Heavy equipment training facility gets approval for former Meriden power plant site
Mary Ellen Godin
MERIDEN — The city Planning Commission conditionally
approved plans for a heavy equipment training facility at 600 S. Mountain Road
last week.
The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 478
asked the city for permission to use the 36-acre former power plant site for
training programs in the operations and repair of heavy construction equipment
and driver training. It currently operates a 13,000-square-foot facility
on Cheshire Road in Meriden that will remain open. The Apprenticeship Training
and Skill Improvement Center is a nonprofit organization that serves students
throughout the state.
“That’s going to be a nice opportunity for us,” said Gregg
Strede, director of training for the Local 478. “This will give us the
opportunity to do classes at the same time. We ran out of room at 240
Cheshire Road.”
City officials stated that current zoning supports the
proposal, but is not a traditional industrial zone. It does not support
screening or crushing of material, which could be disruptive to neighbors on
Bailey Avenue. The plans must also be referred to the fire marshal for review
of the equipment fueling area and the above ground fuel storage tank. They also
called for more information about additional parking, and include a security or
access gate where the site driveway meets the cul-de-sac on South Mountain
Road. Plans must also indicate locations and types of site lighting,
according to city records.
“Prior to start of activities on the site, the applicant
will construct the berm or other erosion control measures approved by staff,”
according to meeting minutes. “The plans shall be modified to demonstrate ADA
compliance and receive staff approval. Any changes of newer equipment or change
in the scope of activities shall be brought back to the Planning Commission for
additional approval.”
Any outside activity shall be limited to the hours of Monday
through Friday 7 a.m. to one hour after dusk, Saturday 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and
Sunday 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The former power plant site has been vacant since the plant,
which never opened, was razed leaving a few foundations. The Local 478
Operating Engineers Apprenticeship Training and Skill Improvement fund
purchased the property for $975,000 from Meriden Gas Turbines LLC in June 2019.
Current conditions at the site will provide new
opportunities for training, as part of the curriculum includes developing
construction sites, Strede said.
“The site allows us to set up various conditions and teach
our members the safe operation and maintenance of equipment of all types,
Strede wrote to commissioners. “We intend to have a permanent tower crane on
site. The crane cannot be seen from the surrounding areas. Given the type of
surrounding tree cover, there should be minimal noise, light or dust leaving
the site, if any.”
The training center is expected to operate six days a week,
Monday through Friday 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. as needed and Saturday from 7 a.m. to 5
p.m. Sundays will be used as test days. The site will be gated at the
intersection of the city road, with access only granted to students and
instructions.
There will be an on-site fueling area with protective berm,
a classroom trailer, on site for teaching and breaks and temporary rest room
facilities. There will be no processing of materials for sale. The center expects
to run about 75-100 students plus faculty per various course cycles.
Strede expects the site to be ready within two months.
City Economic Director Joseph Feest said the use of the
former power plant site is welcome news, as the city owns the property below.
Despite its nonprofit status, which exempts the center from paying taxes, the
training center provides needed certification for construction and truck
driving jobs currently in demand.
“It’s a good use for the piece because it’s an open, flat
lot,” Feest said. “The rest of the city-owned property is not affected.”
CT lawmakers seek to restore Shore Line East, add train service to New Milford
Amid Gov. Ned Lamont’s multi-billion-dollar
effort to improve commuter rail service along the New Haven and Hartford
lines, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has begun pushing an even grander vision
for rail travel in Connecticut.
That vision includes a return to full, pre-pandemic service
along eastern Connecticut’s Shore Line East route, which has been plagued
by low-ridership figures, and a hefty state subsidy that Lamont has sought
to cut.
In the Naugatuck Valley, local lawmakers are fighting to add
new trains and service to three additional stations along the Waterbury Branch
line on top of the service
upgrades that Lamont announced last year. And in the Northwest corner
of the state, Republicans want to extend
the Danbury Branch line to include service to New Milford — a distance
of about 15 miles.
Each of those projects has been folded into a single piece
of rail legislation by
leaders on the Transportation Committee, which voted unanimously last month to
send the bill to the Senate floor.
Proponents of the bill argue that secondary routes in
Connecticut have long been hampered by a lack of investment from the state and
that better service will spur ridership and economic development.
Shore Line East, for example, is only operating at two-thirds
the level it did before the pandemic, while the more popular New Haven and
Hartford lines have returned to full service. In his proposed budget for the
next two fiscal years, Lamont has proposed cutting Shore Line East service even
further to 44 percent of pre-pandemic levels. (The governor’s
budget also proposed cutting New Haven line service to 86 percent of
its pre-2020 level to reflect a slower-than-expected return of riders).
