CT DOT plans new maintenance garage at Westport site, 3 times size of current one
WESTPORT — The state Department of Transportation plans
to construct a new maintenance facility on state land at 900 Boston Post Road
East. 0:30
DOT spokesperson Joe Cooper said the contract for the work
is expected to be awarded by late March. Construction is expected to begin this
winter, with completion anticipated by fall 2026.
“The construction of a new maintenance facility in southwest
Connecticut marks a significant step forward for CTDOT,” Cooper told Hearst
Connecticut Media Group.
“With expanded vehicle bays, modern administrative offices
and rooftop solar, this facility will improve our operational efficiency,
support the state's sustainability goals and ensure seamless maintenance
services for the region,” Cooper added.
Westport
First Selectwoman Jen Tooker declined to comment on the
project.
The DOT site at 900 Post Road East is bordered by Post Road
East to the north, Sherwood Island Connector to the west, Hillandale Road to
the south and West Parish Road to the east.
The eastern portion of the site is currently boasts the
existing DOT maintenance facility, while the western portion of the property is
undeveloped containing several material stockpiles and exposed bedrock.
The plan is to construct a 23,000-square-foot
maintenance facility building with associated parking, storage structures and
underground utilities generally within the western portion of the site.
Cooper said the new facility will be built on an
underutilized portion of the existing maintenance site and designed to
accommodate future solar panel installations.
The new one-story building will be accessed off the Sherwood
Island Connector and include at least 17 vehicle bays.
The current Westport maintenance facility, built in 1958, is
outdated and cannot adequately accommodate the modern vehicle fleet, according
to Cooper, adding that the present structure is a third the size, only 7,700
square feet.
“A full renovation was not considered, as it would not
resolve these space limitations,” Cooper said. “However, parts of the existing
building will be renovated for cold and warm storage of vehicles and
equipment.”
Once the work contract is awarded, the CTDOT
website will be updated with the relevant details.
Tilcon looks to add 83 acres to quarry with zoning change
Brian M. Johnson
PLAINVILLE – Tilcon is proposing a zoning change that would
allow it to expand its basalt quarry operations by another 83 acres.
The proposal would rezone parts of Long Swamp Road and Nike
Road from a residential zone to a quarry zone. According to an agenda for the
Planning and Zoning Commission, a public hearing will be scheduled for April 8.
The proposal includes currently residential-zoned properties
Tilcon owns at 0 Nike Road, 0 Loon Lake Road, and 0 Metacomet Road.
“Tilcon is seeking to advance their quarrying operations at
the North Mountain Quarry and requests a zone boundary change (from R40 to Q)
to do so,” the application states. “Tilcon is seeking rezoning to facilitate an
expansion of the existing surrounding quarry operations.”
Mark DeVoe, town planner, said Tilcon’s proposal originally
requested to rezone 242 acres to add to its quarry.
“I advised Tilcon to reduce the area to avoid most of the
environmental impacts to wetlands and the Plainville Ridgeline Protection
Zone,” he said. “The application now encompasses 83 acres of quarry zone in
addition to what currently exists on the north side of Cooks Gap.”
DeVoe said quarry work would be a minimum of 150 feet from
the ridgeline. The Metacomet Trail will remain “well away” from the quarry
face, he said.
He said, if the request is approved, there would be a
requirement for a six foot chain link fence with warning signs wherever quarry
activities are happening within 100 feet of the protection zone line.
DeVoe’s last day as town planner is March 13. Any further
actions with this project, he said, will have to be handled by his successor.
The application by Tilcon states that the consultant for
this project would be SLR International Consulting.
Low Bids Give Sewers a Boost in Old Lyme
Francisco Uranga
OLD LYME — The latest bids for installing sewers in the
beach communities came in under budget, putting the project on track even as
many residents continue to oppose the plans as both overpriced and
unnecessary.
The town has struggled for more than a decade to settle on a
plan that would satisfy the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental
Protection at a cost that local residents on fixed incomes can afford.
The town’s Water Pollution Control Authority is analyzing
bids received in late February. The lowest was $8.7 million for the work in
Sound View and Area B, less than the $9.5 million approved by referendum in
2019. The Old Colony Beach Club Association is also reviewing bids for its
construction and the shared infrastructure for the project, which was below the
amount authorized for bonding.
