Daily Answers Questions, Concerns About Land Swap

State Sen. Eileen Daily came under fire repeatedly tonight for her support of a controversial land swap proposal in Haddam. She faced a roomful of people who oppose the plan and don't want the state legislature to approve it.

The Westbrook Democrat told the more than 50 people who turned out for the meeting of the East Haddam Democratic Town Committee that she “believes totally that this project is good for the state, good for Haddam and good for East Haddam.”

Daily is backing a plan for the state to swap a 17.8-acre parcel overlooking the Connecticut River in Haddam’s Tylerville village for an 87-acre swath of forestland in the Higganum section of town owned by the developers of the Riverhouse at Goodspeed Station.

The land near the river abuts the Riverhouse property and the developers have said they want to build a boutique hotel and associated retail space on the site.

The plan has been rejected twice by state officials but was inserted into a conveyance bill this year at Daily’s request. Last week a legislative committee approved the bill, which is now pending before the Senate.

Opposition to the land swap proposal has steadily mounted since the proposal was revived several weeks ago.

Daily, the plan’s chief proponent in the legislature, agreed to attend tonight’s town committee meeting to addres some of the concerns that have been raised.

One of those is the issue of whether trading state open space for commercial development would set a precedent. Daily said the state has made land swaps in the past and promised to provide residents with information about other land trades.

“This does not set a precedent,” she said of the proposed Haddam land swap. “This does not break new ground.”

She also countered accusations that past attempts to approve the measure in the legislature represented midnight deals or backroom dealings, as some critics have charged.

“It was neither of those things,” she said. In one previous legislative session, she said, the conveyance bill containing the proposed Haddam land swap came up for a vote late at night, but such late-night votes are typical for conveyance bills.

Still, the residents who attended the meeting raised numerous other concerns with the proposal. Some in the standing-room only crowd questioned how the state could consider the land swap when the Riverhouse partners have offered no clear proposal for what they plan to do with the land.

Others pointed to high-profile development projects that included either state tax breaks or the taking of land by eminent domain by the state, only to falter.

Gene Bartholomew, of Chester, noted the highly controversial Fort Trumbull project in New London, where private property owners were forced out of their homes to make way for a broad-based development that included the construction of a new headquarters for Pfizer Inc. Much of that development never occurred and Pfizer recently moved from the huge facility it built in Fort Trumbull.

“They left it and they took all the jobs,” Bartholomew said.

Others questioned whether the Higganum land is worth as much as the Tylerville property and said they are worried about what the Riverhouse developers ultimately could do with the Connecticut River land once they take control of it.

Others said the state has no business bartering land that is deeded as open space and said there are no guarantees that whatever is built there will be successful or a boon to the area.

 “What worries me is if (they) go in and build what (they) want and then it fails,” said Clark Gardner of Higganum.

“We’re being asked to buy a pig in a poke,” said another resident.

Daily said any development on the site would have to be approved by Haddam’s land use agencies. She also said the developers can not file definitive plans because the land is currently zoned for industrial use.

While many of the residents made impassioned and emotional arguments against the plan, the meeting was mostly devoid of personal attacks.