Chimento poo-poos concerns about sewage from The SoNo Collection

NORWALK, Conn. – Sewage should be on the lips of every Norwalk zoning commissioner, Diane Lauricella said recently.

Lauricella’s worries about sewage from the mall, which have since been refuted by Department of Public Works Director Bruce Chimento, were on the laundry list of concerns Coalition of Norwalk Neighborhood Association (CNNA) members expressed Monday about the city’s approach to General Growth Partners developing “SoNo Collection” proposal for the 95/7 site. That includes the idea that people really need to weigh in where possible, like at Thursday’s Common Council Planning Committee meeting, where public comment is accepted.

“It’s important to get these issues raised now and in the public sphere of discussion, because once they ink the agreements even if we were promised that they were going to pay for the extra (wastewater treatment plant) capacity, if the agreement that gets signed at the end of this process does not include that, it’s not going to happen,” Deb Goldstein said. “Just like the shuttle service we are supposed to be getting from the mall has now turned into a lump sum payment up front.”

If you attend the committee meeting, scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Oct. 1 (today!) in City Hall room 231, beware – public speaking is at the end of the meeting and popcorn is not allowed.

You might ask about that lump sum payment for the circulator, which was much talked about early this year. GGP would pay a one-time $550,000 contribution for the “circulator,” described as a trolley in some conversations and in the business terms defined in the proposed Land Disposition Agreement.

The LDA is not on the agenda for Thursday’s meeting, just the design parameters for the project. But Council members have been lenient when dealing with the public on the mall.

CNNA members didn’t spend much time on the circulator issue.

“Well, it’s unsustainable,” Diane Cece said, breezily assigning a motivation to GGP’s lack of a long-term commitment to running a trolley.

The sewage issue was much more interesting, and that led to the skepticism that the city will actually collect all of the fees GGP could be assessed for increased volume.

Adolph Neaderland brought up sewage at the last Joint Committee meeting about the mall, saying that he had heard that the wastewater treatment plant runs at an average 75 percent of its 18 million gallon capacity. That’s an average – gives you the idea that the plant is sometimes overloaded, he said.

Adding a mall to the mix, along with the suddenly burgeoning supply of new apartments, could overload the plant, he said.

Lauricella said Monday that she goes way back with Neaderland and has been doing some homework with him on the issue. The city should be asking how many gallons of sewage are expected from every development proposal, she said.

“That should be on the lips of every zoning commissioner. It should be on the lips of every Planning Committee Common Council member, every elected official, every land use appointed official. That is a valid question,” Lauricella said.

Cece applied her skepticism to a comment made by Councilman Bruce Kimmel (D-At Large) after the last hearing.

“Since the public hearing, I made some inquiries on the sewage issue that was raised at the public hearing,” Kimmel wrote in a comment on NancyOnNorwalk. “GGP has been in discussions with DPW officials on the mall’s impact on the waste water treatment plant. Any additional costs to the treatment plant will be covered by GGP.”

“When they come back and they say the developer is going to pay for all of the incremental costs of increasing capacity, we need the definition of what the definition of ‘is’ is or something,” Cece said.

“Where is the proof?” Lauricella said.

Then there’s the issue of the sewer fee for the initial hookup, Cece said.

“A lot of times when these developers come in they just don’t have the political courage to say no, so they can file an application to waive the fees,” Cece said.

If you give that away as an economic development incentive to the mall you have less money for other needs, Goldstein said.

Of course, Cece said.

“I would be shocked if they don’t ask for a waiver because, first of all, why wouldn’t you ask for a waiver if the law allows you to ask to ask for a waiver?” Cece said.

“GGP is aggressive in challenging tax assessments; there is no reason why they wouldn’t go after every other fee,” Goldstein said.

Important to get that out now, Goldstein said.

“The one point I want to make about sewage, because as you know I love talking about sewage and trash, that’s my business,” Lauricella said. “We have to understand also that previous developments, including the big boxes along Connecticut Avenue, they didn’t ask the question.”

The inability of Norwalk’s wastewater plant to deal with Norwalk’s sewage prompted a secret crisis back in the 1980s, former Common Council President Ed Lyons said in January. There was a building moratorium and a $38 million upgrade to the plant, said Mike Lyons, his brother.

Everyone who lives on the Norwalk River would have to deal with the stink if the sewage treatment plant is overloaded and raw sewage is dumped, Goldstein said Monday.

Chimento said GGP’s estimates aren’t in, but he’s confident an overload won’t happen because of the mall.

“The treatment plant can handle a little more than up to 18 million gallons a day. We handle now about 13 million gallons a day. Just in pure numbers, that’s 5 million gallons over than we are handling now,” Chimento said.

“We have not received numbers from the mall, but what we do know is most of that space is retail,” Chimento said. “There will be some small restaurants and there will be the hotel. Let’s say that the mall will produce 50,000 gallons a day – which is high, very high. But it’s 50,000 gallons against the 5 million that we have available. So whatever the mall produces to us at the treatment plant would be minimal and we would be glad to get it because we’re going to charge them a lot of money for it. But it has no impact at all on the total flow of the plant.”