Special session shelved: CT will address EV transition in regular session

Mark Pazniokas

The General Assembly is giving up on a special legislative session to address how to keep Connecticut committed to a transition to electric vehicles, leaving the issue for consideration in the regular session that opens on Feb. 7.

House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said Thursday he is notifying House members the chamber will not go forward with a special session to pass legislation affirming an eventual ban on new gas-powered vehicles.

“I think there’s been really good negotiations, but you have to get to a final bill and there are still some sticking points,” Ritter said.

Facing rejection by a bipartisan legislative committee in November, Gov. Ned Lamont reluctantly withdrew proposed regulations that would keep Connecticut in compliance with the latest California emissions standards, which call for a phase-out of the sales of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035.

The administration and legislative leaders have been working since then on legislation intended to assure lawmakers that Connecticut would hew to the 2025 goal only if EVs had become more affordable and the state had a sufficient charging infrastructure.

Ritter said a potential bill that would have been put to a vote in special session will be the framework for a measure that he expects will be drafted and raised for a public hearing by the legislature’s Transportation Committee during the regular session.

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The key elements are the creation of a commission to monitor the state’s readiness for electric vehicles, increased funding for a network of chargers in urban areas, and another vote by the General Assembly in 2027 on whether Connecticut would remain committed to the 2035 goal.

“We’ll try to do it as early as we can in the session,” Ritter said.

Addressing the issue in regular session means a review in committee, plus a public hearing. Bills in special session typically bypass committee review and hearings.

“I think it has to be vetted,” said House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford. “A lot of these issues are generating questions.”

The governor is confident the state will affirm a commitment to zero-emission vehicles, said Julia Bergman, his spokeswoman.

“Gov. Lamont is committed to cleaner air and confident from his conversations with Democratic leadership that the legislature will stand by their commitment to put Connecticut on the path towards a zero-carbon future,” Bergman said.

The Republican minority in the General Assembly led the campaign to kill the proposed regulations, but the legislature’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus and other elements of the House and Senate Democratic majorities expressed concerns about the impact on their constituents.

Urban lawmakers questioned whether apartment dwellers would have reasonable access to chargers, and the affordability of electric vehicles was a concern that reached into rural and blue-collar districts.

The second vote in 2027 would be intended to make certain what Lamont had insisted was implicit: Connecticut will have an opportunity to step away from the 2035 deadline if market forces — namely EV prices and battery performance — and the availability of charging stations indicate the state is not ready.

While the concerns crossed party lines, the Republicans appeared to be nearly unanimous in their opposition to the 2035 ban, foreshadowing a wedge issue in the 2024 elections for the General Assembly.

At an environmental summit sponsored Tuesday by the League of Conservation Voters, the state’s Democratic governor bemoaned the erosion of bipartisan support for Connecticut following the California clean-air standards, which were developed when Ronald Reagan was governor and endorsed by the administration of Richard Nixon.

“How many Republicans in the room? Raise your hand,” Lamont said. 

One Republican, Sen. Tony Hwang of Fairfield, was in attendance. 

“Well, that’s part of what we got to do,” Lamont said, meaning building bipartisan support. “I mean, at the national level, the Republicans have walked away, I’m afraid. And I usually don’t talk about it in this way.”

The General Assembly voted nearly unanimously to adhere to the evolving California standards, but Republicans say an eventual ban of new vehicle sales of most gas-powered cars was a major policy change that deserved a review by the full legislature.

The California standards would allow the continued sale of plug-in hybrids, which are powered by battery and gas-engines. They would not ban the continued use of gas-powered vehicles, nor their availability on the used-car market.

Bergman said the regulations “provide a level of certainty to manufacturers, which have set their own goals to significantly increase electric vehicle sales.”

Key Capture’s 400 MW battery energy storage projects seen as key to CT’s renewable energy future

Andrew Larson

Key Capture Energy is at the forefront of bringing renewable energy to Connecticut, ahead of the state’s goal of getting all its electricity from zero-carbon sources by 2040.

