CT Construction Digest Wednesday March 29, 2023
DOT Budget Hearing Shows Bipartisan Infrastructure Support
The initial congressional hearing on President Joe Biden’s 2024 budget proposal for the US Dept. of Transportation showed evidence of continued strong bipartisan support for infrastructure, though the parties differed on the specifics. [View a video of hearing here.]
Also at the March 23 Senate transportation appropriations subcommittee hearing, panel chair Brian Schatz (D- Hawaii), warned about the severe harm that could hit transportation if House Republicans’ reported interest in rolling back domestic discretionary spending to 2022 levels become a reality.
“Now is not the time to slash critical investments if we want to sustain the progress we’ve made in investing in our infrastructure.” Schatz said, praising Biden’s proposal. “Instead we need to build on that success.”
Committee members quizzed DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the sole witness at the hearing, about recent front-page transportation issues, including the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment and other rail accidents, as well as airline runway incursions and the March 22 construction work zone accident on the Baltimore Beltway that killed six construction workers.
But infrastructure was a prominent recurring theme during the hearing.
Two key committee Republicans criticized what they termed the administration's proposal to "zero out" in 2024 two prominent DOT infrastructure accounts, the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity, or RAISE, discretionary grants and Federal Highway Administration bridge funding distributed among the states by formula.
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (Miss.), the ranking GOP member of the subcommittee, said, "Each of these programs have been very crucial for rural communities, especially in states like Mississippi.”
Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), the top Republican on the full Appropriations Committee, agreed. She said that the funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) “was intended to be supplemental, It was not intended to supplant the regular appropriations.”
Jeff Davis, senior fellow at the ENO Center for Transportation, provided more details on Twitter, saying that the budget request would call for eliminating "extra" bridge formula funding that draws in the General Fund. adding that the proposal would eliminate non-IIJA appropriations for RAISE.
Collins also said the Biden administration “has been very quick to laud the bipartisan infrastructure program, to take credit for its role in shaping it, but now it’s submitted a budget that dilutes its impact.”
Buttigieg acknowledged the popularity and effectiveness of the RAISE program.
“It’s of course challenging in any budget to make sure that the 'top line' conforms with the President's and the public's and the Congress's expectations about fiscal responsibility," he said. "We sought to strike that balance in the right way, ensuring that there are additional funds for projects, including discretionary programs that we know are very sought-after across the country."
STAMFORD — After more than eight years of groundwork, plans for a major residential development along the Rippowam River in downtown Stamford received approval Monday night from the city's Zoning Board.
Board members voted 4-0 to approve the development with one member absent. The development will create 471 new apartments in two seven-story residential buildings — one on each side of Clinton Avenue, between Division Street and Richmond Hill Avenue. The building on the road's east side will have 176 homes, while the larger, riverside structure will feature 295 dwellings.
The Zoning Board's decision culminated a process that began almost a decade ago, when the Royal Bank of Scotland consolidated properties in hopes of creating a large site to attract residential developers.
In 2016, city officials approved a general plan for the development. They also agreed to a land swap with RBS to acquire parcels abutting the river, where they hope to build a riverside walking path connecting Scalzi Park to Kosciuszko Park — a central facet of long-term plans to expand Mill River Park.
That portion of riverwalk has yet to be constructed, though. The applicant, New York developer Carmel Partners, said they would build it out in a letter of intent sent to city officials Jan. 24.
The developer requested $1.6 million from Stamford for "designing, permitting and/or constructing" the riverwalk, according to the letter.
"It's an enhancement for the project, too. It's a beautiful amenity for their tenants. So, that's why it is that they want to take it on. They want to achieve this for the city because the fear is that if they don't take it on, we don't know when it'll happen," said the developer's attorney Lisa Feinberg. "It was supposed to already be completed. The city is in default today."
Board members sought further assurance from Feinberg that Carmel Partners would follow through with the improvements but eventually decided to take them at their word.
"The best we can do is hope that the applicant and the city get it together," Zoning Board Chair David Stein said. "I guess they've got to work out an agreement that implements the letter of intent."
About 10 percent of the apartments will be permanently deed-restricted at below-market-rate rents. Officials deliberated increasing the percentage, but Feinberg noted that the general development plan, approved in 2016, specified the figure. Of the 49 on-site affordable apartments, five will be studios, 23 will have one bedroom and 21 will include two bedrooms. Forty-seven apartments will be rented out at 50 percent of the area's median income, while one will be leased at 65 percent and the other at 25 percent.
