A screen shot from the meeting, which was held on Zoom.
ANSONIA – The city’s Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday started its review of a proposed sports complex slated for Olson Drive.
During the public comment portion of the meeting former Alderman Bill Phipps asked about the recent addition of 137 parking spaces on Olson Drive, across from where The Primrose Companies just purchased land from the city to build the private sports complex. The sale was finalized Aug. 17 for $510,000.
Mayor David Cassetti told The Valley Indy last week he ordered the spaces to be put there. John Guedes, the developer, paid a contractor $1,000 to paint the lines, which was done on a weekend.
Phipps questioned the motivation behind providing parking spaces.
“Are the city people that initiated this attempting to influence your decision-making by providing these spaces?” Phipps asked the commission. “Your board should be offended if you had no involvement in the decision. Normally, a proposal of this significance is engineered and presented to the police commission and the Aldermen for approval. Don’t be influenced by these 137 spaces. Hopefully they will be removed. Angled spaces are not the way to go on this street.”
Commissioner Tim Holman also asked how the spaces came about. Click here for a previous story explaining what happened.
However, the new parking spaces are not part of the site plan the commission started reviewing on Monday, chairman Jared Heon pointed out.
“Our board would not have the authority to add these spots and it’s not in front of us as part of this application, so I prefer we don’t address it,” Heon said.
In an interview with The Valley Indy on Tuesday, corporation counsel John Marini said the City Charter gives the Board of Aldermen the power to create parking spaces – but the Aldermen were not consulted about the 137 new spaces.
“The Board of Aldermen was not formally consulted on this,” Marini said. “In this case, the mayor really wanted to explore the parking options for this area, and the developer wanted to make that donation. He’s (the mayor) very enthusiastic about what’s to come.”
Marini said the administration plans to consult with police and the zoning and land use boards to “find a perfect parking configuration that would accommodate the complex and enhancements to the river area.”
Olson Drive is across from the Naugatuck River.
The development plans call for two buildings: a 39,000-square foot indoor soccer facility and an outdoor soccer field. Olé Soccer, a soccer business, is scheduled to lease the space.
A second, 49,000 square-foot building has been leased to a basketball training program, and a separate firm that trains lacrosse and football players, Guedes told The Valley Indy in an email Aug. 29.
Guedes gave a verbal overview of the sports complex and soccer field he intends to build. He said the project only requires a normal site plan review. The land is currently zoned for multi-family residential. Heon said city staff, such as its planning expert, will weigh-on on whether anything else is needed in the P&Z review process.
“The applicant is asserting he doesn’t need any changes or exceptions. The city will determine that in their review and will address it next month,” he said in an email to The Valley Indy.
Under Ansonia zoning, the land is zoned specifically ” residential BB.” A list of uses allowed on the site is available on pages 144 through 149 of this document.
Commissioners raised a few issues about Guedes’ proposal, including ensuring exterior lighting for the sports complex will not impact neighbors, nor will it shine into new apartments built across the river on Main Street.
Guedes said the lights to illuminate the soccer field will be downcast and will be facing the river side. However, he said he will have a detailed lighting plan for commissioners to review prior to the commission’s next meeting Sept. 26. He’ll also have some architect renderings of what the complex and field would look like.
The land in question was previously used as federally-subsidized housing, and was home to the Riverside Apartments.
Whether members of the Ansonia Planning and Zoning Commission will seek formal public input on the project remains to be seen. A motion was made to schedule a public hearing, but it did not move forward (CORRECTION: There was no motion made to schedule a public hearing)
A public hearing has NOT been scheduled on the application as of Aug. 31.
The city held a public hearing in July on the sale and the tax incentive the city approved. However, a P&Z public hearing would be entirely different, and be about the specifics of the site plan and its impact on things like traffic and quality of life.
The tax deal freezes the property’s current assessment of $2 million for three years, meaning the city will not collect more than about $75,000 in taxes per year for the first three years.
After three years, the assessment will increase 5 percent a year for 14 years.
The sale also included language saying Ansonia residents get a 10 percent discount at any programs offered at the new sports complex.
