zoning

November 30, 2006

NORWALK — Wide tree-lined sidewalks, outdoor cafes, a theater, medical office, shops and restaurants, condominiums and townhouses, and parking on every block are part of local developer Stanley M. Seligson's latest vision for West Avenue.

On Wednesday night, a day after being named preferred developer for the West Avenue Corridor Redevelopment Plan, Seligson and his urban design consultant presented their new conceptual plan to the West Norwalk Neighborhood Association during an outreach meeting at Norwalk Community College.

Gone from the plan, following roughly four-dozen public meetings over as many years, are super blocks, super stores and super-sized parking garages.

"It's really about two things: The great front door of West Avenue and this collection of smaller streets ... with 20-foot-wide sidewalks, mature trees from day one, and nice little places for people to gather," said Richard E. Heapes, partner with Street-Works LLC, the White Plains-based design firm hired by Stanley M. Seligson Properties to put forward ways to implement the West Avenue Corridor plan.

For two decades, Seligson has sought to revitalize the area around his offices at 605 West Ave. As recently as 2004, an earlier conceptual plan, which included large parking garages and several large floor-plate retail spaces, met stiff opposition from members of various neighborhood organizations.

On Wednesday night, West Norwalk residents received his revamped plan.

"Having seen the evolution in your plan, I have to commend you. This is clearly a step in the right direction," David S. Davidson said.

West Avenue made into a boulevard, and a new north-south street running parallel to West Avenue and Academy Street, between both, mark the only major changes to existing street layout.

Shops, boutiques and restaurants would line the street level of the new street. Condominiums would rise up to five stories above. Academy and other periphery streets would become home to two- or three-story single-family townhouses. An anchor department store, some lifestyle retailers, such as a Barnes & Noble Booksellers, would occupy West Avenue, albeit not at street level.

Following the presentation, Seligson and Heapes invited comments and suggestions.

"How does this relate to the waterfront? We're putting absolutely no money in the waterfront," said George Dombakly. "Maybe there should be a railroad spur and there could be a ferry off the Norwalk Harbor."

If the Common Council accepts Seligson's conceptual plan, Seligson must work within the framework of the West Avenue Corridor Redevelopment Plan. Drafted by the Redevelopment Agency and approved by the council last June, it allows for up to 350 new residential units, 75,000 square feet of office space and 393,174 square feet of new retail space in the core area. Limited development would be permitted on the west side of West Avenue. The Harbor Avenue neighborhood would be preserved.

"The city said that should be a a neighborhood preservation area," Seligson said.

Richard Costello, another resident, asked about those already living or working in the area.

"What will be displaced? What is the economic demographics?" Costello asked.

The council, in naming Seligson the preferred developer Tuesday night, acknowledged that he owns roughly 70 percent of the land within the core redevelopment area.

Seligson, speaking Wednesday night, said he has purchased and is renting about 20 residential units in the plan area, and is seeking to purchase six to eight more units. Overall, 350 units will be created with 10 percent of those units set aside as workforce housing.

"It's my goal to offer replacement housing as best I can, and I think we will be successful," Seligson said. And "our plan is to relocate those businesses that want to be relocated. In a perfect world, I would hope there would be no eminent domain."

Louis and Violet Pernicka, who have lived in Norwalk for a half century, left the presentation pleased that West Avenue will be reshaped but fearful that they might not live to see it.

"I think it would be lovely and beautiful, but we'll not be here to see it," Violet Pernicka said.

Louis Pernicka described the West Avenue neighborhood as dying and in need of a change. His only concern, he said, is that Seligson is "proposing ... an awful lot to put in one area."

Under the council approval Tuesday night, Selgison has until March 16, 2007 to present the city an acceptable development team and conceptual plan. That failing, the city will seek other developers. By that time, the development team also will provide information about traffic, parking and financing, Heapes said.

Wednesday night's presentation, done at the invitation of the West Norwalk Neighborhood Association, marked the third such outreach meeting to neighborhood groups, according to Maribeth Becker, coordinator of the Coalition of Norwalk Neighborhood Associations.

Becker, while not at the presentation, has seen Seligson's new plan at two previous presentations. Although the coalition has taken a stance on the plan, she described it as an improvement.

"You could really see an improvement and a listening to the public," Becker said. The new plan "addresses a lot of the concerns."

Douglas T. Adams, vice president of development for Seligson, indicated that more public input is welcome.

"We're trying to educate (the public) and get back feedback," Adams said. "We want to come up with the best plan that reflects the extent of our community outreach."

On June 22 West Hartford voters decided by a two-to-one margin that the town could amend its agreement with the Blue Back Square developers, BBS LLC, and begin construction on the multi-use space downtown. The final vote was 11,861 in favor of the project and 5,007 against it.

