A proposal to put a 2 million-gallon water storage tank on Derby’s Telescope Mountain will likely again come before the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission in June.
Though residents of the area condemned the plan at public hearings this year, a retooled proposal for the site will be unveiled in May, a spokeswoman for the South Central Regional Water Authority said Monday.
Meanwhile, an Emmett Avenue resident who has led opposition to the plan asked the Board of Aldermen to buy and preserve the property last week, but the board took no action.
Background
In December the South Central Regional Water Authority proposed putting the 2‑million gallon concrete storage tank on Telescope Mountain.
Company officials said they want to build the storage tank off Summit Street and Mountain Road to provide better water service and fire protection for Derby’s west side.
Water service in west Derby trickles to next to nothing when the city’s old water mains fail. It’s a dangerous problem for Griffin Hospital, the institution’s chief executive officer told the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission in January.
Local fire officials also endorsed the proposal.
But neighbors in the area were less enthusiastic, especially after leaning the proposal involved blasting into the mountain’s rock outcroppings to remove some 13,000 cubic yards of rock.
The blasting would last three to four weeks and involve at least 750 truck trips to cart rock from the site, company officials told the Planning and Zoning Commission during a public hearing in January.
Click here to read more about the public hearing.
New Plan
On March 2 Regional Water withdrew its application before the PZC, noting the “significant concerns” of residents in the area.
At the same time, the company said it planned to submit a new application with an “improved project design” that would take neighbors’ concerns into consideration.
The company also said an informational meeting would be scheduled for residents to see the plan.
The company hasn’t yet met with neighbors, but they have held closed-door meetings with Mayor Anthony Staffieri about the proposal.
Staffieri told aldermen at a meeting last week that the water company has said “they’re still interested, but they want to see about finding a more suitable location.”
“What they’re doing right now is trying to finalize a second location,” the mayor said. “They haven’t come back yet.”
“It’ll be interesting to see what they submit,” Staffieri said.
Click the play button on the video above to see discussion of the issue during the Aldermen’s meeting.
Kate Powell, a spokeswoman for Regional Water, said Monday that the company has found a more suitable location — but one that is still on the Telescope Mountain property.
“It’s an alternative site on that parcel,” she said.
Powell said that in response to concerns raised by residents at the public hearings on the proposal, the new plan will keep construction vehicles off Summit and Fall streets, and the construction site won’t be accessed through nearby St. Peter and Paul Cemetery.
Further details of the plan will be unveiled at an as-yet unscheduled meeting this month, Powell said.
Conservation?
During last week’s aldermen’s meeting, Sharlene McEvoy, an Emmett Avenue resident who collected more than 140 signatures in opposition to the water tank proposal, urged Aldermen to consider buying the property.
McEvoy asked the city to approach the San Francisco-based Trust For Public Land, a nonprofit conservation group, to pursue a negotiation for the purchase of the land.
The original proposal said Regional Water has an option to buy the land, which is owned by Shelton-based Summit Hill LLC, if the tank proposal is approved by Derby officials.
Summit Hill LLC has the same Shelton address as the John J. Brennan Construction Company.
“This is an ecologically valuable piece of land containing beautiful views, and it would be a shame to allow this land to be developed in such a way that would do harm to the neighborhood,” McEvoy said.
“We think this is a critical issue,” McEvoy said later. “We can’t afford not to purchase the land given the threat (the water tank) poses to the surrounding neighbors.”
Aldermen took no action on McEvoy’s request during their meeting Thursday.
Kate Brown, a project manager for the Trust for Public Land’s Connecticut office, said Tuesday that there’s not much the trust could do absent a formal request from city officials.
And even if that happened, she said, obstacles would remain.
“You’d have to have a landowner willing to sell it for a price that’s reasonable,” Brown said.
Powell said Tuesday that the water company is “exploring” the option of preserving much of the site as open space.
