NORWALK, Conn. — A reservation system limiting parking at the planned Manresa Wilds park to 200 public spots would add only two vehicles per minute at its predicted peak traffic, according to consultants working on the project.
Concerns about traffic to and from the park on two-lane roads in the area dominated a public hearing before the Planning and Zoning Commission on the development proposal that spanned more than two months.
Neighbors pointed to the construction traffic they said is already clogging roads in the area as a sign of things to come when the park, initially expected to attract more than a million visitors a year, opens.
But Michael Beattie, a senior vice president with AKRF, the park’s traffic consultants, told the commission during a special meeting Thursday that a planned reservation system for parking using a website and mobile app would greatly reduce traffic in general, with only two additional vehicles per minute above the current peak figure of six vehicles.
After a nearly three-hour presentation from park officials to respond to comments and concerns raised during the public hearing, the commission formally put a motion on the table to approve a zone text amendment for the project but voted unanimously to begin deliberations at a special meeting Oct. 14.
Under the reservation system outlined by Beattie, visitors driving to the park would be required to register in advance for a limited number of hourly spaces. Once allocated, the site would be shown as unavailable, “giving the city a predictable, enforceable ceiling on vehicle arrivals, unlike a traditional parking lot,” according to a presentation shown Thursday.
Beattie pointed to Squantz Pond State Park in New Fairfield, which he said implemented a similar system to manage large influxes of visitors from New York, and noted that the park is committed to new traffic studies and adjustments if needed with every phase coming online.
Commission member Louis Schulman questioned whether the reservation system would help possible issues of people parking on local side streets if they drive to the park and find they can’t get in.
Beattie said the park can’t control public roads, but said there are solutions that can be deployed by the city’s Transportation, Mobility and Parking department, such as a residential permit parking system the city is currently considering a form of.
“We have limited control about what can be done on the streets,” he said.
Commission member Douglas Hempstead asked if the park’s planners have investigated rights of way on Woodward Avenue to see if it would be possible to widen it.
“Nothing to date, but it’s one of the things we would have to do as part of these future studies,” Beattie said.
Planning and Zoning Director Steve Kleppin said that TMP staff would be conducting ongoing review of any development plans as the park’s phases come online. He also noted the Office of the State Traffic Administration (OSTA) would provide oversight since the park would be a “major traffic generator.”
The application seeks approval of a special zoning district for a proposed four-phase development of a variety of educational and recreational activities focused on the waterfront at the island, the former site of a power plant. Once called Keyser Island, it was renamed by Jesuit priests who once maintained a retreat facility there for a town in Spain where the order’s founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola, reportedly lived in a cave and meditated prior to writing “The Spiritual Exercises.”
Public comment on the application ended Sept. 2 after more than 15 hours of testimony over the course of more than two months, in addition to more than 340 pages of written comments submitted to the commission, PZC Chair Chapin Bryce said.
Supporters cited the unique opportunity presented by the efforts led by billionaire philanthropist Austin McChord and his wife Allison, who have already spent millions to begin cleaning up the property, contrasting it with other possible uses there such as more housing. Park officials also emphasized how much of the island’s natural environment would be preserved and restored, while the industrial contamination is being remediated.
The McChords, who first became interested in acquiring the property while kayaking in the area, told the commission Thursday that the park could serve as a blueprint for the redevelopment of other former industrial sites, and is not an amusement park, shopping mall, or other commercial endeavor.
“There is no way that Allison and I can make money from this,” Austin McChord said, noting the nonprofit ownership structure of the property. “So this is a gift. And our reward is that the people of Norwalk will enjoy this.”
“This project holds a deep sense of purpose for Austin and I,” Allison McChord said. “We really see it as a way to benefit and serve this community. This project can connect people to nature, to each other, and to the Long Island Sound. We really believe that when people have the chance to experience these ecosystems, they’ll learn to appreciate and understand them more. And when you understand and appreciate something, you want to do better by it, protect it, look after it.”
At the beginning of the meeting, Manresa Island Corp. Executive Director Jess Vonashek noted the park’s planners engaged with the public for 18 months even before beginning the public hearing process, and continued to modify the plans for the park as they continued to receive more comments during PZC hearings.
“We’ve reduced hardscape,” she said. “We’ve increased buffers. We’ve reduced lighting by 50%. We’ve removed boardwalks. We’ve taken canopy walks down from the northern forest. We’ve made a number of different changes that we believe make the project better, but also responsive to the community feedback.”
Gena Wirth, a partner and design principal at SCAPE landscape architects, highlighted the changes to the landscaping plans for the site to preserve the natural character of the island.
“We expanded many elements of the project that were focused on natural regeneration and planting of living systems,” Wirth said, describing in detail many of the changes. “We also looked at ways of keeping the larger ecosystems that were being proposed, but scaling back the human presence within them.”
She said planners also made a number of changes to give neighbors more of a buffer and reduce intensive uses, like removing a planned beach bar and canopy tree walk. Four out of every five acres of the property would remain green under the proposal, presenters noted repeatedly. Coastal resilience would also get better, Wirth said, an important concern as stronger and stronger storms batter the region.
“Overall the landscape is going to be a beautiful place, a wild place to come visit and recreate,” Wirth said. “But it’s also going to be a very performative place, helping manage stormwater and reducing urban heat.”
Project architect Jeremy Siegel said more intensive activity at the park would be concentrated in the southeast, with the large former power plant buildings acting as buffers themselves. He also highlighted a number of initially planned elements that were eliminated, such as a hotel and bed and breakfast.
In recent weeks objections have also been filed raising concerns about flooding, osprey nests on the site, and the possible effects of property values.
Manresa lawyer Elizabeth Suchy said the property value concerns were “wildly exaggerated claims” unsubstantiated by any expert testimony or evidence. She urged the commission to approve the application after reviewing caselaw and how she said the park would conform to the city’s Plan of Conservation and Development.
“This is going to be a tremendous asset to the community,” Suchy said. “One hundred and twenty-five acres of privately owned park available to the public, with access to the water, walking trails, beaches, it goes on and on.”
Vonashek said the site itself did not flood during a rainstorm two weeks ago that dumped nearly 6 inches of rain throughout the region.
And in response to a question about osprey at the site, Nicholas Parisi, a project engineer at eDesign Dynamics, an environmental engineering and planning firm, said the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection told the park to remove any osprey nests outside of the species’ “active window” from April 15 to Aug. 15.
“You can remove that nest material, and that is actually an act to protect the osprey because they become so accustomed to human interaction that they will set up a nest right near an active construction site, Parisi said. “So we’ve received explicit instructions from deep to remove any non-active nests while outside that period.”
“If we do observe any osprey activity during the active window and during the construction period, we have a very direct line of communication with them, and we work with them to find out the best step,” he said, noting that future plans include potential new platforms in more natural areas for the birds, which are no longer endangered.
Pamela Elkow, an environmental attorney working for Manresa Wilds, noted the remediation of the property is overseen by DEEP under a stewardship permit and highly regulated, with public participation mandated during the process.
“My sense is that there have been some people who think this site hasn’t been adequately investigated, and that we don’t really understand what’s going on there,” Elkow said. “I’m here to tell you, and I think if you look at the documents that are in the public domain, it’s clear that the site has been well investigated and that we really do understand what we’re doing and that we’re highly regulated and working hand in hand with DEEP.”
Elkow pointed to the park’s website, where documents concerning the environmental remediation are posted.
“There’s lots of information,” she said. “If people want to know, it’s all there.”
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