Willington Housing Authority Minutes
60 Old Farms Road
Oct. 17 2011
Present: Chair Robert Campbell, Vice Chair Wilbur Gangaway, Treasurer Claudia D’Agata, members Laurel Millix and Don Berg, architect Bill Crosskey, engineer Eric Peterson (Gardener and Peterson), Dave Berto.
Agenda Item 1 - Call to Order: The meeting was called to order by Chair Robert Campbell at 6 p.m.
Agenda Item 2 - Present to Speak:
Discussion followed regarding the upcoming Planning and Zoning hearing on the senior housing project scheduled for Oct. 18, 2011 and the Federal Home Loan bank application.
R. Campbell: Eric Peterson has been very proactive in making sure any questions are answered. The site design from Bill Crosskey includes the structures, the heights of the structures, and other features Planning and Zoning oversees. If the P&Z has other questions about the project, he will ask that they be addressed to the Housing Authority, and not the consultants.
It was noted that mailings were sent to abutting property owners to alert them to the public hearing.
E. Peterson reported that the Town (via Yorgensen/Jacobsen?) reviewed the plans and had some minor questions, all having to do with drainage or site grading and erosion controls. He copied the Housing Authority on how he responded to each comment and how he modified the plans. The reviewer (Yorgensen?) asked for a detail of the staircase between the buildings, which is a concrete staircase in his conception. He asked if the Housing Authority members have a particular way they want the staircase to look.
R. Campbell said that would meet the code for the building which is no more than 7 and a minimum 9-1/2 or 11. It probably meets the commercial codes and it’s probably the most economical way to build that staircase.
E. Peterson said this kind of detail usually isn’t included until final construction drawings are done.
D. Berg said, other than the effects of salt erosion, concrete is probably best.
E. Peterson said (Yorgensen?) also had a question about the retaining walls that are in between the buildings so that they can get those windows on the lower levels on the sides. He indicated on the plan that it was going to be a segmented concrete wall. (Yorgensen?) wanted a detail, but Peterson wanted to talk to the Housing Authority to confirm this is what they want to do. He showed an illustration of what he had in mind, a Versalock wall; it looks like a stone wall but it’s a concrete block wall manufactured to look like stone.
R. Campbell said in terms of aesthetics, either go with this or a poured and stamped wall that looks like stone pattern. Either is adequate.
E. Peterson said it’s adequate for a zoning application.
D. Berg said this is OK or an equivalent, and no greater than 30 inches high so they don’t get into guard rail concerns
E. Peterson said both the walls are two feet high – a two-foot wall, a grade, and a two-foot wall, and then a grade coming up again. R. Campbell noted most of the intermediate grade is planted, which creates a natural buffer.
E. Peterson said the town’s engineer, by phone, asked if they would consider some type of railing on the top wall, just because of the use and the age of the people who would be living there. R. Campbell said the question is how a rail would be installed if using a Versalock wall – you would have to put piers on the inside of it to connect to. D. Berg said - or put it at the edge of the sidewalks. R. Campbell said it is not a requirement. E. Peterson said, especially since the walls are too short. R. Campbell said costs need to be considered. At Willington Woods the walls are 5 to 6 feet high with “ugly” railings, he said.
E. Peterson said he will talk with the reviewer again on Tuesday (Oct. 18).
E. Peterson said all but four notices to abutting property owners were returned (indicating they acknowledge the notification of the hearing).
E. Peterson said the Planner Susan Yorgensen emailed him to say she probably would not have a chance to review the application before the hearing.
R. Campbell said he didn’t understand why Yorgensen didn’t have time to review the plans because she’s had them for four weeks and she was present when the P&Z set the public hearing date. D’Agata said it is probably because the assistant planning and zoning agent retired and they did not replace him.
R. Campbell said this likely will mean the P&Z will have to continue the hearing. E. Peterson said this could put the Housing Authority two weeks off its projected schedule. R. Campbell noted that when P&Z sets a public hearing date, they have 90 days from that point to close the hearing. E. Peterson said that after a hearing is closed, P&Z has 60 days to make their decision. R. Campbell said he doesn’t anticipate the P&Z taking that long for a project of this scope.
R. Campbell said the preliminary site plan has been reviewed and that he doesn’t expect any problems. Compared to what was proposed in 2005 when Asho did their project, the site has benefited from (subsequent changes), in the way of parking spaces, drainable ground – because there’s not as much roofline as there was on the site before.