Both buildings will have parking garages within them. In total, there will be 453 parking spots — 13 of them will be for shared vehicles and at least 37 will be electric vehicle charging spots. An additional 37 spots will be reserved for electric vehicles not being charged.
A total of 108 bicycle parking spots will also be built.
The project was approved with a number of site-specific conditions, which are subject to approval either by the Zoning Board or by the city's Land Use Bureau staff. Among those are an affordability plan for maintaining the below-market-rate apartments, a parking management plan and a fee-in-lieu payment of $41,750 to the city for street trees that the developer will not be able to plant because of utility placement, among other specifications.
Additionally, if fewer than 20 percent of the building's tenants regularly use transportation that's not a single-occupied vehicle in a year, the property owner must submit a plan to the city's Land Use Bureau and Transportation, Traffic & Parking Bureau demonstrating how they will increase that share.
Four people spoke during a public hearing portion earlier in the meeting. Two speakers, Susan Pace and Susan Bell, expressed concerns about the development's impact on traffic on Interstate 95 and the safety of bikers from the apartments crossing nearby North State Street while riding south.
Feinberg said proximity to the train station is important in order to "fight traffic."
"Our transportation department is working really hard to create this multi-mode transportation system so that not everyone is in a car. We want people on bikes, we want people walking and we want them to be safe, so I know that the administration is incredibly focused on that at this time and investing a lot of money in ensuring that's safe. But just because things aren't perfect right now doesn't mean that we want to tell people 'Stay in your cars and clog up the roads.'"
Judge refuses to reconsider probation for Fairfield dumping defendants
During a hearing Tuesday afternoon, the lawyer for Brian Carey, former Fairfield interim public works director and conservation director, argued that a newly obtained report disputes the dangers of the contaminants used to build a berm around the town’s public works property.
“I believe the court may have been under some misconceptions when you denied accelerated rehabilitation for my client,” Carey’s lawyer, John R. Gulash, argued.
Carey and Scott Bartlett, former public works superintendent, are awaiting trial next month accused of allowing contaminated soil dredged from Owen Fish Pond to be used to build the berm and then trying to cover up that fact.
More than 40 truckloads of debris and dirt were removed from the Stratfield Road pond during a three-week period in 2018.
The newly obtained report, done by the Yale School of Medicine in July 2020, refutes findings in later arrest warrant affidavits that Fairfield town employees were put at risk, handling contaminated material they were assured was safe.
Superior Court Judge Kevin Russo acknowledged he previously made his decision to deny accelerated rehabilitation, a pretrial diversionary program, to the defendants based on the claims in the warrant affidavits that town workers were put at risk. He said the Yale report does not change his decision though.
Holding up a copy of the report, the judge agreed with prosecutors Tamberlyn Chapman and C. Robert Satti Jr. that it would take a trial to determine the accuracy of the Yale report with witnesses and experts testifying on both sides. Something the judge said he is not prepared to do.
In denying the motion, the judge warned lawyers for other defendants in the case not to seek a similar reconsideration based on the Yale report.
Bartlett’s lawyer, Frederick Paoletti Jr., subsequently withdrew his motion for reconsideration without comment.
For the second trial, Carey, Bartlett, Emmet Hibson, the town’s former human resources director and Robert Mayer, Fairfield’s former chief fiscal officer, and developer Jason Julian are charged with multiple counts of illegally disposing of hazardous waste and conspiring to cover up their actions.
In addition, Bartlett is accused of accepting bribes from Julian to allow him to dump contaminated soil on town property. Bartlett is charged in a separate case with larceny for allegedly stealing more than $30,000 from a disabled woman.
Mayer, is also charged with burglary, larceny and forgery charges in connection with the alleged dumping conspiracy.
Robert Grabarek, owner of Osprey Environmental Engineering in Clinton is also awaiting trial in the case as part of the alleged coverup.
Joseph Michelangelo, Fairfield’s former public works director, previously pleaded guilty to the illegal disposal of PCPs, multiple counts of receiving solid waste at an unpermitted facility, disposal of asbestos without a permit, making false representations and conspiracy. He is expected to be a key witness for the prosecution.
Town Council hears pitch for one Wallingford high school, parents object
Kate Ramunni
WALLINGFORD — The Board of Education made its pitch for closing both Mark T. Sheehan and Lyman Hall high schools in favor of a new, state-of-the-art high school on the Lyman Hall campus during a marathon Town Council meeting that lasted more than five hours
The board cited declining enrollment at both schools in choosing to consolidate the high schools.