The Albany, New York-based company doesn’t install solar arrays or build offshore wind farms. Its projects are based on land, usually near electric substations.

And when the projects are done, Key Capture leaves behind little more than a quiet, shipping container-like structure that’s connected to some wires.

But without Key Capture’s technology, the state wouldn’t be able to provide consistent and reliable renewable energy from intermittent sources, such as solar and wind, which are produced at the whims of Mother Nature.

Key Capture develops and installs utility-scale battery energy storage facilities, which take surplus energy from solar and wind sources during peak production, store it and then dispatch it to the electric grid when it’s needed.

“The ability of these systems to store renewable energy when it isn’t needed to meet grid demand, so that it can be used by households and consumers when demand rises, will make the transition to a fully decarbonized grid possible,” said Paul Williamson, Key Capture’s senior manager of development.

Currently, about half of Connecticut’s electricity is generated at natural gas-fired plants, which produce a constant supply of electricity when they’re running. Also, there are multiple peaking power plants across the state, which run on natural gas and provide additional power when needed.

Under the current system, electricity never gets wasted because the grid operator, ISO-New England, can turn additional power plants on when demand is high, or off when demand is low.

However, as an increasing percentage of the state’s power comes from intermittent solar- and wind-powered sources, ISO-New England will rely on battery storage to maintain an adequate power supply.

A solution

Key Capture was founded in 2016 with two employees and has grown to 100 workers across three offices. In addition to its Albany headquarters, the company has locations in Houston and Brooklyn, New York.

It’s owned by SK E&S, a private natural gas company in South Korea, which is an affiliate of SK Group, a conglomerate that had about $106 billion in annual global revenue and more than 110,000 employees worldwide as of 2020.

Key Capture has eight energy battery storage projects planned in Connecticut. Two have already received approvals from the Siting Council: one in Windsor Locks and another in East Hampton.

These will be the first battery energy storage facilities in Connecticut. The company plans to begin operating both in 2026.

The projects are 5 MW, which is roughly enough energy to power 4,000 homes. The batteries can dispatch energy for two hours, Williamson said.

Key Capture is planning an additional 5 MW project in Stafford/Willington.

Williamson said the company builds facilities near existing grid infrastructure, such as power lines and substations, with the appropriate capacity to charge and discharge its batteries.

“To a regular person, these facilities look like shipping containers,” he said. “While that may be true to the naked eye, they contain sophisticated battery systems that undergo rigorous testing, siting and permitting processes before coming online.”

Key Capture has four other Connecticut projects in the pipeline, at yet-to-be-determined locations. In total, Key Capture will provide 400 MW of storage capacity in the Nutmeg State — enough to power about 320,000 homes.

Clean energy goals

A state law passed in 2021 requires Connecticut to have 1,000 MW of battery storage capacity by 2030. With Key Capture providing 40% of that requirement, the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has issued a request for proposals seeking developers for another 450 MW of capacity.

Connecticut’s 1,000 MW goal puts it at the front of the pack of states that are embracing battery energy storage.

Texas and California are the two leading states for utility-scale deployments, Williamson said.

New York has a target of 6,000 MW of battery storage by 2030. Recently, Michigan passed a law targeting 2,500 MW by 2030.

All New England states, except for New Hampshire, have set zero- or low-carbon emissions goals.

Attorney Lee D. Hoffman, chair of law firm Pullman & Comley, who represents Key Capture, said battery energy storage is an essential step toward meeting the state’s clean energy goals, while maintaining a stable and reliable electric grid.

“We can’t control when the sun will shine or when the wind will blow…,” Hoffman said. “We can, however, control when we switch on our battery storage, and that allows the engineers running the grid at ISO-New England to dispatch electricity where and when it is needed.”

The switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy is already happening, Hoffman said. Most of the new energy projects being proposed in New England involve wind, solar or battery storage.

Only 4% of the projects are natural gas, Hoffman said.

How it works

Key Capture makes money by purchasing wind and solar energy produced during peak production hours, when it is relatively cheap, and reselling it at a higher price, when it’s needed.

Its technology stores energy in a container similar to a conventional cell phone battery.

