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MILLERTON — Looking to free up parking spaces on Main Street for businesses, the village paved property on South Center Street adjacent to The Motorworks auto garage last week, adding nearly 30 municipal parking spots for Harlem Valley Rail Trail users.
The project was a long time coming and also addressed issues of remediation that had stalled it from taking shape in the past. The property had in the past been home to automotive garages and was used as a space to store fuel tanks that were suspended for passing trains. Those usages contributed to a significant amount of petrolium-contaminated soil on the property.
Ownership of the property passed to the county through delinquent taxes. Dutchess County is leasing the space to the village.
A Community Development Block Grant was awarded to the village five years ago by the county, Mayor John Scutieri said, to help with the remediation costs. It turns out that the best way to clean up the spill, known as “capping,� was to pave over the area before drilling small holes where an ammonia-based solution could be released into the ground below to break up the petroleum.
“As it turns out, the easiest way [to remediate] turned out to be the least expensive,� Scutieri said.
Last week the village highway department paved the once-dirt driveway on the property and painted parking lines. This past weekend the municipal parking lot was opened up to the public, with the hope that anyone parking in town to use the Rail Trail would utilize that parking space, leaving Main Street spaces open for shoppers.
The entire remediation process will take up to two years, but the most important steps will be the initial treatments, once a month, this summer. The drilling will be small enough that it won’t affect parking.
Scutieri said the village intends to take over ownership of the property from the county (at no charge), but that the village’s legal council advised the board to wait until the remediation was addressed. The mayor said the transaction would probably occur soon after the first three months of treatment.
Paved parking is just the first step for the property. The village intends to install a sidewalk on the north border of the property linking South Center Street to the Rail Trail, as well as a central kiosk behind the property’s building that would serve as a village information site. The village highway department will install split-line fencing and Scutieri said a beautification committee is being organized to plant trees and shrubs.
The project will be completely funded by the block grant of nearly $150,000. Scutieri said the intention is to keep the project well under budget, and part of that money has already been used to complete loops in the water district on nearby Fish Street.
Signs will be erected advertising the additional parking soon. As for the building on the property, Scutieri said it will be securely locked up, but mentioned that he has hopes the building and property could eventually become new headquarters for the Millerton Police Department.
“It really is tailor-made for that,� he pointed out, noting the close proximity to the Rail Trail and the fact that the police department was recently certified to patrol on bicycles. “That area could use the security and once the village owns the property, we’ll talk to a couple local architects to come up with some mock-up drawings.�
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Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.