NORWALK, Conn. – There isn’t enough time to “move the pieces around” at Washington Village without jeopardizing the $30 million federal grant in support of the project, Norwalk Housing Authority Executive Director Curtis Law said Thursday, while an ardent opponent of the current plan emphatically stated that change is, indeed, possible.
“I read the Choice Neighborhoods project,” Diane Lauricella said at Thursday’s NHA meeting. “As a consultant, I look at these detailed words and it is not true that you cannot amend it. It would not take – it would be mediation, it would be a compromise. Nobody wants to talk about viable alternatives and that is a darn shame because it’s the staff that are holding up the process, not the Friends of Ryan Park.”
The Friends of Ryan Park has been quite the newsmaker lately, as Trinity Financial Executive Vice President Patrick Lee released a new Washington Village site design to the group’s president without consulting city officials or the Housing Authority. This is in addition to the group’s legal challenge that is holding up the Washington Village project, a Connecticut Department of Energy Environmental Protection (DEEP) public hearing on the proposed exemption of flood management regulations.
Friends of Ryan Park President Ganga Duleep on Thursday released a copy of Lee’s plan to NancyOnNorwalk. The plan, attached below, shows an L-shaped building that would abut the current Ryan Park parking lot, as well as a regulation Little League baseball field in the park that would run along Water Street.
Lauricella said Duleep told her that Lee said Law and Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Tim Sheehan were on board with the potential to discuss a site sketch. “It was not a plan,” Lauricella said. “A plan has documents, it has details. It was a site sketch to take a look at a potential alternative. Personally, I did not agree with the site sketch as far as where he wants to put the buildings, so that almost guarantees that changes can be made at this stage.”
Law said he was advised after the fact of what Lee was going to do, and there was no conversation with him at all about moving the buildings. “He stopped in my office for about 20 minutes on his way back to Boston and said, ‘Oh by the way, I just met with these folks, here is what I presented to him,’ and I said ‘good idea,’” Law said.
After the meeting, Law explained further. “Like I said, I was as surprised as anyone when he walked in and said, ‘Oh, I just had this meeting.’ I said, ‘Oh, that’s an interesting idea.’ Thinking, ‘Oh my, why would you do that?’ I’m saying to myself, ‘Why would you do that?’”
Lee came down from Boston last week and met with NHA, Sheehan and Mayor Harry Rilling in the mayor’s office, Law said during the meeting. Sheehan said the park cannot be moved without going thr0ugh a process, Law said. “They cannot just move it. To even get licenses for it, it would be eight- to 10-month delay,” Law said.
“It is not true that you cannot amend the application when all parties and stakeholders are involved,” Lauricella said. “So when there are private meetings in the mayor’s office with Tim Sheehan telling you you can’t do it, the Friends were not asked to this meeting and there have been a lot of myths about what is and is not allowed to be amended. Moving the park and tweaking where some of the buildings are going to be located is allowed and is a way to do a compromise, it’s just that nobody wants to talk about alternatives.”
She mentioned “side meetings at the Silver Star,” and said, “All these secret meetings are not going to get us to the promised land.”
NHA Deputy Director Candace Mayer said the Choice Neighborhoods grant has a strict deadline – the work must be completed in 2020.
“Whatever it is we are going to do has to be done by then,” Law said. “… If we don’t do that we stand the possibility of losing the money.”
Law said the project has been designed with a lot of community input.
“To somehow suggest that we are all of a sudden going to throw out the community meetings to make changes, it’s not what the commissioners are going to get into, it’s not what’s going to be done, and I think one of the things that we can say that there has not been kind of uproar that you see in other communities because there has been meeting after meeting after meeting,” Law said. “When you talk about flipping the park, that is a major change. So to suggest that somehow we can just do this on a whim probably would not go over well. That being said, it may not be possible based on the deadlines that we have to get to.”
Commissioner Deidra Davis suggested getting everyone together to talk about it “so people don’t feel like they are shut out of things.”
NHA board Chairman Cesar Ramirez said the process has been open and transparent. “There’s a lot of money involved, a lot of time, a lot of work done by a lot of people. … The last thing I want to hear is that we are going to jeopardize this project because of changes,” he said.
