Illegal Junkyard Shut Down

Russell Street family now has a legal, and a physical, mess to clean up if it wants to hold onto its property.

The operation took place at a 21.5 acre polluted property at 201 Russell St.

Representatives of the NHPD, NHFD, city Building Department, state Department of Motor Vehicles, and state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) participated in the operation along with members of New Haven’s police and fire departments and building department.

A junkyard operated there in the 1980s until the state shut it down. The city began hearing complaints recently from neighbors that the owners had started it back up, and discovered unregistered cars were being stored and repaired there, according to city Building Official Jim Turcio. A landscaper was also using the property unaware that that violated the law, Turcio said.

The fire department sent up a cleaning and decontamination station for vehicles on the site. Owners were allowed to remove their vehicles afterwards. The vast majority of vehicles that remain will be towed away probably starting Friday, Turcio said.

Over 150 vehicles were found stored on the property.

Police issued the owners a misdemeanor summons for illegal operation of a junkyard and repair lot.

At the site Tuesday, Jesse Fitzmaurice said his father had inherited the property in 1987 from his grandfather, and the state ordered a clean-up of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

Jesse said he scoped out the property this summer while trimming down trees and decided to use his father’s property to run a business.

Jesse had a repair company called Fitzed Up Complete Auto Group, LLC, and rented out two garages in Hamden and Wallingford. He said that it was too much money keeping up with the rent.

“So we didn’t see why we shouldn’t just start working out of here. I had to drag my dad down here,” Jesse said. ​“And say, ​‘Hey, we’ve got this property, it belongs to us, and the city can’t tell us that we can’t come down here.’ The city can tell us to do the cleanup, but we are still allowed to come in and out in order to make that cleanup happen.”

NHPD and NHFD workers cleaned tires of PCBs and other toxic contaminants. Officials arrived after making several warnings for the past month to speed up the process.

“Unregistered vehicles, even on a perfect lot, you got to get a ticket for it,” Jesse Fitzmaurice said. ​“We have to figure out what we’re going to do. Either get out all of the cars that don’t have plates on them out or put plates on them.”

Fitzmaurice, 25, said that the tests for the soil for contaminants due to oils leaking into the dirt are expensive, and he doesn’t have the time to conduct. He said the tests cost $110 apiece and need to be run every 10 feet.

“They say we’re running a junkyard in certain spots of the property because there’s cars that are all beat up and stuff,” Fitzmaurice said. ​“We were just renting parking spaces. They say we’re repairing things without a license too.”

Fitzmaurice is charged of committing four misdemeanors, including operating unregistered vehicles, operating an unlicensed facility (junkyard), and making unlicensed repairs. He has a court date scheduled in two weeks. He said after today, he plans on staying in close contact with building officials to possibly get permits to build and work out of one brick and one metal building garage in the lot.

“We fix cars, trucks, and equipment. We’ve just got to get the permits to actually build a parking lot because we did a lot of stuff without asking anybody,” Jesse said. ​“Because we didn’t have it zoned and tested yet, they look at the whole property as dirty.”

Jim Fitzmaurice said when his grandfather tried to sell the area in 1987, a city official at the time decided to have the property tested and told his grandfather that it would cost $9 million dollars to clean up the contamination. His grandfather decided to sit on it but died nine years later, when Jim Fitzmaurice and his three other cousins inherited the property. He said Tuesday the city is doing their due diligence but eventually he wants to take back the property. He has a hefty back taxes bill, around $700,000, to negotiate first, though.

“They keep talking about foreclosure because of the back taxes,” Jim said. ​“Now they’re willing to talk for a bargain, like if it’s $300,000 then we’ll just call it a break. Granted, I know that the property is contaminated, but my grandfather ran for this place for so many years while they knew it was contaminated and nobody said anything.”

Jim has been living in a trailer in the lot for several months but said he wasn’t a part of the unauthorized repairs and sales operation.

“This literally snowballed. I’m all right with the cars being removed. I want the area cleaned and just don’t want to have to deal with this,” Jim said. ​“If I can get over this hurdle, the only thing that my son came up with to do next is to rent storage containers. No cars. Just stuff. There’s money in that.”

Jim and Jesse said they know that reports were made by neighbors. A neighbor named Alex (who didn’t want to disclose his last name) said that he made one report. He has been living in the area for two yearse. Alex said that he made the report due to an excessive amount of ​“random” and ​“unknown” vehicles showing up. He said that he found it alarming to hear screaming and random people walking throughout the area.

“There was a sign clearly stated there that it was closed off because of pollution and contamination,” Jesse said. ​“It’s been awhile that they’ve started to allow these cars to come in. Especially at random times of the night. Sometimes it’s two or three in the morning and random cars show up. It’s concerning in a quiet neighborhood like this.”