Council Concludes Its Review Of Fairfield Hills RFP

By Steve Bigham

The Legislative Council Wednesday concluded its consideration of a “request for proposal” (RFP), designed to attract builders who may be interested in making a bid to develop Fairfield Hills. The document will now get a final review by town attorneys before being sent out to the public.

The town is expected to purchase the property from the state sometime this year and is looking to line up developers in the meantime. The state has offered to sell the property to Newtown “as is” for $5.5 million.

While the council did not agree to all the items within First Selectman Herb Rosenthal’s proposed RFP, it did agree to let the document leave its hands. The creation of an RFP and the development of a master plan – under the town charter – is the responsibility of the Board of Selectman. Mr Rosenthal agreed to hear the council’s input simply because of the magnitude of the project.

Council member Doug Brennan came up with his own RFP, which attempted to spell out in detail the various steps that a developer would need to go through. Mr Rosenthal said he would consider incorporating some of Mr Brennan’s ideas into the original RFP.

The framework of the RFP, created by Harrall, Michalowski Associates of Hamden, is based on the general recommendations of the Fairfield Hills advisory committee. Those recommendations call for town ownership of all 185 acres and mixed uses such as municipal offices, recreation facilities, playing fields, open space, and commercial uses, such as offices and small shops.

The RFP addresses the town’s needs and interests while allowing some flexibility for the creativity of the professional development community. Mr Rosenthal called the document specific and “much more targeted” to Newtown’s interests than the state RFP process of two years ago.

 Specifically, it requires that development not exceed the 1,231,453 square feet of enclosed space currently at Fairfield Hills. No more than five percent of that space should be devoted to retail uses, according to the RFP, and no more than 200 residential units and/or beds should be in the development plan. Council member Ruby Johnson has opposed this idea. She does not want to see any housing at Fairfield Hills.

The proposed RFP also calls for 32,000 square feet of space to be allocated for town offices in addition to a building for recreational purposes.

Outside of these uses, 125 of the 185 acres of the site should be reserved as open space, with 90 acres of that total for passive recreation, and 35 acres for five to seven playing fields.

The RFP also directs potential developers to be sensitive to environmental issues, including protection of the underlying aquifer and limiting the negative impact of traffic on local streets.

The document also sets basic design principles for development at Fairfield Hills to encourage a continuation of the current campus environment at the site. Exterior renovations and new construction should be visually compatible with the existing architecture, according to the proposed RFP, and the “visual relationship” between the campus and the open space should be maintained. The purpose of these design principles is to encourage the preservation of the “sense of place” that Fairfield Hills now enjoys.

Mr Rosenthal said he plans to use the RFP process to find out if there is a market for the reuse of Fairfield Hills as envisioned by the residents of Newtown.