Shoreline Greenway Trail Approved

The Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) approved plans Thursday to extend the Shoreline Greenway Trail across the town-owned Tabor property.

“We’re hopeful to start work in late spring,” said Engineer Kent Gannon, of Stantec Inc. in New Haven. ​“We’re pushing an aggressive schedule,” said Gannon, who presented preliminary plans at a public information meeting in October. He said the state wants to get the project moving since and federal and state funding is already in place.

The vote was unanimous. Four members of the 10-member IWC were absent, two regular members, John Rusatsky and Merle Berke-Schlessel; and two alternates, Sandra Kraus and Eric Rose.

In a separate matter, the commissioners received written copies of proposed revisions to the new regulations that were approved in May. A public hearing on those revisions will be held during a special IWC meeting Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at Canoe Brook Senior Center. In August, the new regulations were put on hold for six months after local developers filed four lawsuits against the new regulations.

Building The Trail

The proposed 25-mile Shoreline Greenway Trail (SGT) would provide hiking and biking access from Lighthouse Point in New Haven to Hammonasset Beach State Park in Madison. The Tabor section, which measures about .6 of a mile, would extend across the Tabor property to Pine Orchard Road near the Birch Road section of the SGT. It will be one of the few Branford trails that is handicapped-accessible.

The new trail will generally follow a temporary trail on the Tabor property that was previously created by the SGT team. It will be about 10-feet wide, with grassy buffers on each side in most areas.

Gannon (pictured) told the commissioners that the base bid calls for stone dust, instead of paving, but the trail could be paved if construction bids come in low enough. He said stone dust requires more maintenance than asphalt, but that maintenance is typically done by SGT volunteers.

Plans call for small parking lots at Tabor Drive and Pine Orchard Road which would be constructed by the town. Those costs are not part of the project cost estimates, which are about $440,000.

The commissioners asked several questions about paving and maintenance. Diana Ross, the Inland Wetlands Environmental Director, suggested that parts of the trail nearest to Chet’s Pond and the wetlands could be paved even if the remainder of the trail isn’t.

Chet’s Pond was named in honor of Chet Blomquist, who served many years with Judy Miller as co-chair of the Branford SGT team. Blomquist was honored by the town in 2011 as a trailblazer for his efforts to establish a 28-mile walking trail along Branford’s perimeter, and for his work with the SGT.

Miller, who also chairs the SGT board of directors, previously said about 50 percent of the proposed 25-mile trail has been approved or developed.

The Tabor project also needs to be reviewed by Branford’s Planning and Zoning Commission.

Guilford Section Stalled

A section of the SGT was recently completed in East Haven, but plans in Guilford have stalled. The Guilford Board of Selectmen (BOS) will hold a meeting Tuesday to vote on a proposed Guilford section, which elicited numerous pro and con comments from residents in November. It is not clear what happens to the trail if Guilford’s BOS votes no, but it may be possible to re-do the plans to make some use of the federal and state funds that have already been approved.

A 1/3 mile section of SGT in East Haven was completed in November. It crosses the Farm River State Park and connects with a previously completed SGT segment at the town-owned former D.C. Moore School property in East Haven.

Amending the Regs

The proposed amendments to the 2016 regulations can be found on the Inland Wetlands department web site. Residents will have an opportunity to comment on the revisions at the public hearing Thursday to be held at Canoe Brook. The commissioners received copies of the revisions Thursday but they did not discuss them.

The IWC has been holding closed executive sessions about the regulations since the commission voted in August to put the new regulations on hold for six months and operate under the previous ones. 

That action also put a six-month stay on court proceedings involving four appeals filed in Superior Court by developers after the IWC adopted new regulations in May. However, the hold or ​“stay” allowed the parties to continue to confer in private on the 2016 regulations with the idea of resolving the developers’ appeals.

Carolyn W. Kone, a land use attorney with Brenner, Salzmann & Wallman LLP in New Haven, attended the executive sessions to discuss regulation issues with the commission. The law firm, along with attorney Bill Aniskovich, represents the town.

The developers who are appealing the new IWC regulations include Charles Weber and Al Secondino through their 595 Corporate Circle corporation; Secondino and Michael Belfonti through their Bittersweet Partners LLC corporation; Rita Ann Sachs and New World Recycling; and Alex Vigliotti of Vigliotti Construction Co.

The six-month stay on the regulations last August was approved by Superior Court Judge Marshall K. Berger, Jr. who oversees the Land Use Litigation Docket in Hartford Superior Court. Attorney Janet Brooks, one of the state’s leading environmental attorneys and an expert in the field, represents Weber and Secondino’s 595 Corporate Circle corporation. Brooks requested the IWC cases be moved from the New Haven Superior Court to Judge Berger’s court in Hartford.

Weber and Secondino own a 16.5 acre parcel, which is part of the 44-acre Planned Development District (PDD) at Exit 56. Plans called for six commercial buildings on their property.

In addition, Weber and Secondino have an option to purchase a 22.36-acre site owned by Wayne Cooke and the Cooke family corporations where Costco proposed to build as part of the PDD at Exit 56. Costco officials withdrew the application last April when it appeared their proposal would be denied by the IWC.
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