Developer Interested in Fairfield Hills May be Invited to Speak

A developer interested in building housing on Fairfield Hills may be invited to present his plans at a public meeting under a proposal being floated by three members of the Fairfield Hills Master Plan Review Committee, and backed by broker Mike Struna and Fairfield Hills Authority Chairman John Reed.

"The thing that concerns me is nobody has yet flushed out the details of what this developer would be prepared to do," Reed told members of the housing and commercial subcommittees during a Wednesday night meeting at the Municipal Center. "Do you think it's appropriate to try to find some sort of forum for the people to find out what would be involved? If you are against it, you would know what it is you are against."

The review committee was organized to take another look at the master plan for Fairfield Hills, gain community consensus on any proposals and advise the Board of Selectmen on the committee's findings. At the moment the plan does not allow housing on at Fairfield Hills.

Struna, who has a client interested in building 160 apartment units at Fairfield Hills, said the town must consider allowing some housing on the campus in order to make redevelopment economically viable.

At the moment, the only occupied buildings on the campus are the Municipal Center and Newtown Youth Academy, a sports facility. More developers might be interested in commercial space at the campus if they knew there were some people living nearby, Struna said.

"You've got to have people," he said. "The housing component then supports the doctors office, the housing component supports the coffee house, the housing component supports the youth academy."

Reed, who said he is representing his own point of view and not of the authority, is in favor of having the developer come and make his case, particularly because this is one of the few who have expressed a credible interest in the campus recently.

"This is the first developer in a long time who has shown a concrete interest in Fairfield Hills," Reed said. "I would like to find out more about the art of the possible."

Alan Shepard, Steve Zvon and Bob Maurer, members of the review committee said they would be in favor of inviting the developer to a special meeting to hear what he has to say. They said they would bring up the idea to the rest of the review committee.

"We gather information all the time," Shepard said. "That doesn't mean we render a decision."

Shepard said the developer should be prepared to make his arguments in a way that passes the "common sense" test.

"Anything that you propose has to have good details behind it," he said. "It's got to be sensible…You've got to lay all the cards on the table and let (the people) make the decision."

One wrinkle that might deter Struan's client is the timeline. Struna said that if the review committee isn't expected to come to a decision on its recommendations until next spring, his client would likely no longer be interested in pursuing the project.

"To wait until April, we are toast," Struna said. "We had been operating under the theory that we will try to go through the process with the thought that this was going to happen in December…If we are going until April before we have any indication that residential won't be a component…I'm not going to say there won't be another guy, but it won't be that guy."

Struna said he believes one of the reasons Fairfield Hills has not attracted more developers is due to uncertainty. Plans for economic development have been in the works for years with little to show for it, he said.

"Nobody knows what is going to happen here," Struna said.