“A good way to think of these facilities is as larger versions of the batteries anyone uses in their regular life,” Williamson said. “As an analogy, think of a phone. Just like someone plugs their phone into the wall to charge it, and then utilizes the stored energy over time as needed, these facilities are connected or ‘plugged’ into the grid, and they dispatch or ‘utilize’ that stored energy back to the grid when needed. The technology goes through much more rigorous safety testing and protocols than batteries used in consumer electronics, but the operation is similar.”

Battery energy storage systems can also be compensated for providing critical reliability services to the grid that maintain the grid’s stability in real time, and in times of extreme energy demand, he said.

Key Capture declined to disclose its financials or how much it will be investing in Connecticut through its eight battery energy storage projects.

Besides Connecticut, Key Capture has projects in development totaling more than 9,000 MW in 14 states across the country.

East Norwalk train station to close twice in 2024 for upgrades as part of Walk Bridge project 

Katherine Lutge

NORWALK — The East Norwalk train station will close this spring and summer for three-week stretches as crews begin work to replace the train station.

“A large impact is coming to East Norwalk,” said Bryan Lutz, assistant director of parking for the city during the Parking Authority meeting Wednesday night.

As crews begin work on the $1 billion Walk Bridge replacement project, shovels will also break ground in East Norwalk. To improve the overall connectivity and rail service in Norwalk, the Connecticut Department of Transportation decided to take on other improvement projects, including building East Norwalk a new station.

The East Norwalk train station is expected to be closed twice in 2024 for two three-week periods while crews begin work.

Andrew Lee, office engineer for WSP and the Walk Bridge Project, said the timeline for the first closure is “trending toward March.” Once dates are finalized, Lee said the Walk Bridge Team, CDOT, and the city will work together to inform the public.

“We’re going to be closing the station for three weeks to install an underground detention system in the north parking lot,” Lee said.

Later in the summer, the station will close again for work to begin on a new platform.

“That closure is also going to be three weeks; we’re doing selective demolition on the north platform while we begin to construct the temporary platforms to load passengers onto trains on the interior track 1,” Lee said.

The second closure is expected in “late July at the very earliest” or in August or early September, Lee added. The timeline is “subject to change due to material availability,” explained Richard Leso, a project engineer for CDOT.

During the weeks the station is closed, commuters will be directed to the Westport or South Norwalk stations. Parking will remain available in East Norwalk at 180 East Ave, Lee said.

“During those three weeks, the trains will just bypass East Norwalk and continue through,” Lee said.

A third three-week closure to complete construction on the northbound platform is tentatively scheduled for fall of 2025, Lee said.

“Starting in 2026, we’ll begin on the south side, so the same process that we did on the north side we have to do on the south side again,” Lee said.

 Jim Travers, director of Norwalk’s Transportation, Mobility, and Parking Department, said officials are continuing to work with CDOT on improving the East Avenue and the Cemetery Circle area.

“All of Cemetery Circle, East Avenue to Cemetery up to Gregory and back, will have all new streetscapes, sidewalks on both sides, lanes that are indicative of the speeds that we want to see, and introduction of bike lanes that go around there,” Travers said.

While CDOT’s plans for the East Norwalk train station do not include an indoor space, Travers said that need will be met through an agreement the city has with a developer.

“There is a development agreement with Spinnaker in place to provide a station place on both the New York and New Haven bound side,” Travers explained.

“In my opinion, if you step back and look at this project, it’s a very exciting project, and the engineering feat that is being pulled off is astounding, and I’d love for that to be what people think about when they talk about the project as opposed to being inconvenienced,” said Eric Rains, chairman of the Park Norwalk Board.

Fight over future of Hartford-Brainard Airport revs up with new hearing next month

 Liese Klein

Winter is a relatively quiet time for flights at Hartford-Brainard Airport, but activity is ramping up off the runway as the debate intensifies on the general aviation airport’s future.

State Sen. John Fonfara, who has long pushed for closing Hartford-Brainard to develop its 200 acres for other uses, plans a hearing in February to scrutinize a recent consultant’s report on the airport. 

