A company from North Haven wants to open a second location at the site of the former Housatonic Lumber Co.
National Lumber, Inc. has an application pending in front of the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission to open a lumber yard at 23 Factory St., where Housatonic ran a lumber yard for a century before going out of business in 2009.
In addition to using part of the property to store lumber, the new business would sell landscape supplies — everything from grass seed to propane tanks.
The application seems simple enough — breathing life into a property that has sat empty for two years and proposing to use it in the same manner is was used for 100 years.
But there’s a catch.
The land is in Derby’s redevelopment zone — and Derby officials are hoping the property will become something other than a lumber yard. This is the first new application in the redevelopment zone.
There is a tentative plan to see the area — which stretches roughly from the Derby-Shelton bridge along the Housatonic to the Route 8 entrance ramp — redeveloped as a retail commercial center.
Eclipse Development of California has until September to submit a formal redevelopment plan — with business tenants — to the Derby Redevelopment Agency. Eclipse is also expected to negotiate with current property owners in the redevelopment zone to purchase their properties for redevelopment.
Property owners who can’t strike a deal with Eclipse could — potentially — one day see the city try to take properties through eminent domain.
In at least the last two years, no one in city government has said they’d ever use eminent domain — but the possibility hangs over all properties in the redevelopment zone.
The former Housatonic Lumber property is owned by Barretta Enterprises of Orange. The company purchased the property at a public auction.
A message seeking comment was left with National Lumber’s Joseph Cecarelli, whose name is listed on the application to the city’s P&Z Commission.
Joseph Bomba, chairman of the Derby Redevelopment Agency, said the property owners know the property is in the redevelopment zone.
However, his agency will have no say on what Barretta and National Lumber want to do there.
“They’ll have follow the rules and regulations of the Planning and Zoning Commission,” Bomba said. “If they go through that process and they want to put money into a building that sits in the redevelopment zone, we can’t stop them. If they want to put money into a building and start up a business, they can.”
The application from National Lumber calls for the business to be open seven days a week. Hours Monday through Saturday would be 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. On Sundays, it would be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Members of the Planning and Zoning Commission are scheduled to talk about the application at their meeting tonight (Tuesday April 19) at 7 p.m. in Derby City Hall.