But many parents and students don’t agree that decision. Several dozen gathered in front of Town Hall shortly before the 6:30 p.m. meeting began, bearing signs and stories in many cases about how attending a smaller high school benefited them, and how they want that same experience for their children.
“This would have broad permanent negative effects,” said Melanie Rossacci, an administrator of the Facebook group Wallingford Residents Opposed to One High School.
Students do better in smaller classes at the two high schools than they would in one larger high school, she said. Current classes number 17-21 students, while she said they are estimated to rise to 24 students per class at a consolidated school.
“Please carefully consider why school size matters, especially post-pandemic,” she said. Students are less likely to drop out and more likely to continue their education at a smaller high school, she said.
There had been talk of housing a preschool at Sheehan, she said, but that proposal quickly disappeared. That would use room at that school, she said.
"Having two smaller high schools in town is a gift," she said. "Please let us keep that gift."
Edgewood Drive resident Marsha Birkin said she bought her house in 2010, just before the Board of Education reconfigured the elementary schools. Had she known that was going to happen, she might not have bought the house, she said, and now she's against this proposal.
"There are definitely things you can do other than consolidate," she said.
Allison Weisburger said her Pond Hill Road home abuts the Lyman Hall campus. "We love having Lyman Hall in our backyard," she said, and being able to hear the activities going on there. But if a new school is built there, the blueprints show that the auditorium would be six feet from their property line. "It would look right into our bathroom," she said.
As a nurse working a late shift at Gaylord Hospital, she would definitely have trouble sleeping during the day with the building that close, she said.
"I don't want the school on top of my property," she said.
Tim Brzezinski is a teacher at Engineering and Science University Magnet School in New Haven. He's taught in small schools and schools with as many as 5,000 students, he said, and he thinks the smaller schools are better.
"We already have what is best," he said.
Council uncertainty
After about an hour and a half of public comment, council members had their turn questioning school officials. It became clear that councilors weren’t sure what was being asked of them — whether the board wanted the council to vote on consolidating the schools.
Several council members said they weren't ready to do that. Councilor Christina Tatta made a motion to instruct the board not to pursue the consolidation, saying it was clear what residents want, but other council members weren't willing to do that either.
Board of Education Chair Tammy Raccio said what they wanted was the funding to take the next step in determining if building a new, larger school on the Lyman Hall campus was even feasible, but the council also declined to do that.
Several on the council said they have a problem with the location and think if they were to consolidate, a more central location is needed.
While the school officials said they could find no suitable alternative location, Councilor Vincent Testa said he had an idea where the school could go, though he said he did not want to reveal that location until he can get more information. He asked for an item to be added to a future agenda for a discussion on alternative locations.
The school board has been working on finding solutions to facility issues for years. While the middle school buildings are in worse shape than the high school buildings, the board decided to take on the high schools first, Raccio said.
In 2018 the board commissioned a study that projected that over the next 10 years, Lyman Hall enrollment would drop 19% and Sheehan decline by 23%. Both buildings had space limitations that would limit program expansion, the study found, and maintenance at both would need more investment over that time frame.
A survey done at the time, to which 2,294 responded, found that 44% of residents preferred to renovate the town’s two middle schools and two high schools at a cost of $78 million. Thirty-five percent of respondents favored renovating the middle schools and consolidating the high schools, at a cost of $120 million, and 21% preferred a three-year maintenance plan at a cost of $19 million. Because that survey was conducted five years ago, those estimates in today’s dollars would be higher.
Last year, the board undertook a facilities master planning study that reported a 1.64% decline in the town’s population between 2010 and 2020, while the state population grew by 0.27%.
Between 2012 and 2022, enrollment declined by 964 students, of which 350 were high school students, and is projected to go down another 93 students between October 2022 and October 2023, according to the study.
Lyman Hall was built in 1957. The 199,002 square foot building houses 936 students. At 217,035 square feet, Sheehan is slightly larger and it’s also newer, having been built in 1971. Its enrollment is 734 students.
The study estimates it would cost $104,474,612 to renovate Lyman Hall as new, and $113,944,813 to renovate Sheehan as new. With state reimbursement, the projects would cost Wallingford taxpayers $48,873,223 and $74,867,476 respectively.
The study could not identify an appropriately sized (defined as 20 acres plus one acre per 100 students) central site for a new high school.
If a new school were to be built on the Lyman Hall campus, the current building could continue to be used during construction, as could the site’s regional Agricultural Science and Technology Education Center, one of 19 in the state.