The brand-new mayors in Hartford and East Hartford are still developing their stances on the facility that abuts their cities, even as a trio of airport businesses pursue a lawsuit against city lawmakers highlighting their anti-airport activism. And the active and well-funded group representing Hartford-Brainard supporters is gearing up to make the case that the airport should be expanded, not shut down.

All are evaluating the impact of the “Brainard Airport Current and Alternative Use Study,” a yearlong effort by consultant BFJ Planning that resulted in a report submitted last fall with hundreds of pages of data and analysis and 17 separate appendices.

The bottom line: The consultant recommended that the airport stay open, but shut down one little-used runway to make way for industrial development.

The construction of two warehouses and 20,000 square feet of retail space on the runway property would cost $7.4 million, but could generate nearly $100 million in revenue over a 30-year period, the report found.

Both airport boosters and critics say they are unhappy with the consultant’s compromise and vow to challenge both the report and any moves to implement it.

The Connecticut Airport Authority, which oversees Bradley International and the state’s five general aviation airports, is awaiting guidance from lawmakers on making any changes at Hartford-Brainard.

“The recent consultant report speaks for itself, and it is now up to the legislature to decide if it deems it appropriate to act further on this matter,” agency officials wrote in a prepared statement. “In the meantime, the CAA plans to continue operating a safe airport for the benefit of its tenants, users and the regional economy.”

The Hartford Brainard Airport Association planned to meet with CAA officials this week to discuss potential expansion at Brainard, said Michael Teiger, president of the advocacy group.
“We’d like to be much more involved with the growth and development of Brainard,” Teiger said.  “We have the energy and vision of what Brainard airport could be.”

The group has paid for lobbying help in Hartford and promotes a potential future for Brainard as a base for futuristic electric-powered vertical takeoff and landing craft.

The airport advocates have also met with East Hartford’s new mayor, Connor Martin, on expanding the city’s relationship with the airport relating to educational opportunities in aviation, Teiger said.

“This is one of the big things that we’ve been trying to push in my organization, that Brainard has a huge potential for professional training, for professional pilot training,” Teiger said.

East Hartford doesn’t plan to take a stand on the future of the airport, Martin said, adding that the recent report and earlier studies have convinced him that the facility will stay open. “If it’s going to remain an airport, then let’s see how it can benefit East Hartford,” Martin said. “I think it'd be a great benefit to be able to expose East Hartford students to the aviation industry.”

Martin added that the city may also approach Pratt & Whitney about a joint effort with the airport on job training. “Our people are just kind of ready to have the conversation and see if there’s a partnership there,” he said. 

The new mayor of Hartford, Arunan Arulampalam, is taking his time on developing a stance on the airport’s future, for understandable reasons. His predecessor, Luke Bronin, was singled out in a civil lawsuit relating to the issue and faced angry crowds at events last year relating to the consultant’s report.

Three airport-based companies — Hartford Jet Center, Pegasus Air Charter and Hartford South Hangars  — alleged that Bronin, City Councilor Nick Lebron and state Rep. James Sanchez had disparaged the airport and hurt their businesses by threatening repeatedly to close the facility.

Bronin had spoken in strong terms about the airport as a waste of developable land in the city, attending public forums last year and warning the consultants not to yield to inertia in “the land of steady habits.”

Arulampalam took a cautious stance on the issue early in his campaign, asking for more community input and involvement in the airport’s future. In a statement on Tuesday, he asked for more detail on potential development of Brainard’s 200 acres.

“As the mayor of a city which is only 18 and a half square miles, half of which is untaxable land, my responsibility to the people is to figure out smart ways to develop land and expand our tax base, but I continue to have serious questions about the potential for development on this particular parcel,” Arulampalam said. “I had hoped this study would address the actual costs and specific obstacles to developing this property, and it’s important to find answers to those questions before we are able to make any decisions.”

Fonfara, whose district includes Brainard and the city of Hartford, has no doubts that the airport property could be an economic boon to the region if freed up for development. “Here’s 200 acres: That could be an entertainment venue, or recreational venue —  a place for work, live and play,” Fonfara said. “There’s tremendous opportunities there.”

