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SHARON — Envisioning future improvement of the former Community Center building to serve as affordable housing, the Board of Selectmen discussed three options at their regular meeting on Tuesday, March 26.
Members of the Sharon Housing Trust were present to discuss the draft of a 75-year lease agreement between their organization and the town, although discussion widened to include options whereby the town might sell the building to the Housing Trust, or simply make it a gift.
The town presently owns the three rental apartment buildings adjacent to the Community Center building that stands at 99 North Main Street, west of Sharon Center School. The three adjacent town-owned apartment buildings are at 91, 93 and 95 North Main. Under the plans, the four rental housing apartment buildings would stand on one footprint of land.
The Housing Trust has proposed through public meetings that the former Community Center be converted into four affordable apartments, offering several advantages, including proximity to shopping and to the school for young families.
To make progress with design phases and funding applications, the Housing Trust must demonstrate, however, that their organization has control of the building at 99 North Main.
“We are interested in converting the building, but we need site control,” said Larry Moskowitz, representing the Housing Trust.
To pursue funding applications through the state Department of Housing (DOH) or to apply for a state Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), town administrative involvement is necessary, although there is no financial obligation for the town. The DOH requires that the Housing Trust have site control; the CDBG program does not.
“There is no obligation on the part of the town. A town official just needs to participate in the project,” said Bob Whelan, Housing Trust member.
First Selectman Casey Flanagan, exploring alternatives to the lease arrangement, asked what incentive the town has to hold on to the building and what liability might the town face by holding on for the long life of the lease.
“In recent years the town did not want to give up the building adjacent to the school,” former selectman Dale Jones recalled, “but there were not a lot of options for its future use. Now the times have changed.”
Continuing discussion, Flanagan asked the selectmen whether they want to pursue the lease or do they want to counter with another idea.
Selectwoman Lynn Kearcher leaned toward favoring a lease feeling that the project represented a point of town pride. Selectman John Brett inclined toward selling the building to the Housing Trust. A third option to donate the building to the Housing Trust was briefly considered.
Flanagan indicated that he would confer with Town Attorney Randall DiBella about the lease agreement and other options that might be possible.
Committees formed
“As the town has gotten bigger, the town garage has gotten smaller,” Flanagan said, joining with the selectmen in unanimously voting to form a six-member building committee to study the construction of a new town garage.
The vote was also unanimous to form a 17-member Long Range Planning Committee, an advisory group that will evaluate and prioritize immediate and long-range issues facing the town.
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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.