Selectmen Back Sale Of Queen St Houses

By Steve bigham

The Board of Selectmen Monday voted in favor of selling five town-owned houses along a strip of land on Queen Street. One house will be sold “as is” to the Housatonic Habitat for Humanity for $20,000, while the rest will be auctioned off in the hopes that the town can turn a profit.

The issue now goes to the Legislative Council, which has the final say on the disposition of any town-owned land. A town meeting would have to be held before any of the homes are sold.

The town recently took over ownership from the state of several small tracts of land and a handful of houses along Queen Street. It purchased the land from the state for $1.25 million. The town will retain the eight vacant lots for open space and/or athletic fields. As for the homes, they will be sold with deed restrictions that permit single-family housing only. One home, deemed uninhabitable by building official Tom Paternoster, will be knocked down.

In recent weeks, the first selectman’s office has received several calls from interested buyers interested in the four homes to be auctioned off.

“There’s a rumor out there that there’s going to be a lottery,” noted Jan Andras, office administrator and Board of Selectmen clerk.

Last January, Newtown residents voted 155 to 8 in favor of buying the land and houses, which were once part of the Fairfield Hills Hospital campus. Many said they voted for the plan in the hopes that it would control future development along Queen Street. Some feared that construction would block the beautiful vistas of fields and rolling hills in the distance. The town would have also been vulnerable to higher density housing since the properties are hooked up to municipal water and sewer lines.

Newtown was given right-of-first refusal when the state decided to sell the properties. The parcels cover about 15 acres along the east side of Queen Street and include empty, asbestos-filled houses once used by staff members of the former state mental health institution, plus a barn and a stone outbuilding.

Searching For Ball Field Space

First Selectman Herb Rosenthal is looking to strike a deal with the state to exchange one three-acre piece of land for another along Queen Street. The parcel being sought is flatter and would be more conducive for use as a soccer field.

Many residents voted in favor of the purchase, hoping that some of the land would be used for ball fields. However, as it stands right now, none of that land is usable for fields. The hilly nature and close proximity to the road of the town-owned land make it almost impossible for use as athletic fields.

The flatter land being sought lies across the street from Borough Lane and behind the Merryhill Day Care Center. It sits below the level of Queen Street and is back further from the traffic. This is now under the control of the Department of Agriculture.

Mr Rosenthal recently proposed the “swap” to Richard Nuclo, director of the state’s Office of Policy and Management (OPM), which oversees the disposition of state-owned land. As of this week, no official decision had been made on the offer.

Parks & Recreation Commission Chairman Larry Haskel said he hopes the town and state can come to an agreement. Right now, with so few fields and so many kids enrolled in sports, there is no other alternative.

“We’ll have to start turning kids away within the next year if we don’t get more fields, particularly with soccer,” Mr Haskel told the Board of Selectmen Monday night.

Parks & Recreation is also seeking to build additional ball fields at the town-owned Amaral property along Elm Drive.