For the time being, Fonfara plans a hearing in February with a main focus on weaknesses in the consultant’s report. “How much independent research and evaluation did the consultants do?” Fonfara asked, adding that the report seemed to rely on early assumptions that any redevelopment would cost far too much to be feasible.

But Fonfara added that he thinks the report has opened the door a bit for others to consider other uses for the airport’s land. “I think it has shifted the conversation, I won’t say momentously,” Fonfara said. “ I think there’s a recognition that the airport is nothing more than a recreational opportunity for fairly well-heeled people.”

Teiger said that the airport’s importance as a site for job training and future technological development will prevail as the debate continues.

“Our organization is morphed into a visionary organization that can see the great potential for a general aviation airport in Hartford,” Teiger said. “We believe that economic development can be enhanced and improved if you have proper management and a vision for growing a general aviation airport.”

Redevelopment of the former West Hartford UConn campus gets a Town Council public hearing date

Michael Walsh

WEST HARTFORD — A portion of the redevelopment of the former University of Connecticut campus in town will go before the Town Council for a public hearing on March 11.

The 1700 Asylum Ave. parcel of the former college campus, which currently consists of a parking lot and youth baseball fields, earned a key wetlands approval last week, paving way for the project — which on that eastern parcel would see the construction of four new buildings offering 322 one and two-bedroom apartments — to return to Town Planning and Zoning, the Design Review Advisory Committee and ultimately the Town Council.

At that level, deliberation could begin on the size and scale of the project, traffic impacts and more.

Newly submitted plans also signal a name change for the development. Previously called Oakwood Park, developer West Hartford 1 LLC has changed the community's name to Heritage Park, which they said they did after feedback from residents.

The plans also detail the amount of affordable housing the eastern portion would offer. Of the 322, the plans show that 16 units — eight one-bedroom units and eight two-bedroom units — would be designated as affordable housing, which is about 5 percent of the total units being constructed. The details on the affordability type — like what the base area median income would be to qualify for those units — was not yet available.

West Hartford's Town Council has been pushing for more affordable housing units in recent housing developments that have come in front of them and the town is still in the process of finalizing and approving its new and updated affordable housing plan. As of the town's most recent report, just under 8 percent of its housing stock is considered affordable housing. West Hartford has a goal of reaching 10 percent over the coming years.

What's next for 1800 Asylum Ave.

Across Trout Brook Drive, at 1800 Asylum Ave., developers still intend on developing the western parcel of the former university campus into a mixed-use site that would feature 247 units of housing spread out between apartments, assisted living and town houses — along with space for retail like a grocery store, restaurant and more — but withdrew those plans from wetlands consideration for the time being.

Those plans will eventually be resubmitted, meaning the town's wetlands commission will again meet to decide the fate of the western parcel before it can proceed to the Town Council.

Updated plans for that parcel were submitted this week to the town's Design Review Advisory Committee. A decision will have to be made whether to have the driveway that exits onto Asylum Avenue aligned with Fox Meadow Lane, like it currently is, or offset from the road, which developers have said that they prefer in order to avoid creating a four-way intersection.

Between both parcels of the former campus, developers want to build 569 units of housing mixed with retail uses, which would be the most housing units out of the last 10 developments proposed to the town. It would be the most apartments built in one project in West Hartford since One Park Road, the transformation of the former St. Joseph of Chambéry convent into 292 units on Park Road.

Site plan for new north end school in Cheshire raises concerns over safety, traffic

Ciara Hooks

CHESHIRE — Plans for a new nearly $90 million elementary school to be built in the north end of town drew questions and concerns this week regarding the safety of students walking to the school, traffic flow, changing dismissal and arrival times and more.

The as-of-yet unnamed school to be built on 42 acres at the corner of Jarvis Street and Marion Road is the first of two new schools to undergo site plan review by the Planning and Zoning Commission.

