In Redding's Top Race, It's All About The Wiremill Redevelopment

REDDING, CT — The signature issue of the campaign for Redding first selectman is the future of the Gilbert & Bennett Manufacturing Company site in the Georgetown area of town. Candidates incumbent Democrat Julia Pemberton and Republican challenger John Shaban have made it clear they are coming at the issue from very different directions.

In 1998, the wire mill went bankrupt after 180 years of operation. It left behind high levels of lead and zinc contamination throughout the 60-acre site, and a morass of liens, liabilities and litigation that was just as toxic. The town finally took possession of the land in February, following decades of on-again, off-again deals with developers and bondholders that traveled all the way to the Connecticut Supreme Court before resolving in Redding's favor.

Shaban is critical of the length of time it's taken the redevelopment project to get this far. Pemberton said she has "met and talked with just about every major developer who showed interest in this project at any time" over the past seven years.

Both candidates have a soft spot for the original master plan for the property's redevelopment, drafted in 2005. That model called for a quintessentially New England walkable downtown district with 300,000 square feet of commercial, about 100,000 square feet of retail, and about 50 units of affordable housing, with an equivalent number of senior housing units.

But the market opportunity for that vision has come and gone, Pemberton admits, following a housing bubble implosion and recession. "The old plan is far too intense for what the town today would approve, but the bones are there."

The Democrat's 2021 version of the plan is a little less picturesque, and a lot more pragmatic.

"No one would deny that we need workforce housing, affordable housing," the first selectman told Patch. "We need housing for retirees who don't want to maintain a house, we need housing for young professionals who want to hop on the train to Stamford. We also need some commercial space, we need a tax base that is not just residential."

The four-term first selectman has served Redding for the past eight years. She ran unopposed in her first two municipal elections, but faced a primary challenge from Region 9 board member Mike D'Agostino in the run-up to this current race. She was the point person for the town's successful battle to foreclose on the site and take possession of it, in February.

Shaban was the State Representative for the 135th District, serving Redding, Easton and Weston from 2011-17. He was the ranking member of the General Assembly's Environment Committee, and on the State's brownfield redevelopment task force. He's been chairman of the Redding Water Pollution Control Commission, and also served on the town's Zoning Commission from 2006-11. He envisions subdividing the property into "2, 3, 5-acre lots" enabling the developers to build out the property in "smaller bites."

"It's a law I helped change up in Hartford, where you actually can segregate, sell, monetize and spill that money over into the next part of the property that needs to get cleaned up." Shaban said he is open to a single developer taking on the project, but does not think it's likely.

"Either (developers) take all 60 acres, or they take six," Shaban explained. "And maybe the town keeps a piece of the property. Whatever it is, we take it in small bites, but we're moving forward. We start biting, instead of sitting."

Pemberton said it's not that simple. She called her opponent's parceling plan "preposterous," and "irresponsible," and upholds that the office of Redding first selectman doesn't have the authority to pull those kinds of triggers.

"The EPA and the (state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection) won't allow it to happen," she said. And if they did, there would need to be a town referendum to approve the sale of each parcel, according to Pemberton.

In addition to differing long-term visions for the site, the candidates have a fundamental disagreement about how much more cleanup has to be done.

"There's still some to do, there's still some hot soil sitting in a pile over there by the sewer plant, there's still a couple spots they've got to get tightened up," the Republican said. "But most of the heavy lifting has been done."

"It's anything but." Pemberton's read is different: "The EPA took out 10,000 cubic yards of toxic sludge in 2000. There's about 40,000 cubic yards of toxic materials left in that property... There's at least $17 million of clean-up to do."

Shaban has pledged to "resolve any remaining legal constraints," drawing upon his own background as an environmental lawyer and experience as a lawmaker in Hartford.

For Pemberton, it is clearly frustrating to see how the race to get the wiremill redevelopment project over the finish line has become the centerpiece of the campaign.

"I have been working on this for seven years," she said. "We now have an opportunity to remake the future of Redding in such a way that we finally have that walkable downtown. But it is going to take years to do it, and if anybody tells you otherwise, run in the opposite direction."

Shaban, meanwhile, is telling everybody otherwise.

"I understand you don't come charging out of the gate," Shaban said. "You give people time to work things out, but I've worked on commercial developments and brownfield redevelopments all around the state for most of my career and there's a time for workouts and there's a time to move. And we did neither."

What's happens next at the wire mill property? That depends on what happens Election Day. Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Nov. 2. Voters who are in line before 8 p.m. will be able to vote even after the deadline passes. You can find your poll location at the Secretary of the State website by inputting your information.