“At one point in time, the Shore Line East was a thriving,
vibrant rail line that did a very successful job linking commuters to their places
of employment, as well as to destination places along the shoreline,” said Jim
Gildea, chair of the Connecticut Commuter Rail Council. “Then COVID came,
and unfortunately, as with all the lines, it lost service numbers.”
Some rail advocates, however, described the push for new
services as a misguided attempt to attract riders — who mostly live along
well-established routes such as the New Haven Line.
“Fix what you’ve got before you start telling DOT how to
spend money it doesn’t have,” said Jim Cameron, the president of the Commuter
Action Group, which advocates for mass transit.
Since taking office in 2019, Lamont has mostly focused his
rail agenda on increasing speeds along the state’s two most popular lines,
which link New Haven and Hartford with New York City, while also investing in
service upgrades along some existing branch lines, such as those to Danbury and
Waterbury.
Last year, the governor and Metro-North touted
new “super express” trains that quickened the trip between New Haven
and Grand Central by 10 minutes. Lamont has promised to shave another 15
minutes off the trip by 2035, requiring an investment of up to $10 billion in
infrastructure improvements.
Lamont’s office on Thursday referred comment on the bill to
his commissioner of transportation, Garrett Eucalitto, who has raised concerns
about the cost of the projects and the need to conduct additional
studies.
“We appreciate the committee’s dedication to railroads in
our state, and we would like to work with the committee on the best way to
modernize our rail system, but additional studies will require funding,” beyond
what was included in the governor’s budget, Eucalitto said in testimony submitted to
lawmakers last month, adding that new studies “would divert staff time from
executing on the major rail modernization program currently underway.”
Restoring service along the Shore Line East route alone
would cost at least $25 million a year over Lamont’s proposed budget, according
to a fiscal
impact report prepared by legislative staff. In an attempt to trim
costs, the bill would also allow the Department of Transportation to conduct a
competitive bidding process to find a lower-cost operator for Shore Line East,
an idea supported by Eucalitto.
Currently, service along the line is operated by Amtrak,
which also owns the rails east of New Haven.
The report did not estimate costs associated with other
projects in the bill, though it predicted that adding service to New Milford
would require a “significant” investment from the state.
With the inclusion of projects that stretch from the
shoreline to the Naugatuck River Valley and into Litchfield County, however,
the legislation has drawn the support from a broad coalition of lawmakers from
both parties.
“As companies start up and grow across our state, we have to
be mindful about developing a workforce and getting those employees to these
places of business,” state Sen. Christine Cohen, D-Guilford, said in a text
message on Friday. “That means prioritizing the expansion of rail lines, restoring
full service on lines like (Shore Line East) and providing micro transit
options to provide connectivity. While these things come with a price tag, they
pay off in droves and are key to economic development.”
Cohen serves as co-chair of the Transportation Committee and
represents a district with several stops along Shore Line East.
In addition to the projects included by lawmakers, the bill
would also direct DOT to study the feasibility of future rail projects, such as
establishing a connection between Hartford and Middletown and running hybrid
diesel-electric trains on the Danbury Line.
Such a study would cost roughly $2 million, according to
legislative staff, and come on the heels of a similar study ordered
by lawmakers in 2021 to explore options for expanding rail service in
Eastern Connecticut.
A preliminary
report from that study, released in January, detailed significant
challenges to expanding rail service beyond New London, including capacity
limits caused by movable bridges and the need to spend between $350 and $400
million to retrofit the aging freight lines along the Thames River to
accommodate passenger trains.
Cameron, of the Commuter Action Group, noted that the
Metropolitan Transit Authority — which operates the New Haven Line — has warned
that it is facing a fiscal cliff as it deals with sluggish ridership
and the end to federal pandemic-era financial assistance.
Even with billions of dollars in transit funding made
available from Congress and the Biden administration, Cameron said it’s
unlikely Connecticut will have the funding available to make the necessary
improvements along the New Haven and Hartford lines while also adding new
services elsewhere.
Cameron also criticized the proposed extension of the
Danbury line to New Milford, saying it would offer little value to commuters in
Litchfield County, who already have the option of driving to catch trains along
New York’s Harlem Line, which already offers quicker commutes into Grand
Central Terminal.
One of the principal backers of the plan to expand the
Danbury Line, state Rep. Billy Buckbee, R-New Milford, countered that the goal
of the project would not necessarily be to serve commuters into New York City
but rather those making shorter trips along the Route 7 corridor to cities in
Fairfield County, as well as those making weekend trips to the Northwest
corner.
