In the “just on the horizon” category, First Selectman Jeff Capeci reported to the Legislative Council on January 3 that the town would soon be hearing back about historic credits it applied for to help develop two buildings on the Fairfield Hills campus — Shelton Hall and Kent Hall.

The application is with the US Parks Department for historic credits that would provide financial assistance to developer WinnDevelopment in renovating those two buildings as mixed use residential/commercial.

This application has been a long time coming, with the town’s own boards authorizing the application back in August 2022.

The Fairfield Hills buildings are often a target for vandalism and popular on various social media sites where videos of people trespassing in the supposedly haunted halls of the former mental health asylum are often posted. Many of the buildings have been targeted for demolition, but the application for the historic credits has halted the process — projected to cost $3 million per year in the Capital Improvement Plans of the past few years — as receiving the credits would require the town to preserve all the buildings, however bad shape some may be in.

Some town officials expressed trepidation over the historic credits, which would place the Fairfield Hills campus buildings on the US registry of historic buildings and limit the town’s ability to demolish buildings on the campus. Concerns centered around the inability of the town to demolish other buildings on campus over a certain period of time, and concerns that “strings” would be placed on the town’s control of the buildings.

Former Land Use Director George Benson said that the “town is not giving up anything” by accepting historic credits. The campus is already facing limitations on what can be done with the buildings because it is on the state historic register.

Benson said that “no one can develop these without historic credits”; and that it wasn’t “a financially feasible plan.”

Any change the town wants to make to the exterior of the buildings already has to go before the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) as the campus is on the state historic register. SHPO would be the same organization that would review changes should the campus be placed on the federal historic register, according to Stacey Vairo, of Preservation Connecticut.

The federal process would designate the campus and all buildings currently standing as historically significant, and the town would not be able to demolish any of the buildings during the time the project is being worked on and for five years after, or the federal Parks Service, which would award the historic credits, can “claw back” the money. The current time line from Winn estimates that Kent and Shelton would be renovated by the end of 2025 and the claw back period would end at the end of 2030.

When asked if any of the buildings were so structurally unsound that they may become compromised before 2030 and need to be demolished, then-First Selectman Dan Rosenthal responded, “not to my knowledge.”

Sources of funds for this project include federal Historic Tax Credits, state Historic Tax Credits, and Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC). It is expected that historic tax credits will make up 25 percent of total project funding.

The rest of the project will be paid for by WinnDevelopment, with no cost to the town. The town would sell the buildings to Winn but would lease them the land that the buildings are on.

If the mixed use project moves forward, it is estimated that it will have a $25.3 million positive impact to the Town of Newtown’s direct cash flow from now until the demolition bonding payments are completed, over the next 35 years. If the mixed use buildings are renovated, it is estimated that the town will bring in $20,070,555 in revenue, with $31,659,976 in expenses, for a net cash loss of $11,589,420 over those 35 years.

If the mixed use buildings are not renovated, it is estimated that the town will bring in $1,612,814 in revenue versus $38,477,451 in expenses, for a net cash loss of $36,864,638.

The difference between the two is the $25.3 million positive impact, as the town will see a much smaller cash loss on the Fairfield Hills property with the mixed use buildings. The expenses are mostly in the cost of demolishing the unused buildings, and are estimated to be larger without the mixed use buildings as Kent and Shelton Houses would eventually have been demolished as well.

The Bee hopes that the answer regarding the application is positive and that some of these buildings can become tax positive for the town, helping increase the Grand List and lower the tax burden on current residents.