Harding hears 'frustration' over slow progress on Town Center

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD – State Rep. Stephen Harding (R-107) says there is “frustration” among some of his constituents over the current status of the emerging 198-acre Brookfield Town Center central business district, but he believes one of the obstacles is that the town is trying to create a downtown in an era of shopping malls and big box stores.

“There isn’t full occupancy and I think that’s a frustration for a lot of individuals,” said Harding of the development of the Brookfield Village segment – near the Four Corners intersection on Federal Road - which has retail outlets on the first floor and housing on the second and third floors.

“I don’t think it is any one individual’s fault,” he added in an apparent reference to criticism that has been aimed at Democratic First Selectman Steve Dunn.

Harding of Brookfield said in an interview with Patch.com that constituents tell him they had hoped it would be more similar to the pedestrian-friendly Main Street in Ridgefield.

“Generally, I think that [Main Street Ridgefield] was created organically over a century ago as a destination location,” remarked Harding. “Brookfield is trying to create a downtown in the 21st Century, which is unique. That is a challenge.”

Then-Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said during a talk in 2013 at Western Connecticut State University that people who had not even been born by the 1950s will see a photograph of Main Street in Danbury from that era and say, ‘Why can’t we have that.’”

Boughton said that Danbury and most municipalities will never have that kind of downtown again, since Main Streets have been forced to change through the years.

The former mayor said that Danbury’s Main Street “took a hit” when the Danbury Fair Mall opened in 1986. It is now largely responsible for Danbury ranking first in Connecticut in sales tax revenues and first, per capita, in restaurants.

Harding exclaimed, “Main Street America is not what it was 50 or 60 years ago. Developers are going to start malls and attract tenants. I don’t think that is unique to Danbury or the Danbury area. Developers and business tenants are going to seek more profits, or more success.”

He said that he is encouraged that Rich’s Ice Cream, La Piazza and Chic Boutique at Brookfield Village have become “destination spots” in the Brookfield Town Center.

“At this point, I don’t think that you can say that it is a success or that it is a failure,” Harding remarked regarding the central business district.

As regards to complaints about the Brookfield Town Center being dependent on housing – unlike Main Street in Ridgefield, - municipal officials in Brookfield were saying more than a decade ago that the housing would be essential since many of the frequent customers would come from a short radius.

Said Harding, “That does sound familiar.”

Former Democratic First Selectman Ken Keller, who later served as chairman of the municipal Economic Development Commission, initiated the Brookfield Town Center concept in the late 1980s. The project became plausible in November 2009 when the $105 million, 2.1-mile Route 7 bypass opened. That considerably reduced traffic near the Four Corners, which reportedly had 30,000 vehicle trips on a typical weekday. Former U.S. Rep. Jim Maloney (D-5) of Danbury estimated in 1998 that “90 percent” of it was “through traffic.”

The demolition of the previous occupants at the Brookfield Village site began shortly after Dunn, who is seeking a fourth term in the November 2 municipal election, took office in December 2015.

He recently noted that only two of the six streetscape segments have been built. Site work has begun for a grocery store in the Brookfield Town Center, which may have a Starbucks as a tenant.

On October 4, the Board of Selectmen unanimously approved seeking a state grant for the sixth phase of the streetscape.

Harding said he is “very confident” that the state will approve a grant to pay for 94 percent of the proposed $3.8 million phase – which would extend from the Still River Greenway to Station and Laurel Hill Roads.

That would bring the overall cost of the streetscape projects to $14.7 million, with town only having to pay for $3.1 million – 21 percent - of the costs.

Dunn said during a Brookfield Chamber of Commerce candidates’ debate on October 12 that he anticipates there will be a notable increase in the number of business tenants after all of the streetscape is completed. Two phases have been installed and the third and fourth phases should be under construction in 2022.

On another topic, Harding, who represents all of Brookfield, the Stony Hill section of Bethel and a slice of northern Danbury, voted against the recent extension of Gov. Ned Lamont’s (D-Greenwich) executive powers to February.

He said there was no need to take that step since, unlike Spring 2020 when the pandemic initially surfaced, the General Assembly has been holding regular sessions and there is more information available on the impact of COVID-19.

However, Harding acknowledged that the emergence of the Delta Variant this summer “suppressed a lot of the hopes and expectations that we had as a nation” following the initial stages of the vaccination program.

On another topic, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote recently that the United States might be approaching its most difficult winter since the 1973 Arab oil embargo.

He wrote that the poor may have to choose between buying groceries or heating their homes.

“Natural gas and coal prices in Europe and Asia just hit their highest levels on record, oil prices in America hit a seven-year high and U.S. gasoline prices are up $1 a gallon from last year,” Friedman reported.

Harding said the state “can address” issues regarding soaring energy costs and keep residents safe.

On a separate subject, the Waterbury Republican-American reported in a recent editorial that the state Office of Fiscal Analysis – the General Assembly’s budget arm – has indicated that there is a projected $4 billion state budget deficit over the period from 2023 to 2026.

The editorial suggested that state employees, who currently pay between two to four percent of their salaries into the pensions, should be required to pay the national average of seven percent. It also recommended that overtime pay be removed from pension calculations.

Harding said, “I think that is something to be considered.”

He said he doesn’t want the state to “regress” after fully funding the pensions for the last fiscal year and paying $1.5 billion toward past obligations. Harding said that resulted largely from “spending controls” that were included in a 2017 bipartisan budget agreement.

Patch.com has reported that CT Mirror budget reporter Keith Phaneuf told a Wilton League of Women Voters forum in April 2019 that the state’s pension obligations were structurally under-funded in each year from 1939 through 2010. A Wall Street Journal editorial last November that Fitch Ratings had indicated that Connecticut’s state employee pension obligations were the second worst funded in the nation, after Illinois.

On another issue, the Hartford Courant has reported that Lamont told the recent Greenwich Economic Forum that pubic employee unions have been slow to implement new technology.

Harding said Lamont had pledged to enact an ambitious program for new technology when he took office in January, and apparently has not met that goal.

CT Mirror reported in 2019 that state Department of Administrative Services Commissioner Josh Geballe, a former IBM executive, was removing file cabinets and converting paper to information technology. Geballe, who is also now the state Chief Operating Officer, told CT Mirror that bureaucracies are usually resistant to change.

Said Harding, “I don’t think that we’re on a 21st Century path.”