Mayor Mark Lauretti made a killing by selling the land he owned on River Road to a developer for $1.92 million, public records show.
Lauretti’s limited liability company, Housatonic Way, sold 9 acres on River Road to Blue Heron Cove, a limited liability company out of Torrington.
Lauretti purchased the land in 2003 for $325,000.
The land will be developed as condos.
The Shelton Planning and Zoning Commission approved a zone change for the property in December 2012.
The mayor’s ownership wasn’t secret, but the sale price wasn’t known until paperwork was filed Thursday in Shelton City Hall.
The mayor talked with the Valley Indy about his property last year.
Country Club of CT, a limited liability company, plans to put 36 condos on the river-front property. The development is to be called “Blue Heron Cove.”
The address is 550 River Road.
Although the warranty deed on file in the Shelton City Clerk’s office lists the price as $10 (“and other valuable consideration”), one can arrive at the actual $1.92 million purchase price by dividing the conveyance tax (in this deal, $4,800) by .0025.
The conveyance tax is always one quarter of 1 percent of the actual sale price.
Lauretti’s purchase of the land 10 years ago generated controversy.
It was the subject of an ethics complaint brought by two former mayors, Michael Pacowta and Eugene Hope, which was ultimately dismissed in a 2 – 1 party line vote.
Several residents also complained about the deal during an Aldermen’s meeting in March 2004, the minutes of which are available here.
In an interview about the property in July 2012, Lauretti said critics were motivated by political affiliations.
“I’ve bought and sold multiple pieces of property in this town before I was mayor and while I was mayor,” he said at the time. “This is what businesspeople do.”
“It’s just an issue because it’s me,” Lauretti added.
The mayor said last year that any properties he’s sold in the past have “always ended up to be a very large enhancement to our grand list and consistent with anything else that was being done in the town.”
“These malcontents are just going to have to get over it,” the mayor added. “That’s all I really have to say.”
Lauretti, a former restaurant owner, was first elected Shelton mayor in November 1991.
Touting Shelton’s low taxes and exponential commercial growth, he is mulling a run for governor, but City Hall was subject to a long-running federal corruption probe under his watch.
The probe yielded four convictions — developer Robert Scinto, developer James Botti and his father, Peter, and former Shelton building inspector Eliott Wilson.