“The PZC raised their questions about the project and we’ll go back to each of those questions and respond to them at the next meeting,” said Rich Gusenburg, chairman of the town's Next Generation School Building Committee.

In addition to traffic flow and pedestrian safety, questions related to the grading of the site and land usage. 

“They have a lot of work to do to get it up to town standards,” said commission Chairman Earl Kurtz III. “To me and it seemed like a few other members the engineers have a lot more work to do in terms of staff with the plans they brought in.” 

Gusenburg said a traffic study did not raise serious issues. 

“They grade them from an A to an F and everything, all the intersections were either an A or B,” he added. “And they go all the way out to where there’s roads like at the end of Jarvis where it goes to Route 10 or the end of Marion Road where it goes to the state road there.”

But some PZC members familiar with the area said they were concerned about drivers who don’t obey the 25-mph speed limit and students walking to school along streets without sidewalks.

“They expressed concern about the lack of sidewalks,” said school board Chairwoman Samantha Rosenberg. “Board policy does state that student walking routes may or may not be paved so I guess a lack of sidewalks doesn’t translate to an automatic determination that the route you’re walking is hazardous or trigger any other related decisions.”

Rosenberg added that regardless of the distance the Building Commission is going to evaluate whether it’s safe to allow students to walk to school and if the walk isn’t safe they’re going to provide a bus.

“We’re going to use our best judgment, we’re always going to err on the side of caution and students safety and we make the determination pretty regularly with respect to parent requests for bus accommodations etc.” Rosenberg said. “We look at all the factors so when in doubt and if assistance is needed to make a determination we’re going to consult the police department, public works, and DATTCO’s office as well because they’re the experts around this.” 

PZC members also raised questions regarding how the driveways would be laid out.

“There are three driveways; one comes in on the northern most part for the buses and that goes to a turnaround for the students. Then a little bit south of that there’s another one that comes in and goes to a parking lot for parents and a drop off area for parents to drop their students off. And then there’s a separate  lot that comes in from Jarvis just for the preschool because that’s like a school within a school,” Gusenburg said. “The site dips from west to east so therefore we want to try to bring the driveways in but not at too steep an angle.”

Kurtz said the PZC’s goal is to ensure the town is following the rules and the project is done by the regulations.  

“I’m sure they took in everything we suggested and they have until the next meeting in two weeks to get back to us with changed plans following our comments and the regulations,” he added

Plans for a new Norton School will be presented to the PZC next, Gusenburg said. 

The new Norton School will be built right behind the present school at 414 North Brooksvale Road. Then the old one will be knocked down.

“We’re looking to get out to bid on both of those at about the same time and then build both of them at once,” Gusenburg said.

$70M addition approved for Baker Hollow Logistics Center in Windsor

Hanna Snyder Gambini

Areal estate development firm has won town approval to construct two industrial buildings totaling 420,000 square feet on Baker Hollow Road in Windsor.

The $70 million project by Massachusetts-based Condyne Capital Partners will include 300,000-square-foot and 120,000-square-foot industrial warehouses that will become 75-85 Baker Hollow Road.

The projects are additions to Condyne’s larger Baker Hollow Logistics Center, which features the existing 165,000-square-foot Safelite Auto Glass building at 105 Baker Hollow Road, and another 185,000-square-foot building under construction at 205 Baker Hollow Road off the Day Hill Road industrial corridor.

Condyne’s marketing manager Lindsay Hurley said the new projects are being built on spec, meaning there is no tenant lined up, but the company is working with JLL Hartford to bring in “high-quality tenants.”

Ideal uses for the properties include distribution, manufacturing, cold storage and more, and each building could have one or multiple tenants, Hurley said.
 
Hurley said Condyne started with the building that now houses Safelite, and the interest was significant, so they moved forward with the 205 Baker Hollow Road project.

“Industrial is still hot in Hartford, so we’re taking advantage of that,” Hurley added.

When completed, the four-building campus will have 159 loading docks, parking for more than 500 cars and 218 trailer parking spaces.

The logistics center is the first Connecticut project for Condyne, which has built other industrial properties in Massachusetts.