It was the second townwide referendum over Blue Back Square. The first, held on October 12, 2004 had a similar outcome.

The groundbreaking for the project is set for August. High-profile commercial tenants like Crate and Barrel and Bow Tie Partners movie theaters have committed to the project. Upscale natural foods supermarket Whole Foods is set to open across the road. It was like election day on the West Hartford streets, and the pro-development forces outclassed the anti-development forces, at least in terms of the way they ran their campaign.

Sometime around 1:30 on June 22, I started to notice the small blue stickers people were wearing. The stickers read "Support West Hartford."

Obviously, the stickers had something to do with Blue Back Square. But were the sticker wearers opposed to the multi-use development, or in favor of it? It could really go either way. Then I saw Jackie Wammock and Mindy McCloskey holding "Vote Yes Blue Back Square" signs and wearing the stickers. Mystery solved. I asked if they had voted that day. They told me they hadn't and couldn't. Neither were West Hartford residents; both were from Atlanta and had professional connections to Blue Back. McCloskey and Wammock are the CFO and vice president, respectively, of Ronus, a commercial real estate development company that is one of the partners in the Blue Back Square project. They weren't residents or volunteers; they were doing their jobs.

"This is what we usually do," McCloskey said. "I mean working for Ronus, not carry[ing] around signs." They led me to the pro-Blue Back Square nerve center and introduced me to the people behind the campaign to bring Blue Back Square to West Hartford.

The headquarters -- located in a long, narrow room next to a bagel shop on Farmington Avenue in West Hartford Center -- had the hectic, urgent air of the last minutes of a political campaign. Spread across the room were eight folding tables covered with computer pages printed with the names and phone numbers of West Hartford voters.

Several staff members hovered over the sheets with highlighter markers. The information on the pages was color-coded, indicating what seemed to be each area's Blue Back Square voting history, and whether residents had voted that day. Staffers manned telephones and called West Hartford residents who hadn't yet gone to the polls.

"It's all about getting out the vote," Blue Back Square designer Richard Heapes said. "We believe that if we have a substantial turnout, we win. Apathy is the only way we lose." Initially, Heapes said that all the people present were volunteers, aside from he and his immediate staff.

When I told him that Wammock and McCloskey had both admitted to being professionally affiliated, he said they needed "all hands on deck."

In the front part of the office, a small table offered stickers and literature -- such as photo-copied articles from the Courant and the Advocate.
The Blue Back Square developers sent people to the 20 different voting locations to have a real-time count of the vote. Ainsly Karl, a young woman in an aqua blue Juicy Couture-style sweatsuit sat among the poll workers at Hall High School on North Main Street. She told me she was hired by the developers to record the names of the voters as they said them out loud to the poll workers. Periodically, other workers from the pro-development team would stop by and pick up the names from Karl.

Speaking later, David Jones of the Blue Back Square advocacy group YES for West Hartford downplayed the significance of the developers' professional get-out-the-vote effort. He said the decisive matter in the overwhelming support for the project was a shift in perception among West Hartford voters.

"The first referendum vote was 60/40, and the second was 70/30," Jones said. "Many people who originally voted 'no' voted 'yes' this time because they were upset with the people who couldn't accept the vote of the first referendum." Despite the outcome last week, Jones says he is girded for a continued fight from opponents.

"Unfortunately, the opposition seems unwilling to accept the vote of the West Hartford people," he said. Blue Back Square's opponents didn't have the same high-level operation or street presence as the development camp.

"We didn't have a lot of money," said Joseph Visconti, one the leaders of Save the Center, the major critic of the plan. "We spent about six grand, which is nothing, especially compared to what the developers spent." As a result, some feel they weren't able to get their message across.

"A lot of people were confused," Visconti said. "They didn't know what the vote was about."

The Save the Center money went into buying an ad in the Courant's Connecticut section the week before the vote, and the creation and distribution of a five-page pamphlet. The pamphlet is a fake newspaper called "Spotlight," which features various complaints about Blue Back and some accusations flung at town officials.

The flyer includes allegations about the past conduct of West Hartford Town Manager Barry Feldman. Feldman was town manager of Portsmouth, Ohio until 1981. The pamphlet reprints a list of complaints about Feldman that originally appeared in Ohio newspaper the Portsmouth Daily Times , which include failure to comply with the city charter and withholding valuable information. The pamphlet suggests that the town manager has similarly failed in his duties in West Hartford as he did in Ohio.