E. Peterson said essentially P&Z has already approved the project because they approved the zone change and the preliminary plan. Now they are just approving the specifics.
R. Campbell said someone has been concerned about “the impediment of the wells” by the project, how close the well is to the structure, etc. The well may be within 30 feet of the structure of the water building. Campbell said. E. Peterson said he believes the plan’s setbacks are OK (25 feet to drainage and 75 feet to septic). He said has a recent letter from the CT Dept. of Public Health stating the plan does not need an approval from them because these wells and this water system were designed for these units already and that the plan was four units in six buildings and now it is six units in four buildings. R. Campbell said Peterson should include that letter in his presentation.
R. Campbell noted the water system was designed to take into account the schools, the firehouse, the senior center, the town offices and anybody else who happens to live on that road if they deem it necessary to hook up to it.
R. Campbell said to Dave Berto, who plans to attend the hearing, that he likely won’t be asked any questions.
R. Campbell said if the staff review of the plans hasn’t been done in time for the public hearing, he will ask if the P&Z will keep the hearing open.
E. Peterson said he could structure his presentation according to each regulation that applies.
D. Berg said he talked to the state building inspector’s office about “accessible routes” in a project and was told, speak to your local building official (Jim Rupert), and he has not done that yet.
D. Berg said the question is whether the project is required by the building code to provide an accessible route, i.e. wheelchair routes essentially, from all the units to any facilities on the site that are there for the enjoyment of the occupants, such as the Senior Center, i.e. how do you get somebody from the upper level to the lower level on an accessible route? He said he doesn’t have a definition of an “accessible route” in order to meet the requirements in the building code. He is not sure if this is required, or not. He said he doesn’t think the plans have been reviewed by the building official.
B Crosskey noted this is a leased property that is separate from the senior center, it is not on the same property.
R. Campbell suggested waiting until the building inspector does his review to address this. He said if it becomes an issue after P&Z approval and there is funding available, and the Housing Authority submits the plans for construction of the building and he says we need to do this, it may be easier for one of the funding sources to help, i.e. a chairlift along the stairway, similar to what Tolland did at their town office building.
E. Peterson said that with a regular apartment development, in projects he’s worked on, there is “accessible” access from the parking lot to each unit, but you may not be able to get from each unit to another unit, .i.e. a project in Ellington (Autumn Chase on Route 83 in Ellington) with a 20-foot difference in elevation just like this one. He said that is a typical case where there is a steep grade and the whole site may be 30-40 feet in elevation, and it isn’t possible to create an accessible route. For example, the apartment office is at the bottom of the hill, a handicapped person is not going to have an “accessible route” down to that office.
D. Berg said he is comfortable waiting to ask this question. B. Crosskey said they’ve had experts design the plans to meet the codes.
E. Peterson noted the plans haven’t changed much since the last meeting, except to add a couple of additional catch basins, and modifing the grading a little just outside the parking areas. He offered to give copies of the plans to the Housing Authority for another review. B. Campbell said once the site plan is approved, he will give the town copies that can be displayed for the public.
E. Peterson said he will bring new copies for the P&Z and emailed S. Yorgensen maps. The changes are very minor, he said.
E. Peterson said the Housing Authority hasn’t really talked about what kinds of activities will take place in the recreation area. He could say it will be a passive recreation area. He asked if they will maintain the trails. B. Crosskey said that would be the town’s responsibility.
C. D’Agata asked if First Selectwoman Christina B. Mailhos will be at the P&Z hearing. R. Campbell said he will remind her.
D. Berg asked if C. Mailhos had found documentation of purchasing the land for $1. R. Campbell said no, but that D. Berto would be sending her information.
R. Campbell asked D. Berto what things need to be done by the Housing Authority to continue moving forward.
D. Berto said the Housing Authority needs to get the P&Z approval, then can move forward with construction plans and specs, and then can begin to sequence getting bids out for the site work. They will separate the site work because the town procurement rules are different, but won’t know a schedule until they see what the timing is for approvals.
D. Berto said that whatever they do for any application for funding, the Housing Authority will need to have site control, which means they have to have some document from the town that says it will lease the property to the Housing Authority for 75 or 99 years for $1 a year. And the First Selectwoman wasn’t willing to do that. D. Berto said she couldn’t find any documentation, and needs to follow appropriate legal protocol before she can sign anything.