Polar Design Builders is the general contractor on the project, while Alford Associates is the civil engineer.

Company officials are now working on permitting and anticipate a groundbreaking this summer.

Middlebury headed to court over Timex plan

STEVE BIGHAM

MIDDLEBURY – The town’s Jan. 4 approval of a controversial redevelopment plan to transform the Timex Corp. property into a 670,000-square-foot distribution center is now headed to court.

Middlebury Small Town Alliance, which spearheaded a yearlong fight against the project, this week filed an appeal with Waterbury Superior Court. The town’s Planning and Zoning Commission made errors and approved the application with complete disregard for its own regulations, the lawsuit claims.

The appeal, filed by Attorney Keith R. Ainsworth of New Haven, also claims the PZC was illegally constituted on the night it approved developer Southford Park’s site plan and text amendment application. It states the board seated too many Republicans and only one Democrat, a violation of Middlebury’s minority representation rules that was “material” to its final 3-2 decision.

The lawsuit seeks a reversal of the decision and an order that the PZC instead deny the project. It also requests a temporary restraining order be issued prohibiting any use of the zoning permit, pending completion of the appeal.

“Once again, Middlebury residents have to step up and hold our local officials accountable for making decisions that violate the letter and spirit of our regulations,” said Jennifer Mahr, president of MSTA. “Three commissioners decided to ignore multiple concerns raised by the public to approve applications that clearly did not meet our standards.”

The appeal states the PZC wrongly approved the permit for a warehouse to store goods and materials not manufactured on site, despite the fact the town’s regulations only allow for the warehouse storage of goods and materials “prior” to on-site manufacturing use in an LI-200 zone.

The proposed distribution center appeared dead in the water last June when a bill was passed by the state legislature that included a provision that prohibited any building over 100,000 square feet if the property contains more than 5 acres of wetlands in any Connecticut small town. The bill, the brainchild of state Rep. William Pizzuto, R-Middlebury, was done in an apparent attempt to override home-rule zoning authority.

Southford Park responded by crafting a real estate arrangement with Timex where it would only purchase certain areas of the property, leaving much of the wetlands in the ownership of Timex. The move made the application exempt from the new state law, town officials said.

The lawsuit, however, alleges the PZC “intentionally and illegally” circumvented that state statute by allowing the applicant to split the project into two parcels in an attempt reduce the amount of associated wetlands on one of the parcels.

Middlebury’s opposition to the project has garnered statewide attention and been marked by impassioned residents expressing anger over the town’s inability or unwillingness to halt what they fear will be an a Amazon-like facility, with hundreds of trucks going in and out day and night. Yard signs opposing the “distribution center” still dot the town’s landscape.

But PZC members said the application “checked all the boxes” for site-plan approval.

Bill Giuditta, one of the plaintiffs, expressed his outrage at the board’s failure to represent the wishes of Middlebury residents.

“From the beginning, our first selectman told us to ‘trust the process,’ but look where that got us,” Giuditta said. “Trusting the process resulted in the PZC chairman justifying his vote by saying he personally was for the project, and that the commission had previously approved warehouse projects that appear to violate Middlebury’s zoning regulations. Not one mention of his obligation to represent what the people of Middlebury want.”

Dana Shepard, co-founder of MSTA, said she was most disappointed by the town’s efforts to shut down public dissent and approve this project “no matter what.”

“The commission ignored the clear warnings about the inadequacies of the application, militantly policed residents with a buzzer to limit public comment to 3 minutes, closed the hearing the night multiple reports were submitted so no one had time to review and comment on these new reports, and then stationed a uniformed police officer at the door the night of the deliberation and decision,” Shepard said.

MSTA also has appealed last year’s decision by the town’s Conservation Commission to grant a wetlands permit for the proposed industrial development. That lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order prohibiting any use of the wetlands permit pending the completion of the court appeal that challenges the grounds for the commission’s approval. The pleadings have closed in the case and the two sides are now submitting written arguments in the administrative appeal.