The historic station in downtown New Milford, Buckbee
added, was once a part of the defunct
Berkshire Line that ran up to Pittsfield, Mass. Rail advocates hope
that with the success of an initial expansion, trains will once again make
the complete trip from the Berkshire hills to the coast.
“There’s a lot of opportunity to expand Western Connecticut
for more people to be able to access,” Buckbee said. "Let's show that it
works, and then we expand."
200-apartment project planned for downtown Danbury gets environmental green light
DANBURY — A plan to build a seven-story apartment
building and convert a Main Street office building into downtown housing got
the environmental green light from the city’s wetlands commission — on
four conditions.
The approval by the city’s wetlands commission last week of
the 208-apartment
project for south Main Street sets up a public hearing on Wednesday
before the city’s Planning Commission. At the meeting, consultants for the
developer will answer questions about traffic and other neighborhood impacts.
Known as The
Legacy on Main, the developer plans to retrofit the five-story office
building at 30 Main St. into 48 apartments and to build a 160-unit apartment
building in the parking lot, atop a three-level parking garage.
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The urban housing project, which is the type of development
encouraged in the city’s recently adopted master plan for the next decade, represents the largest
residential investment proposal in a central business district that has lagged
behind the city’s booming west side and busy commercial strips on the east end.
On the west side, for example, there are proposals for 400
apartments at The Summit office complex, and for 195 apartments at the former Crowne Plaza Hotel.
The first step for developers of The Legacy was to convince
the city’s environmental commission that the redevelopment of the 2.4-acre site
at 30 Main St. would
not degrade the nearby wetlands.
The city’s health department determined last week in a
three-page report that the project would not “substantially diminish the
natural capacity of the wetland … to support desirable biological life, prevent
flooding, supply water, assimilate waste, facilitate drainage, provide
groundwater recharge and/or provide recreation, open space or significant
wildlife habitat.”
The report recommends the wetland commission approve the
project on four conditions, including that if application information submitted
by the developer “is subsequently proved to be false, incomplete or misleading,
this permit may be modified, suspended or revoked, and the permittee may be
subject to any other remedies or penalties provided by law.”
“I have no issues with the report,” Ben Doto, an
engineer representing the developer, said at a Environmental Impact Commission
meeting April 12. “I’m here to answer any questions if anything were to come up
with respect to it.”
“The staff has recommended a summary ruling with four
conditions,” said Bernie Gallo, the commission chair. “Any remarks, any
questions?
Before a unanimous vote to approve the project, a commission
member asked whether anything else had changed.
“No,” responded Gallo.
Another condition of approval is that the developer is
required to “maintain sediment and erosion controls at the site in such an
operable condition as to prevent the pollution of wetlands and watercourses,”
should the project get Planning Commission approval.
Elsewhere on Main Street, a 149-unit apartment complex is
nearly complete at the site of the former News-Times headquarters, and there
are two other residential proposals. One plan calls for 100 units of workforce
housing as part of a larger redevelopment of the old Fairfield County
Courthouse. The other plan calls for 79 affordable apartments atop a two-level
garage behind the headquarters of the nonprofit Connecticut Institute for
Communities.
Officials defend, question look of new Southington library design
Jesse Buchanan
SOUTHINGTON — Town planners’ criticism of the new library
design prompted debate among Town Council members. Republicans defended the
design and planning process, while Democrats questioned the aesthetics, safety
and future expansion possibilities of the building.
While the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission approved the
proposed library design last week, planners had harsh words for the building’s
look. Several said it looked like a factory and found it out of character with
other buildings on that stretch of Main Street.
Jim Morelli, a Town Council Republican and library building
committee chairman, defended the design during a council meeting Monday.
“A lot of work went into that design,” he said in response
to questions from Democrats. “The architect is a renowned library designer.”
Valerie DePaolo, a Democratic councilor, asked if the design
should come back for review.
“Our Planning and Zoning Commission is clearly not happy
with how the building looks,” she said. “Shouldn’t we be really trying to take
a look at this?”
DRA Architects of South Windsor worked on the design. The
company, which also has offices in Massachusetts, designed Windsor, Tolland and
Westbrook libraries.
“They designed that knowing it’s a gateway into our town,”
Morelli said.
Paul Chaplinsky, a Republican and council vice chairman,
said the aesthetics are outside the planning commission’s purview. He’s a former
planning commission member.
