Federal Funds Sought To Improve Sandy Hook’s Streetscape

By Andrew Gorosko

A group of government officials, Sandy Hook Center business people, and property owners are organizing a drive to make “streetscape” improvements to Sandy Hook Center, the compact business district near the intersection of Church Hill Road, Glen Road, Washington Avenue, and Riverside Road.

Toward that goal, the ad hoc group plans to seek a federal grant which, if approved, would cover 80 percent of costs for the public improvement project. The town would provide the remaining 20 percent of funding.

Community Development Director Elizabeth Stocker said that although there is not yet a cost estimate for the improvements, she projects the work would cost “several hundred thousand dollars.”

Improvements eyed for the area include new sidewalks, improved street lighting, enhanced building facades, landscaping, and benches.

A small section of Sandy Hook Center received improvements in the past. The corner of Church Hill Road and Washington Avenue has a brick-paved sidewalk, planters, and benches. The Church Hill Road bridge, which crosses the Pootatuck River, holds four large decorative lantern-style electric lights at its corners.

The ad hoc group wants to make physical improvements to Sandy Hook Center to economically revitalize the business area, which has undergone gradual physical improvement during the past several years.

 In 1995, the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) created Sandy Hook Design District (SHDD) zoning. That zoning designation is intended to foster mixed-use development and emphasizes the human scale of Sandy Hook Center through various pedestrian amenities.

 At a recent meeting of the ad hoc panel, Jonathan Chew, the executive director of the Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials (HVCEO), said certain federal transportation funding has been earmarked for urban beautification projects, such as the one envisioned for Sandy Hook Center. Several years ago, the town used such money, provided under the US Intermodal Surface Transportation Enhancement Act grant program, to renovate the deteriorating Dayton Street bridge which links Glen Road to Dayton Street, just north of Sandy Hook Center. Although the Victorian-era antique bridge is closed to motor vehicles, it is used as a pedestrian walkway.

The federal grant program has provided funds for new sidewalks along Greenwood Avenue in Bethel; for a renovated Danbury railroad station; for a renovated Lover’s Leap Bridge in New Milford; and for improvements to the town hall area in New Fairfield. Redding plans to seek a federal grant to improve Main Street in Georgetown.

Mr Chew explained that federal transportation officials require municipalities to provide detailed plans in their grant applications for improvement projects. Those plans provide information required to create sound cost estimates for improvement work.

The Sandy Hook Center improvement project “definitely qualifies for this type of [grant] program,” Mr Chew said.  Sandy Hook Center is a physically small place which is geographically suitable for such grant funds, he said. HVCEO serves as an intermediary for federal transportation grant funding for 10 municipalities in the region.

“We’ll be glad to help the town strategize,” Mr Chew said, adding that HVCEO would seek to provide Newtown with some landscape architecture services to help it develop the streetscape improvement plan.

“We really should get or heads together… and start getting this project moving ahead,” Ms Stocker said.

Utilities

 Mike Porco, a Sandy Hook Center property owner and local builder, said that public water lines and natural gas mains should be extended to Sandy Hook Center before streetscape improvements are made. Otherwise, it might be necessary to tear up new sidewalks to install those public utilities, he said. Although the Walnut Tree Village condominium complex on Walnut Tree Hill Road in Sandy Hook has both public water and gas service, those utilities do not yet extend to Sandy Hook Center.

The town is scheduled to open bids July 16 for the extension of water mains to Sandy Hook Center.

Mr Porco recommended that several utility poles in Sandy Hook Center be removed as part of the streetscape project. The utilities strung on those poles, such as electric, telephone, and cable television lines, would be buried underground. “We want to do [the project] in a very tasteful and fashionable way,” Mr Porco said.

It is unclear if burying such utility lines would be covered by grant funds, Mr Chew said.

George Breitwieser, representing the Connecticut Light & Power Company, said it is very expensive to bury utility lines and very difficult to get grant money to do such work.

Mr Chew told group members that based on the complexities of planning a streetscape improvement project, it could take several years to complete the work. New Fairfield started planning its town hall area improvements in 1996 and it received federal funding approvals in 1998, but it has yet to complete the project, Mr Chew said. Although such projects are time consuming, they are well worth doing, he said.

The town needs to create maps that will show the details of improvements planned for Sandy Hook Center, Ms Stocker said.

Erwin Potter, a Sandy Hook Center landscape architect, observed that existing sidewalks in the business area are incomplete and inconsistent. Mr Potter suggested that sidewalks be extended eastward on Riverside Road to Sandy Hook School.

Mr Potter said mapping needs to be created to depict the extent of sidewalk improvement work that is required. He said he would draw some maps if he were provided with the necessary information.

Although Sandy Hook Center is built on a “village scale,” the steady flow of heavy truck traffic through the center is disruptive to village life, Mr Potter said. He recommended that a bypass road be created to divert truck traffic away from Sandy Hook Center, thus making the area more pleasant for pedestrians. Such a bypass road might involve extending Commerce Road to Wasserman Way to make Commerce Road a through-road, he said.

Ms Stocker told members of the ad hoc group they need to lobby the town government to seek the town share of funding for the Sandy Hook Center streetscape improvement project. “It’s a political process,” she said. Ms Stocker pointed out that the borough Board of Burgesses and borough residents lobbied the Board of Selectmen and Legislative Council to get new sidewalks built in the borough.

Ms Stocker stressed the need to get Sandy Hook Center residents involved in the streetscape improvement plans in order to advance that project.

 Mr Chew said the existence of SHOP (Sandy Hook Organization for Prosperity) is an asset in getting plans such as the streetscape improvement project accomplished. SHOP has spearheaded past improvement projects in Sandy Hook Center.

 “In order to accomplish what we want to accomplish, it takes a lot of passion from a lot of people,” Mr Porco said.

“If there is an area that requires [sidewalks], this is the area,” said P&Z member Anthony Klabonski.