Construction misclassifies up to 20% of workers, researcher says

Zachary Phillips

As many as 2.1 million U.S. construction workers were misclassified or paid off the books in 2021, according to a new report from the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank and research group focused on equity in education, healthcare and work.

A Department of Labor rule change, effective March 11, will reverse a Trump-era shift and implement a new test for determining if a worker is an employee or independent contractor.

Laura Valle-Gutierrez, a fellow at New York City-based Century Foundation and one of the report’s authors, said she was excited to see the DOL’s rule change, which could help with the problem of misclassification, though more could still be done, she said.

“Additional changes, like investing in enforcement and expanding joint and several liability, are a few of the changes that are needed to truly curb the issue,” said Valle-Gutierrez.

Here, Valle-Gutierrez talks with Construction Dive about her research and why misclassification isn’t just an issue for workers, but also for contractors looking to win work.

Laura Valle-Gutierrez: The concept of worker misclassification isn’t anything new. I think there’s been decades of reporting and anecdotally, I think a lot of people know of people that are either paid off the books or treated as an independent contractor when they really shouldn’t be. So, we went into this research wanting to really understand the extent of it, because one of the challenges with any underground economy is to know the extent of it. By nature, it’s not going to show up in data. It’s trying to be hidden.

We wanted to know how many workers were being misclassified — wrongly labeled, paid off the books, denied their rights — but also what are the costs of this? Because I think the reason why this matters beyond just workers’ rights is the broader harm to individuals and companies. 

We found up to 2.1 million construction workers are estimated to be misclassified or paid off the books, which is nearly 20% of the construction workforce. I think the scale of it is pretty striking.

How does worker misclassification affect contractors that play by the rules?

It’s definitely an important question. I think, in construction like many other industries, labor costs are really a big line item in the budget. It’s a big cost for employers, and that’s obviously the reason why they are misclassifying workers or paying them off the books because it’s a cost-saving mechanism for them. But it’s also fraud.

One of the reasons why this is also harmful for other employers that aren’t doing this is a law-abiding employer is going to be less competitive than someone who’s able to cut their costs because they’re paying their workers off the books. They’re not paying for workers’ comp or overtime or unemployment insurance taxes; none of those other things that the law-abiding employers are paying for. So it also just undermines the ability to have a competitive market and a level playing field. 

Beyond the DOL rule change, what other policies should be reformed?

There’s a few different things. This is both a state and federal issue. A lot of states — such as California and New Jersey — have passed “ABC” tests that just make it really easy to identify who should be an employee and who isn’t an employee. And I think under any ABC test, we know that construction workers that are currently misclassified would count as employees. 

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So, I think that’s one effort that is happening at the state level that could theoretically happen at the federal level, although, in practice it’s unlikely that we’re going to see something like that anytime soon. 

States are also working on just expanding the pool of people that are held accountable for misclassifying by expanding things like joint employer liability, so that means that it’s not just the subcontractor that is misclassifying the worker that’s held accountable, but also the primary contractor. 

And then obviously enforcement is only as effective as the funding for those offices. So fully funding different agencies that are tasked with enforcement of these issues is important.

Joint liability isn’t the most popular policy. Do you think it would benefit both workers and companies?

Yeah, definitely. Obviously, from a worker perspective, it’s going to make sure that workers have more protections, right? Because part of the issue is that it’s really hard to figure out who is the person who hired this person, and therefore is responsible for the misclassification, for the fraud. 

I understand why a general contractor might be wary of that. But at the same time, as I said, curbing misclassification is going to level the playing field. This is just a practice that is so prevalent that it’s hard to not engage. That’s why it requires some of these maybe broader policy changes to address some of the problems that have become entrenched within the industry. 

What else do you want people to know about this issue?

We have talked about the cost, but I think it’s worth reemphasizing that misclassification costs workers directly in terms of losing access to their overtime pay or unemployment insurance. 

But there’s also these broader social costs: Costs to state governments, to our Social Security trust funds and our unemployment insurance trust funds that employers aren’t having to pay into when they are misclassifying workers. And so these are broader costs to taxpayers that we talk about in our report, that I think it’s really important to understand.