Nora Grace-Flood photo
Assistant Town Planner Matthew Davis reviews the ELUR on Tuesday night.
Hamden’s Planning and Zoning Commission Tuesday evening voted in favor of adopting a series of land-use restrictions for the town’s abandoned middle school.
That news comes 20 years after the town, Olin Corporation, and the State Board of Education first entered into a consent order with the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) to investigate and remediate contaminated soil underlying the old middle school property at 560 Newhall St. as well as Rochford Field, Villano Park, and surrounding residential properties. The Regional Water Authority was responsible for carrying out the remediation of the middle school site. (Read more about that ongoing process here.)
Completion of an ELUR (Environmental Land Use Restriction) was a requirement before building can take place on the vacant property. The unexpected length of time involved in remediation was the primary reason that plans to build on the site have been long delayed. The current contracted developer, a nonprofit affordable housing organization known as Neighborworks New Horizons, postponed their plan to put nearly 100 apartments on the site. (Read more about Neighborworks’ controversial project here.)
Tuesday night’s vote moves along the process to enable building to begin.
Map illustrating the land use restrictions placed on the site.
The commission’s vote means that its members determined a proposed response to the remediation does not contradict the town’s comprehensive plan of conservation and development (POCD), and that the proposed restrictions are necessary to protect people from potential harm due to pollutants.
The site restrictions plan breaks the middle school site into four areas. Section A includes the unpaved land in front of and behind the school, which contain PCBs, volatile and semi-volatile compounds and heavy metals. That ground has been covered by four feet of clean soil, but developers can disturb that soil up to three inches for the purpose of landscaping and utility repairs.
Neighborworks’ original development plan for the site, which the organization so far believes to be in line with the ELUR.
The paved surfaces on site (section B) cover petroleum hydrocarbons and metals two feet below the ground surface. Those areas, including the looped driveway in front of the building, must be capped at all times with bituminous concrete or at least three inches of asphalt. Neighborworks plans to expand the paved areas to create a parking lot and bus drop off station which would be leased back to the town.
The ELUR technically prohibits demolition of the two existing buildings on site (section C) — the middle school itself and a gymnasium next to it — without an additional review by DEEP of a given site plan to ensure that altering the foundation of the buildings would not expose contaminants. Neighborworks’ Director of Real Estate Development, Aaron Hoffman, told the Independent that the nonprofit has already had a conference with DEEP officials, who said that taking down the old gymnasium to create a new community center in its place, as the organization intends to do, would not be a problem.
The final section includes an additional three acres around the borders of the property where no construction can occur due to presence of volatile organic compounds and vinyl chloride in the groundwater. That portion of the property will remain under town ownership. Acting Town Planner Erik Johnson has suggested constructing athletic fields on section D.
The ELUR also states that the town will be responsible for monitoring the status of pavement on the property, and ensuring that any cracks that could possibly expose people to underlying contaminants are filled within four months of identification.
The town has also budgeted to pay consultants to perform regular soil checks to ensure that four feet of clean soil is always covering the pollutants. (Read about that inspection plan in more detail here.) If and when the town sells the property to another developer, such as Neighborworks, the developer will assume the responsibility to monitor the soil.
It will be up to Legislative Council representatives to officially adopt (or not) the environmental land use restrictions in a vote planned for Oct. 18. The P&Z commission’s vote is an “affirmative recommendation” to the council, which means the council will only need a bare majority to pass the land use restrictions rather than a super majority vote.
The completion and progression of the remediation and its accompanying environmental restrictions represents the validation of new information that will help determine how the town decides to ultimately use the still empty land.