The sewer project for the Miami Beach Association still has
not received bids, and the Old Lyme Shores Beach Association has yet to request
bids.
But Steve Cinami, who serves as chair of the town’s Water
Pollution Control Authority which is overseeing the town’s portion of the
project — Soundview and the adjacent Area B — told CT Examiner the project was
progressing as planned, aside from the lack of bids for Miami Beach.
“Based on the bids we have, the project remains affordable,”
he said.
Cinami estimated that Sound View and Area B residents would
pay about $26,000, financed over 20 years, for the equivalent of a standard
home in the area – an EDU. At that cost, property owners would pay about $1,450
per year, slightly higher than what he had previously
estimated, Cinami said.
Cinami said at a public hearing last year that eight out of
10 residents would pay the equivalent of an EDU.
Homeowners would also need to hire a contractor to connect
to the sewers, with costs estimated between $4,000 to $6,000, according to
Cinami. He said he expected property owners to additionally pay between $450
and $600 a year for service, based on current costs for East Lyme and Waterford
residents.
Last October, Old Lyme approved a
service agreement with the New London wastewater treatment plant.
Next steps
Cinami said the bids were being analyzed and that the lowest
bidders would not necessarily be awarded the contracts.
Analysis of the WPCA bids will be carried out by the
engineering firm Woodward and Curran, while Fuss and O’Neill will handle those
of the private beach associations.
In the event that one of the lower bids does not meet the
requirements, the next lowest bid will be considered, Cinami said. The
recommendation will be voted on by the WPCA or the corresponding beach
association.
Cinami said he was coordinating with Old Lyme Shores to set
a bid date and hoped Miami Beach would reopen its project for bidding in the
coming weeks.
“We put a lot of jobs out at the same time and bidders may
have picked the easier ones to submit a bid on and just decided to pass on
Miami Beach,” he said. ”It’s unusual not to have a bid.”
Cinami said the pending bids are key to securing a grant and
a forgivable loan from DEEP, which last year anticipated covering up to half of
the total cost with Clean
Water Funds.
In December, the agency extended its deadline for completing
the bidding process, but cautioned that further delays by the Old Lyme Shores
Association could constitute a violation of a consent order in place to address
pollution. In a letter, the agency encouraged the association to seek bids,
warning that federal funding might not be available in the future.
Cinami said work in the Sound View area could begin in the
fall after beach season, while private associations might start sooner.
Critics
Sound
View Sewer Coalition members Frank Pappalardo, Dennis Melluzzo and
Mary Daley raised concerns about the backgrounds of companies that bid in the
WPCA and Old Colony Beach Club Association process.
The group, which strongly opposes the project, reviewed the
bidders for the pipeline to connect Old Lyme with East Lyme. They noted that
the lowest bidder, BW Paving and Landscaping, settled a bid-rigging antitrust
case with Connecticut’s attorney general. The second-lowest, Baltazar
Contractors, was fined by
the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for violations at two
Massachusetts sewer installation sites. The third, Ludlow Construction,
was sued by
the Hartford Metropolitan District Commission over faulty work that resulted in
sewage backups. They lastly found that the final bidder, CJ Fucci, was awarded
a contract to stabilize the shoreline along Floyd Street in New Haven, but the
city eventually abandoned it
due to construction problems and sued the company.
Neighbors questioned the price differences among bids, which
ranged from $2.9 million to a $11.8 million for what is supposedly the same
pipeline job.
“The $8,815,000 range in bids alone should make one question
the qualifications and competence of the bidders or the bid specifications,”
the Sound View Sewer Coalition said in a written statement.
The group also questioned why Old Colony’s lowest bidder,
Genovesi Construction, was the highest bidder for Sound View — nearly double
its Old Colony bid.
“These neighborhoods sit side by side and include
approximately the same number of appraised properties,” they said.
The neighbors said they would continue researching the
companies and expected DEEP and Old Lyme to do the same.
“For now, it is extremely premature to declare this project
‘affordable’ and the bids successful without considering the many additional
variables required to determine affordability,” the coalition said.