R. Campbell said the agreement isn’t recorded in any minutes he can find, but is in one of the documents provided to HUD in the initial application. However, it is necessary to have a written agreement so after P&Z approval, there needs to be a meeting with C. Mailhos to ask what’s necessary to make it happen, i.e. a Town Meeting – or if it’s an item the Board of Selectmen can act on, then it needs to be brought to a meeting.
D. Berto said he told C. Mailhos the Housing Authority needs three things: the lease agreement for $1 a year, some kind of agreement on taxes, and some kind of agreement on shared maintenance. And this information was detailed at a Board of Selectmen’s meeting. D. Berto said those are the three things the Housing Authority needs to put in a funding application to document the town’s commitment to the project, and to reduce the costs.
D. Berto said the Federal Home Loan bank application deadline has gone by, so the project has lost this funding for a year.
R. Campbell explained the problem with the Federal Home Loan bank application. He said Allen Privatelli was the original point person at Rockville Bank but it was turned over to Thomas Reed about three weeks after it was received by A. Privatelli, for T. Reed to work on.
R. Campbell said the Housing Authority expected it to move forward. He met with D. Berto at R. Campbell’s office one morning and to make sure the Housing Authority was logged in, so Housing Enterprises could do their work.
About three weeks before the deadline, Lynn from D. Berto’s office contacted T. Reed and told him it was necessary to get logged in “so we can prepare the application”. He said OK. When Lynn called again, T. Reed said, “I’ve only been with the bank three weeks (or two months). I tried to log in and I can’t do it. I don’t have time for this.”
Lynn gave R. Campbell T. Reed’s phone number, he called and got voicemail, left a message about who he is and that he understood T. Reed is the sponsor for the Home Loan application, and that if there’s any way he could help T. Reed get logged into the web site, to please call him and he left his cell phone number. R. Campbell said T. Reed has never called him back.
D. Berg said he’s spoken to T. Reed a couple of times. R. Campbell said that was regarding Fire-Oulette (sp?)
R. Campbell said they are now a week away from the application deadline and Rockville Bank has not signed on. C. D’Agata asked what T. Reed is logging into. R. Campbell said one has to go to the Federal Home Loan web site and he has to give his name, his bank name, and set up an account for that project, because they are the sponsor bank, which would take about 5 minutes.
D. Berg says T. Reed has to do even less, because the Housing Authority has already filled it out and all T. Reed has to do is check off (?). R. Campbell said Lynn offered to help him do this. R. Campbell said T. Reed is A. Privatelli’s subordinate and was directed to do this task, so he should do it, and he should return calls. R. Campbell said a project like this is part of the community projects they are required to do and that community projects affect a bank’s rating.
R. Campbell said he talked with someone he knows who is a manager of a small bank in the Norwich, CT area and he brought it to his bank to see if they would be interested. They were excited about the project and wanted to get onboard, but their commercial lending officer had a lot of due diligence to do. R. Campbell said he spent a great deal of time trying to provide everything the loan officer asked for.
A week before the application was due, on a Friday, D. Berto told him that if they did not have a commitment by noon, it can’t happen. They would have had to work all weekend on their part of the application, the bank has to get it back and they have to review it. We made it very clear to Eastern Federal that this was our timeline, he said.
He talked to D. Berg, who said he’d make a phone call. D. Berg said he missed the noon deadline because he thought it was an end-of-day deadline. D. Berg sent an email to Allan Privatelli, who contacted Thomas Reed, and T. Reed said no one had tried to contact him.
D. Berg said he emailed Privatelli, and even though he was on vacation he called D. Berg back. He told A. Privatelli D. Berto would call him and work things out, but D. Berg didn’t realize the deadline was for noon that Friday, and so it fell apart.
R. Campbell also said the bank couldn’t start the application process without the lease document from the Board of Selectmen.
R. Campbell said Rockville Bank is still very interested in the project. And Eastern Federal is still interested.
D. Berg said T. Reed said he tried several times to log in but if he had contacted Lynn, she could have helped with that process.
D. Berto said neither of these people needed to log in. That’s not what he or Lynn told them. What they needed to do was tell us they would be the sponsor, give us their name and their email so we could put it in the system and they would get an email, an “invite,” Berto said.
D. Berto said this does not stop the project. R. Campbell said they will still go to DECD for funding for the cottages, etc.; they are still going to look at CHFA for 4 percent tax credits.
R. Campbell said the Federal Home Loan would be for $400,000 and another possible $425,000 in mortgage subsidies. D. Berto said it would be about $800,000 total value.
