Dunn Wants To Keep Boundaries Around Affordable Housing

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD – It is a narrow town with two lakes bordering it.

There are only 20 square miles of land, which means it is six square miles smaller than rural Roxbury, for example.

More than 20 years ago, municipal officials were saying that there was little buildable land left in Brookfield.

Yet construction has not only continued, it has accelerated.

First Selectman Steve Dunn, a first-term Democrat, said in an interview that two of the recent projects in the emerging 198-acre Town Center of Brookfield, will each generate at least $350,000 in annual tax revenue.

But there also has been surge in affordable housing and some developers have tried to get it constructed under the 1989 state Affordable Appeals Act in which the project doesn’t have to conform to local zoning regulations if the town is below the mandated quota for affordable housing.

Dunn said the town hired an attorney more than a year ago who reviewed the deeds to the proprieties in Brookfield and the town has been granted a four-year moratorium on affordable housing applications.

There are four applications pending. Dunn believes, within reason, projects can be built along Federal Road or the Town Center of Brookfield – near the Four Corners.

However, the first selectman said the residential neighborhoods are not acceptable.

“I’m supportive of affordable housing,” said Dunn. “However, a lot of people in Brookfield have made big investments in their homes and want to see the value of them appreciate. We need projects that look right and feel right.”

He said affordable housing has been the most discussed topic as he has gone door-to-door to meet voters in his bid for a second term in the November 7 municipal election. He will face long-time Board of Education member Harry Shaker, the Republican nominee.

Dunn said he is gratified by the progress of the streetscape that has been under construction in the Town Center of Brookfield.

He said the project is “on time and under budget” and when it is completed around Thanksgiving it will be another step in giving Brookfield the kind of classic central business district that some New England towns have had for decades.

However, he said the area will need more public parking.

Dunn said that he has been rebuffed by the Board of Finance to fund an appraisal of properties that could be converted into at least 100 parking spaces.

“You don’t want people having to spend 15 minutes driving around to find a parking space,” said Dunn. “We only have 27 spaces on the street.”

He said he will continue to seek the public parking because “we’re going to need it and it will be a lot more expensive 10 years from now.”

The first selectman said about “25 percent” of the residents he’s spoken with have expressed concern on the potential impact to municipal finances from the lingering state budget impasse.

Dunn said municipal and school officials have already made provisions in purchasing and hiring to address the worst-case, which would be a loss of $1.8 million in state aid.

More than three months into the current fiscal year, the state is still operating under executive orders from Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Stamford).

Dunn said he opposed Malloy’s decision last month to veto the Republican-sponsored budget that had narrowly passed both chambers of the General Assembly.

The first selectman said the delay in reaching a budget could hurt bond ratings in many municipalities across the state.

Dunn said after the state has paid the teacher pensions since 1939, a portion of that responsibility shouldn’t be transferred to the municipalities, as Malloy called for in the proposed budget that he unveiled last February.

“However, if they’re going to force it on us, they should give us three or four years to prepare for it,” he declared.

Dunn said he learned on his first day in office in December 2015 that the town faced a $3.3 million gap from municipal bonds that had never been sold between 2000 and 2013.

The first selectman said that since then the town has rebuilt its fund balance from about 5.2 percent a year ago to around 8 percent, and despite the possible loss of at least some state funding it can still get to a 10 percent fund balance within two years.

Brookfield currently has an AA2 bond rating after reaching the coveted AAA level from Fitch, one of the three rating services, in the fall 2013.

Dunn said the rating agencies want it to be at least a 10 percent fund balance for a rating of AA1 or higher.

Although the fund balance had dwindled recently, the town has funded 97 percent of its pension obligations. Dunn said at least 80 percent is considered “stellar.”

Dunn, a retired vice president at J.P. Morgan Chase, said “if we’re smart and manage our money right,” the town can address it’s three major construction proposals – renovations to the 52-year-old Huckleberry Hill Elementary School on Candlewood Lake Road, an expansion to the 29-year-old police headquarters on Silvermine Road and a new library at the Municipal Campus to replace the 42-year-old facility on Whisconier Road.

The school and police headquarters projects are currently under study. Library officials presented a proposal earlier this month to construct a $14.775 million center on the Municipal Campus near the horse statues.

That would eliminate an athletic field and potentially the expansion of the police station could be built where an athletic field is located on the other end of the Municipal Campus.

An ad-hoc committee is studying the need to possibly replace those fields. Dunn said he is confident that additional land can be acquired.

Dunn easily defeated one-term Republican incumbent Bill Tinsley in the 2015 municipal election, marking the third time in four elections that the Democratic nominee captured the town’s top elected office.

In his opening statement at the Greater Brookfield Chamber of Commerce debate two years ago, Dunn said the establishment of A Brookfield Party was simply an off-shoot of the Republican Party in an effort to control all of the seats on many of the municipal boards and commissions.

The first selectman noted this year A Brookfield Party has no candidates on the ballot.

Dunn said the Brookfield Democratic Town Committee has become “revitalized” over the last three years with several “new, energetic” members to supplement the longer-serving members.

He said on one recent night there were 20 volunteers contacting voters by phone at Democratic headquarters, a stark contrast to the two volunteers you might have found at a call center a few years ago.