Quarry Lease Advances

A new lease for the internationally famed Stony Creek Quarry could be enacted after years of dissension regarding the terms of the previous pact.

The Board of Selectmen unanimously approved the proposed lease Wednesday and sent it to the Representative Town Meeting for consideration. The proposed agreement is slated to go into effect July 1, but it is not known when the RTM will put it up for a vote.

“I think it’s a good lease that we can all live with,” said First Selectman Anthony ​“Unk“DaRos. ​“I think the owner at this point wants to make it work.”

The quarry is owned by the town of Branford and has been leased to the Stony Creek Quarry Corp., owned by Douglas Anderson, since 2006.

The Stony Creek Quarry has been operating since the 1800s and has supplied its signature pink granite to countless sites nationwide including the Statue of Liberty, Grand Central Station and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Disputes over the lease have been ongoing since 2006 when Former First Selectwoman Cheryl Morris attempted to change the terms of the previous lease. The Marcus Law Firm, her town counsel at the time, insisted this was not a new lease but an addendum to the lease. Morris and Second Selectman Dick Sullivan approved the new addendum, but Third Selectman John Opie voted against it.

The addendum raised the rent and royalties and gave Anderson the right to store and redistribute non-granite material at the quarry. This specific section of the lease, known as section 12, was drawn up by the Marcus firm and permitted storage and redistribution of non-granite materials. This controversial section is not part of the current lease.

Outside lawyers said Section 12 should have first been sent to Planning and Zoning Commission before the lease was signed. Morris’ addendum was never approved by the RTM and there was no input from the Planning and Zoning Commission.

Previous leases for other tenants prior to Anderson have failed, leading to bankruptcies, foreclosures, liens and other monetary damages.
 
The Aug. 29, 2006, selectmen’s meeting where the vote was taken was later declared illegal by the Freedom of Information Commission because the agenda was too vague as to give proper notice of the intent of the meeting. 

When DaRos took office in November 2007, he began working to straighten out the problems with the lease.

In 2008, the town took legal action to evict Anderson, claiming he failed to pay $20,000 annual rent and also failed to pay royalties. Anderson said he would not vacate the property and vowed to fight the action. At the time, he told the Eagle he had been working with the town and thought the issues were nearly resolved. He said the problem was with the royalties, not the rent.

Since then, various factions have been working to resolve the issues. Town Counsel William Clendenden, Jr. said it took a look time to resolve many issues raised in prior legal documents. 

“This represents a meeting of the minds that was a long time in coming,” said Third Selectman John Opie at Wednesday’s meeting.

“The problem was they didn’t have a bona fide lease. It was never ratified by the RTM,” DaRos said prior to the vote. ​“Now we’re going to make it right.”

DaRos said the threatened eviction action ​“opened up an incentive to negotiate …We got all those things straightened out.”

It took two and one-half years.

The proposed 23-page lease, which would be in effect through 2026, calls for:

• Payment of $38,963.86 upon execution of the lease ​“as part of a settlement” which would release the tenant from any pending lawsuits brought by the town. 

• Annual base rent beginning Jan. 1, 2012, of $32,000 per year in quarterly installments payable in advance at the beginning of the quarter. This rent includes ​“a total agreed upon past due rent and royalties” of $64,899 spread over the term of the lease.

• The past due rent and royalties can be prepaid at any time, meaning that the annual base rent would be $25,000.

• Beginning July 1, 2011, the tenant would pay quarterly installments of 50 cents per ton for stone quarried from the premises.

The lease also allows the tenant to store and market dimension stone products from other locations, but will not allow the tenant to crush stone that is not quarried at Stony Creek.

The lease also states that the tenant shall not encumber or permit the encumbrance of the premises by any mortgage, deed of trust, assignment, etc. without landlord’s prior written consent. This clause relates to one of the problems raised in prior leases. 

The lease also specifies how records must be kept and includes provisions regarding insurance. It also stipulates that an operation plan must be submitted.

A 35-page draft of the company’s operating plan is included with the proposed lease. It details Anderson’s efforts to revitalize the market for Stony Creek granite on regional, national and international levels.

The granite is used for commercial construction projects, publicly-funded civil projects, and landscape and marine/seawall projects.

Sculptor Darrell Petit, a local artist and stone consultant, is employed by Anderson as a liaison/project manager. Petit has created sculptures using Stony Creek granite for many years, and is now working to forge international alliances with distributors and consultants in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The report says Petit was instrumental in establishing a relationship with Nikolaus Bagnara Ltd. of Italy for marketing, distribution and sale of Stony Creek Classic Granite.

Richard Atkinson, who has worked at the quarry for more than 25 years, oversees the quarry operations.

For additional information about the quarry, see the company’s Web site.

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