Chaplinsky also said that the renderings of the proposed $17
million library have been available to the public for months and that the time
to bring up concerns was much earlier in the process.
Debate over library size, design
Republicans, who hold a majority on town boards and
commissions, have clashed with Democrats over a new library. Voters approved
$17 million for a library building last year and at the time town officials
expected a 30,000 square-foot building for that amount.
As town officials determined the cost of construction, the
plan was reduced to a 24,000 square-foot building to stay within the $17
million amount. Democrats suggested going back to voters to approve more money
for the library.
Morelli said his committee has worked hard to stay within
the $17 million budget and still get a library that meets the town’s needs.
That affected the building’s design as well as placement and layout.
“We have constraints on the look and the feel based on
masonry versus siding,” Morelli said, responding to a criticism that the new
building wasn’t brick to match surrounding buildings. “We have a budget.”
Sidewalks andparking lots
Much of the planning commission’s discussion last week prior
to its five to two vote in favor of approving the library centered on sidewalks
and parking.
The new library will have parking in two lots with the
library building in between. Planners and some Democratic councilors questioned
why there wasn’t a sidewalk connecting the two lots, saying it could be
hazardous to pedestrians.
Morelli and others said there is a sidewalk along the front
of the building, just not along the road connecting the two lots. With a steep
incline on the back of the property, adding a sidewalk to that road would add a
major cost as it would require a higher retaining wall and more excavation.
“We don’t really have room for it and it would cost us a lot
of money to squeeze it in there,” Morelli said. “We have a very tight site.”
Last week, Todd Ritchie, a civil engineer with SLR
Consulting, said the proposed building was about all the site could fit. The
possibility of adding to the library to meet future needs had been raised by
Republican councilors during discussions about the library’s size.
DePaolo said that was the first time she’d heard the library
wouldn’t be expanded.
“I think it’s going to be a nice library, but I think it’s
going to be too small from the minute it goes up,” she said.
The library plans have 3,000 square-feet more than the
current building. Supporters say it’s got more useable and flexible space
that’s better laid out for modern uses.
Responding to DePaolo’s questions about additions during the
council meeting, Morelli said that wasn’t part of the charge to the library
building committee. He’s focused on building the best possible library for the
amount approved at referendum.
“(Additions) were never in the purview of the building
committee,” Morelli said.
Gales Ferry Neighbors Push for Buffers as Dredging Company Plans Expansion
Brendan Crowley
GALES FERRY — Neighbors of a 165-acre industrial site on the
Thames River being developed by a Massachusetts dredging and marine services
company say they don’t want to stop the project, but want the company to
compromise by leaving more of a buffer for their neighborhood.
Quincy-based Cashman Dredging and Marine Contracting applied
to the Ledyard Planning and Zoning Commission for approval of a 20,000 square
foot repair facility for equipment the company uses in marine contracting and
dredging throughout the northeast.
Planned for the northern edge of the former Dow Chemical
property between Route 12 and the Thames River, it’s the first and smallest
piece of what Cashman has said are plans to
develop a complex of industrial buildings on the property. Cashman has also
proposed a processing
facility for dredged materials, but said it is putting that project on
hold while the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
works on new dredging regulations.
Neighbors on River Drive, a short street next to the north
end of the Cashman property, said they want the company to maintain as much as
they can of an existing 300-foot stretch of trees that buffers their
neighborhood.
The company is proposing to clear almost all of it to make
room for the repair facility and a lay-down yard that Cashman Vice President
Alan Perrault said during a public hearing Thursday night will be used to store
aggregate that would be shipped out of the site by rail, and for offshore wind
materials headed for the New London State Pier.
Stanley Lucas, a River Drive neighbor who said he bought and
is making a considerable investment to renovate the 1793 building on the
property immediately neighboring the northern edge of the industrial property,
said he was concerned the development being so close to the neighborhood would
hurt their property values.
“It’s an idyllic neighborhood. Every day of the year is
special, regardless of the weather. We see so many animals there, it’s like a
zoo, it’s really amazing,” Lucas said. “Anything these gentlemen [at Cashman]
are doing, these corporations, these businesses — we understand their
motivation in what they’re doing. But we have an obligation to protect our own
neighborhood, our neighbors, our quality of life and our investments.”
Lucas said the existing buffer of trees, many of which are
old and large, is what is going to block the neighborhood from the effects of
the industrial complex. The tree buffer was also the main concern of Dave
Harned, another neighbor who said he was speaking on behalf of a group of
residents called Citizens
Alliance for Land Use.