Eight other area districts send students to the center, at a cost of $6,823 per student. The town also receives a yearly $1,463,752 state grant. Should the center be closed, it would void an agreement with the state to operate at least through 2030 and would result in the town having to reimburse the state for its partial costs.
The Lyman Hall site would have space for athletics, parking and parent and bus drop-off areas, the study found. The site also allows for building outside of wetlands and the ability to adhere to setbacks.
Ten-year enrollment projections for high school students range from between 1,315 students to 1,562 students between the 2022-23 and 2031-32 school years, with the higher enrollments occurring earlier in the decade and declining.
A consolidated high school would be 298,000 square feet. The board cites expanding career pathways open to all high school students, increased course offerings, including electives and expanded extra-curricular activities, as advantages to a consolidated school.
“We would be able to expand our freshman (sports) teams,” Superintendent Danielle Bellizzi said. They also would be able to add clubs, service programs, and expand theater programs and jazz band, she said.
Academic offerings also could expand, she said.
“With both high schools, there isn’t as much opportunity to offer all courses,” Bellizzi said. “In one high school, we would be able to offer additional courses.”
An additional three school buses would be needed, according to the study.
The study also included estimates to renovate the current police station to be used for central offices, adult education and its Transition Academy, which would cost about $6.3 million.
The study also looked at the possibility of moving those uses to Sheehan if that school were to close.
Should the consolidation proposal be approved, the new school would open in the fall of 2028.
Norwich Public Utilities proposes $107.8 million budget
Claire Bessette
Norwich ― Norwich Public Utilities presented a $107.8 million proposed 2023-24 budget Tuesday that is being impacted by the cost of energy and major capital projects, and supply chain problems.
NPU administrators presented the budget to the Board of Public Utilities Commissioners. The board will vote on the budget in April or May. The $107.8 million budget, with a $6.6 million, 6.5% increase over this year’s budget, covers all four of NPU’s services _ electric, natural gas, water and sewer.
Rate changes are not in the budget. NPU General Manager Chris LaRose said proposed rates for the next three years will be presented in July, with public hearings in the fall with new rates to take effect in November.
The proposed budget includes a sharp increase in electric division expenses, by far the largest division, small increases in water and sewer budgets and an anticipated decrease in the natural gas budget.
The $66.5 million electric budget includes an $8.5 million increase in the cost of purchased wholesale power, but LaRose said electricity costs are starting to come down from recent spikes.
NPU purchases wholesale electricity through the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative. NPU receives a share of CMEEC revenues to use for rate stabilization. NPU will use $977,000 in rate stabilization money to cut purchased power costs, $832,000 less than it used last year from the fund.
Wholesale natural gas prices are budgeted to drop by $1.8 million. The total gas budget of $20.7 million is down by $2.5 million from this year. The water division budget of $11.2 million has a $180,546 increase over this year, and the sewer budget is up by $189,131 over this year to a total of $9.28 million.
In a sign that the utility has recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, NPU will turn over $9.1 million in revenue sharing to the city, an increase of $536,105 from this year. By charter, NPU must return at least 10% of gross revenue from electric, water and natural gas divisions to the city. For the past two years, the contribution had dropped to about $8.5 million from the $9 million in 2019-20.
NPU also helps fund city economic development efforts with an annual allocation to the Norwich Community Development Corp. and funding to specific projects. For years, NPU provided $150,000 per year to NCDC, but raised it to $225,000 this year.
NPU created a new formula to calculate a portion of revenues to economic development. NCDC will receive $246,067 next year, representing 37.5% of the total $656,179 economic development budget.
NCDC President Kevin Brown welcomed the increased funding. Brown said NCDC requested additional city and NPU funding to write grant applications and to market the city.
In her budget presentation, Laura Huren, NPU financial planning manager, highlighted significant capital projects, topped by $31 million to start construction on the $160 million overhaul of the sewage treatment plant. Construction bids are due in April. NPU continues to pursue state and federal grants to reduce costs to local ratepayers.
NPU officials provided several examples of how inflation and supply chain issues continue to plague daily operations and major projects. A single transformer that cost about $2,500 a few years ago and arrived within 10 to 12 weeks now costs $10,000 and takes 72 weeks to be delivered.
Equipment mounts for utility poles now take a year to receive and have risen in price by 200% to 300%. Chemicals for treating drinking water and sewage have skyrocketed, including a 125% jump in chlorine prices, officials said.