R. Campbell said Theo Knoll, who they dealt with at the Federal Home Loan bank, called him on Wednesday – the week the application was due – he wanted to make sure our application hadn’t been lost. R. Campbell told him they hadn’t been able to get the bank sponsorship in order. R. Campbell recalled they had done an application with Federal Home Loan bank in 1999. T. Knoll was their point person at that time. Now it is Christina ------ (?) .
D. Berto said this problem won’t slow the project down, because a year from now, they will still be in construction. So, this would dovetail into the construction phase instead of into the planning phase. He said the project has enough money for pre-development, that the Federal Home Loan funds weren’t going to be used for that, but for construction.
R. Campbell said the idea was to get the funds and do everything at once but if not, they will do the infrastructure and then continue moving forward to find other funding.
R. Cambell said he talked with D. Berto about several questions, including using ACCESS for property management because they are in the area and have a lot of services they can bring to the project that DeMarco cannot, and ACCESS is interested. They are doing a fine job “next door,” he said.
D. Berto said it takes three weeks to write these applications. Lynn had been working “offline” to get everything ready. A lot of people did a lot of work, but it didn’t work out this time. D. Berg said he simply explained to Rockville Bank, via email, that it didn’t work out in terms of timing.
R. Campbell said D. Berto had a long conversation with Eastern Federal and found out they were not moving forward with it.
R. Campbell said the project won a Federal Home Loan grant before with nothing but a planning approval. They carried it for two years and had to return the money because they couldn’t do anything with it. That was with Tolland Bank.
C. D’Agata said she read the minutes of the meeting with the Board of Selectmen and the Housing Authority and they don’t mention what they asked the Selectmen for. Quoting from those minutes she read that Selectman Blessington asked for a timeline. And Mr. Berto said financing has been confirmed, they expect to begin, “etc.” and Blessington warned that Planning and Zoning would want to review the heating source and then Christina said that you guys did “a good job addressing the needs of future residents” and they will prepare a letter of support upon approval of the board. And then Palmer asked to specify who the land will be leased to – so obviously you talked about a lease, D’Agata said. Reading from the minutes, she said the First Selectman noted it will be leased to the
Willington Housing Authority, and the lease line also will need to be confirmed and included on future maps. And it says they moved to draft a letter.
D. Berto said the other requirements (taxes, maintenance and utilities) were discussed, but D’Agata said those other items are not in the minutes. D’Agata said they need to put their request in writing.
D. Berto said C. Mailhot did draft a letter but it was “really weak,” and didn’t say anything that indicated any commitments. He said she knows what the issues are but doesn’t feel she can make those kinds of commitments on her own, without the support of a town vote.
R. Campbell said C. Mailhot wants to consult with the town attorney about how to proceed. D. Berg said the inadequate letter C. Mailhot did write was based on the town attorney’s advice.
R. Campbell noted the only utility the town handles is septic and water.
D. Berto said they need to document for DECD that water is going to be prorated based on use.
R. Campbell asked D. Berto to draft a request letter and send it to the members of the Housing Authority for review. The letter should request that these items be on the agenda for the next Board of Selectmen’s meeting. C. D’Agata said they meet the first and third Monday of the month and the letter should specify the date of the meeting they request.
R. Campbell talked about the HUD 202 Program, which is in serious trouble at the federal level because of cutbacks, which affects how many projects they can do. He asked who to contact at the state level to advocate for this program, because there’s still a need for it.
D. Berto said when the Planning and Zoning process is on schedule they will start to work on the procurement plan to be able to get contractors to actually start some of the construction
R. Campbell said they have $750,000 from the town for infrastructure.
R. Campbell asked C. D’Agata to make sure all bills are being sent to her, from Crosskey, Gardener Peterson, and have them just “c.c.” the commission on the bills. C. D’Agata said she sends it (accounting of bills) out to all the Housing Authority members.
Agenda Item 3 – Approval of Minutes: Postponed until next meeting
Agenda Item 4 – Treasurer’s Report: Balance is down $53.83 ($5,908.45 balance)
Agenda Item 5 – Old Business: See above, regarding need for letter from Board of Selectmen
Agenda Item 6 – New business: See above, re preparations for P&Z hearing
Agenda Item 7 - Correspondence – Reappointment of Wilbur Gangaway to Willington Housing Authority until 08-01-2016
Agenda Item 8 – Adjournment: at 7:58 p.m. Next meeting will be Nov. 14
Respectfully submitted, Brenda Sullivan, Recording Clerk
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