Harned said it seems “self-evident” that Cashman’s proposals
for the site will have a negative impact on the neighborhood, but he said the
group isn’t aiming to stop the project entirely. They want Cashman to succeed
at the site, and they want the town to benefit from the tax revenue the
development would generate, he said.
But they also want to protect their neighborhood, he said,
and noted that the building has the same impact on the tax base if it leaves
more of a buffer for the neighborhood.
“We want to retain the entire landscape buffer, the company
wants to remove virtually all of the landscape buffer — can we meet in the
middle?” Harned asked. “That’s what compromise is all about. Maybe 150 feet
would be reasonable, and most of those huge trees could be left behind.”
Harned said the group’s primary concern are a group of about
15 or 20 tall evergreens and other large deciduous trees that are about 75 feet
inside Cashman’s property from the northern property line, and asked the
company if it could shift its plans for the building to keep those intact.
Town Planner Juliet Hodge said she had also asked the
company if they could try to adjust their plans to keep those large trees.
Hodge said she agreed with Cashman’s attorney Harry Heller that the site is
underutilized and that developing it is a great opportunity for the town to
diversify its tax base.
But she said it’s important for the commission to keep in
mind the full scope of the planned development, beyond the repair facility.
Some residents said they were concerned that Cashman was applying for just one
small piece of their intended project, making it more difficult to see the full
scope of the impact.
Cashman has applied to
the Inland Wetland Commission to re-grade nearly 40 acres on the southern side
of the property by blasting and clearing the hill to make room for several
large industrial buildings the company has said it would lease out. The
company outlined its
full plans to build several large industrial buildings on the site in February,
and said the process could take 10-15 years to fully complete.
Hodge said there are concerns that the site, while having a
long industrial history, has not been used intensively in a while. Heller said
the Dow plant was shuttered in 2011, and since then the site has been home only
to Americas Styrenics, a joint venture of Dow and Chevron that manufactures
Styrofoam on the property. Hodge said the committee can require a bigger buffer
as a condition of the special permit.
“Fences make good neighbors, buffers make even better
neighbors,” Hodge said.
Heller declined to respond to most of the neighbor comments
on Thursday night, while the commission continued the public hearing — tentatively
to its May 11 meeting, though Chair Tony Capon said it was possible they would
hold a special meeting before then.
Major road in Beacon Falls will reopen later this year
ANDREAS YILMA
BEACON FALLS – After more than two years of closure, Burton
Road, a major town artery, is expected to finally reopen later this year.
The town on Dec. 24, 2020, closed the section of Burton Road
from Wolfe Avenue to North Main Street to traffic due to structural issues and
fears the road could fail.
The closed section of the road, which has a sidewalk on one
side and a stone wall on the other, travels over a brook that runs behind the
Beacon Mill Village apartments. The road previously shifted due to erosion of
its foundation from the brook.
The state Department of Transportation has committed to give
the town $2.9 million to fix the road through the Local Transportation Capital
Improvement Program. The funds are administered by the Naugatuck Valley Council
of Governments. The Board of Selectmen last year approved awarding the LOTCIP
project to Dayton Construction of Watertown.
First Selectman Gerard Smith said the Burton Road project is
coming along.
Eversource workers moved the vast majority of their
telephone poles. Frontier workers went to the area to move their wires but said
they couldn’t because Eversource didn’t move all of their wires.
“I can’t understand how Eversource can move their wires but
Frontier can’t move them until Eversource moves them all because they want to
do all their moves once,” Smith said. “They don’t want to come out twice.”
This won’t hinder Dayton Construction from coming back to
work as they were out on the week of April 12th, said Smith.
“They’ve (Dayton Construction) been excellent,” Selectman
Michael Krenesky said.
Smith said the next step is expected where workers will take
out the wall that runs along the two homes on the corner of Wolfe Avenue and
Maple Avenue. Workers will put in a wall that will mirror the wall that is down
below on Burton Road.
“Once they do that, they’re going to start ripping out the
road, grading, sidewalks because you have your structural concrete guys that
come out and do the walls, then the flat concrete guys because all the
sidewalks are going to be concrete,” Smith said. “So the sidewalks will get
done from Main Street all the way up. Then they’ll rip the road out, grade the
road. Then it’ll move right along pretty quickly.”
The official answer from Dayton Construction on when the
road reconstruction will be finished is October, when the contract is up. Town
officials expect it to be done sooner, Smith said.
“It (road) will be done before the end of 2023,” Smith said.
Krenesky said the mild winter helped workers move more
quickly.
“Because they were able to work all winter, they’re totally
ahead of everything,” Krenesky said.