot to offer workers.
This year, the $1.2
trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the
CHIPS and Science Act, which allocates $39 billion to build and expand
semiconductor manufacturing plants, will create thousands of new construction
jobs — on top of what Ken Simonson, chief economist for Associated General
Contractors of America, called “an unusually large concentration of really
large projects right now.”
“A remarkable number of multibillion-dollar projects are
showing up in many states,” Simonson said. “In many cases, the owners of these
projects, while not insensitive to cost, may have more flexibility and
willingness to pay and offer a range of benefits that smaller companies can’t.”
When projects compete for the top available labor, “it gets
messy,” said Portland, Oregon-based Eric Grasberger, construction and design
group chair of national law firm Stoel Rives.
“In order to compete, the contractors on those jobs have to
go to the owners and say, ‘We can’t get the labor, and we’re not going to get
the labor unless you authorize an increase in the hourly wages, the per diem or
both — or perhaps other incentives,’” Grasberger said.
To attract and retain workers, many local companies are
finding more compelling benefits well beyond money. They’re offering everything
from hot meals and heated bathrooms on jobsites to paid volunteer and
educational opportunities that may even extend to workers’ families.
“They’ve got to sell something bigger than just a project, because typically those industrial projects pay a lot more per hour than your average contractor might pay,” said Greg Sizemore, vice president of workforce development, safety, health and environmental for Associated Builders and Contractors. “In middle-class America, it’s about selling the value, which is beyond just the dollar.”
In central Ohio, megaprojects are becoming the norm rather
than the exception — a $20
billion semiconductor manufacturing plant for Intel, a $4.4
billion electric vehicle battery plant for Honda, data
centers for Google and Amazon, and a biomanufacturing
plant for Amgen are just a few.
The flurry of building activity means construction workers
have the potential to make as much as $135,000 per year, said Dorsey Hager,
executive secretary-treasurer of the Columbus/Central Ohio Building &
Construction Trades Council.
Throwing more money at workers to keep up with megaproject
salaries is not an option for many local contractors, but Dorsey said it’s
probably not the most effective tactic anyway. In their efforts to hang onto
workers, central Ohio construction firms are offering amenities such as free
breakfast and lunch, onsite wellness centers, heated restrooms and changing
areas and convenient paved parking, he said.
Sizemore said tradesworkers used to ask just three questions
when considering a job: how much it paid per hour, how many hours they would
work and what the per diem was.
“Now, the whole world’s changed,” he said. “We’ve got new
people coming into the industry who are looking for opportunities to go to work
for contractors that have a long-term value proposition that meets their needs
— things like paid time off, maternity and paternity leave.”
Younger generations of workers are asking more questions
about company culture, what types of projects they would be working on and even
safety protocols, said Keyan Zandy, CEO of Skiles Group, a mid-size general
contractor in Dallas.
In his market, Zandy is facing competition from a host of
massive industrial, infrastructure and residential projects such as a $3
billion 112-acre mixed-use development that recently
broke ground near Dallas. The Mix — which will include 375,000 square feet
of retail, a 200-room boutique hotel and a 400-room business hotel — will be
under construction through 2026.
Skiles Group makes a concerted effort to align workers with
the firm’s core values and include them in all of the company’s activities,
whether volunteer programs or company picnics, Zandy said.
“It’s about not treating your labor like they’re a secondary
component of what you do,” he said. “That’s really the main thing—we should be
doing everything we can to empower these people because if it weren’t for them,
nothing would ever get built.”
While smaller firms might not be able to compete when it
comes to salaries, they have the advantage of being able to offer workers more
personal relationships with owners and senior management and possibly even
meaningful ownership shares, Sizemore said.
“It really is about making people feel like they’re a part
of something as opposed to just working for Amazon,” he added.