Law said there are a lot of people who would like to be involved in such a meeting, and asked for a list to be drawn.
“They talk to everyone except us,” he said. “For example, when the developer decided to go talk to the Friends of Ryan Park he didn’t call the Housing Authority and say what do you think about this, he did it, and then advised us afterwards that he did it.”
Commissioner the Rev. Jeffrey Ingraham said, “In terms of amending contracts, redesigning and so forth, essentially she is saying to us that from the work she has done it is possible. Now we may disagree with that. My thing is if we can have a conversation in a week’s time.”
“She doesn’t prepare drawings. She has not got a dollar invested,” Law said. “… There is someone who is going to have to spend money to redesign all of this.”
“The plans that have been submitted by Trinity are on piece of paper,” Lauricella said. “They haven’t designed the details that one would design for any building. There’s no mechanicals – “
“No, ma’am, no,” Law said.
Lauricella said Phase II has not been designed.
“It is at a point where some of the buildings could be oriented and moved without any of the goals of Choice Neighborhoods being changed,” Lauricella said. “We have gone through a legal process that is still in place that we were not allowed to discuss alternatives. We are going to be looking at that because it’s not the way this process is supposed to go when you ask for a flood exemption. There is a lot of pressure from governmental agencies and from politicians that are trying to ram this through at potential damage to people and properties of the Washington Village.”
Final briefs for the DEEP hearing are due Friday, March 27. These are rebuttals to briefs filed two weeks ago.
An excerpt from the Friends of Ryan Park brief:
“At this time, FORP again would like to register its objection to the Hearing Officer ruling 12/19/14 et al about her ability to include discussion of prudent and feasible alternatives for this project by all parties. Mr. Sheehan was allowed to testify on 12/19/14 (Transcript Pages 85-92) without any of the prerequisites imposed upon FORP, that he reviewed alternatives and then quickly dismissed their efficacy without presenting any detailed proof of such. FORP discussion and evidence about said alternatives was not allowed by the Hearing Officer.’
An excerpt from the Norwalk Housing Authority’s brief:
“(Ganga Duleep’s) statements are not supported by expert testimony or site-specific evidence and analysis. Rather, her statements appear to be based upon a generalized concern that area properties, including Ryan Park, will be subject to increased flooding and increased exposure to salt water despite expert testimony to the contrary by two licensed professional engineers. Neither Ganga Duleep nor Diane Lauricella, a member of FORP who assisted Dr. Duleep, presented any credentials which would enable either of them to challenge the expert testimony of (certified engineers) Mr. Canas and Ms. Yurasevecz.”
“All we are asking is that we have a conversation and look at what would be a reasonable change,” Lauricella said.
It was agreed that such a conversation will be had.
Asked after the meeting if the plans have not been finalized for Phase II of the project, Law said, “There’s a lot of people practicing architecture without a portfolio. It could be she knows how she can do that more than I do. I don’t see how she’s going to do that.
“Something needs to happen there and there is no perfect solution,” Law said. “So when you talk about flipping something – I would be amazed if you could get that done, and get through all the boards and all the approvals and get the land transferred from the Second Taxing District, to take another piece of land and make it the park, and another piece of land and make it the park.”
This is not like a private person deciding to rearrange the design of a new house, he said.
“There’s a lot of folks involved in this that have to give their OK on it. The idea itself is not a bad idea. It’s really a question of do you have the time to do that? That’s why we have asked for a detailed time schedule, so when we talk about these things, before folks get locked in their heads ‘oh we can do this,’ they need to look at the schedule and see what has to be done.”
The idea was talked about a year and a half ago, he said.
“It came up and, for whatever reason, it was not thought to be OK. In fact, the developer said himself he did not want to do this. I guess he had an epiphany, I don’t know. … He apologized. He certainly did. He apologized when he met with the mayor. He started out by apologizing. As the saying goes in the country, he got ahead of his skies.”
It’s like a bad marriage – Trinity and Norwalk are stuck with each other at this stage of the game, Law said.
“We are going to get a project,” Law said. “It’s going to happen. You have to have faith – if this doesn’t happen then what you need to invest in is rowboats because it’s going to flood if this doesn’t get done. If they don’t do all the road improvement and all the other stuff the people are going to be in the same position.”
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