According to Visconti, a group of about 40 volunteers distributed about 15,000 of the flyers, which cost $4,300 to print. Visconti said the campaign crippled his personal finances (according to court documents, Citibank is suing Visconti for $8,425.18. He claims the debt was incurred in the course of the anti-Blue Back campaign.).

While Save the Center has accepted funding from Taubman Center, the owners of Westfarms Mall and a sworn enemy of Blue Back, Visconti said that Taubman had no involvement with Save the Center's campaign during the June referendum, and he bristled at the suggestion that his group was a proxy for Westfarms Mall.

"Our group became active in 2003," Visconti said. "It wasn't until 2004 that we found out about the mall."

Taubman Centers, based in Michigan, owns Westfarms Mall, as well as a host of shopping centers across the nation. They have routinely used court action in attempts to stall or sabotage emerging competition. The practice has been called "a death by 1,000 appeals." Recently, Taubman centers brought in attorney Neil T. Proto -- described by the Courant as a consummate "mallbuster" -- to shut down Blue Black Square. Reportedly, Taubman has no plans to drop several lawsuits that are pending to stop Blue Back.

When I spoke with Visconti after the referendum vote he was still on fire about corruption and conflicts of interest in the West Hartford government. He regretted that he couldn't compete with the developers' efforts.

"In the beginning, we were painted as John Denvers who didn't want development. But that's not who we were," he said. Now, the Save the Center group will disband, he said, in the wake of the referendum. He said that while individuals may still act against Blue Back Square, the group was finished.

While Board of Selectmen hopefuls do battle at a League of Women Voters of Greenwich debate Wednesday night at Cos Cob School, the real fireworks could be at Town Hall, as North Mianus homeowners protest their tab for a sewer project in their neighborhood.

Some of the 300 property owners who received special pumps from the town as part of a project to connect their homes to the municipal sewer system will demand tax relief from the Condemnation Commission, the town agency responsible for apportioning sewer project costs. Recipients of the grinder pumps, which homeowners must pay to have installed and come with warnings about blockages, odors and potential overflows in case of a power loss, say the town has created a hardship for those who need them to connect to the sewer system.

But Condemnation Commission Chairman Robert Tuthill doesn't see it that way.

"We made a decision that there's not going to be something given to people who have pumps," Tuthill said. "We gave a lot of thought to this and the thinking was, generally, it was going to save people money if they had a pump." A substitute for sewer connections that use gravity, the pumps were mostly chosen for properties below street level, where major sewer mains run. About 425 homes in the neighborhood will not require pumps.

Town officials say they chose the grinder pumps to help control the costs of the $19 million sewer project, which was complicated by thick rock outcroppings. Divided equally, the average cost per home would be about $26,000 for the project, but such factors as the amount of street frontage of a property have generally been used in the past in reckoning the final tab.

While the town has agreed to pay for and maintain the pumps, property owners complained that they were never told by town officials that the eyesore pumps protrude above ground and require special care. Measuring about 8 feet in height and 30 inches in diameter, the pumps hold about 70 gallons of waste. But, as several homeowners noted, the pumps run on electricity and come with warnings of potential backups during power outages. Each pump also comes with a high-water alarm, which is designed to alert homeowners of a power loss.

"To me, I think we're getting screwed here," said Albert Nowinski, who spent about $6,000 to have one of the pumps installed in his River Road backyard over the summer. In addition to concerns over its appearance and upkeep, Nowinski complained that the new pump has increased his electric bill and produced foul odors.

"Every once in a while when the wind's right, you get the smell," Nowinski said. "Three years ago, when they had (a) meeting (about the project), they said nothing about above ground or the smell. To me, it's not first-class." Nowinski is one of several homeowners to sign a neighborhood petition seeking a tax rebate for the pumps. Mianus Valley Association President Sam Romeo plans to present the petition to the Condemnation Commission during its 7 p.m. meeting Wednesday in the Chimblo meeting room at Town Hall despite Tuthill's recent comments.

"If they want to take the arrogant stance on that one, fine," said Romeo, who received a gravity connection for his property. "There's always the court system, and the town has a good track record of losing lawsuits." Town officials say the pumps, which also are in use in Milbrook, do not have a history of problems and require a similar level of care as a septic system.

"These things are supposed to be easy to operate," First Selectman Jim Lash said. Tuthill, meanwhile, noted that the commission did not differentiate between homeowners who received grind pumps and those with gravity connections in apportioning the Milbrook project's costs.

"Now pumps are not beautiful and we realize that. (But) in a few years, generally speaking, we believe people can screen these," he said. Tuthill also said that the town gave each homeowner who needed a grinder pump a $1,000 stipend to help with installation and set aside additional money for more complicated installations.

"It's possible that we can reconsider North Mianus, but I don't think we will," Tuthill said.