The CTPost will have an article in Wednesday's paper regarding the CC letter to the BOA in response to their request for comment on the City considering sale of 279 Soundview Ave property as our comments are required to be requested via City ordinance. I'm able to write my commentary on the article a day previous to it being in the paper as I have a google alerts service set for keyword "Shelton" and anything on the newswire with such come to me via email.
I encourage readers to go to the CTPost article as they are the content creator of the article and have methods for readers to comment on their articles within their website. I cut/paste with my comments under right of fair-use for public education as Chairman of the Conservation Commission.
By Kate RamunniSTAFF WRITER
Updated: 06/30/2009 06:09:27 PM EDT
SHELTON - The proposal to sell a portion of city-owned open space on Soundview Avenue isn't going over well with two city commissions.
The Board of Aldermen asked both the Parks and Recreation and Conservation commissions if the city should sell the house and about an acre of property on the open space at 279 Soundview Avenue, and both said no.
+++ The City Ordinance requires the BOA to request the CC and the Park&Rec Commission to give commentary input for their decision as to disposal of City real property (land). CC looks at the environmental values, P&R looks at the recreational value/potential. I am unaware of the P&R opinion regarding the characters they evaluate.+++
Instead, the city should make the entire site part of a new state program that pairs up farm land with potential farmers, according to conservation officials.
"Shelton has taken great strides in recent years beyond almost all other towns in Connecticut in its efforts to preserve agricultural land," Conservation Commission chairman Tom Harbinson said in a letter to aldermanic president John Anglace.
+++ The CC takes great pride in being as transparent as technologically possible for the public to participate in the government process. Any emails sent to a quorom of the CC appear on the internet in real -time (actually before they are sent onward to the commissioners themselves), and thus you can see the actual email where the letter was sent as a pdf file to the BOA on Jun16 in the afternoon. +++
The city has, for some of the larger pieces it owns, leased out the land to local farmers to hay, which has helped maintain the properties at no cost to the city but provides no assurance as to the maintenance of the land long-term, he said.
+++ While maintaining a field as a hay meadow has numerous benefits beyond agriculture (providing migratory bird habitat is just one), as stated in the letter to the BOA, "Basic hayng of property (as is done by license at the Klapik, Tall, and Wiacek farms) does not stop invasive shrubs such as Autumn Olive from advancing in to the field further each year from the edge, eventually taking over the entire field if not cut back with a brush hog at a significant expense". Note that the City does not "lease" parcels for a term, it issues a 1yr "license" to hay them.+++
"The reality is that the city does not have the resources on its own to actively protect and manage all the farmland under its stewardship," Harbinson said, "and current lease agreements with area farmers offers no incentive for those farmers to perform long-term maintenance on city property." That incentive could be gained through participation in the state FarmLink program, Harbinson suggested.
+++ To be clear, I thank the farmers who continue via yearly renewed license agreements to put the City's open space parcels to agricultural use via harvesting the grass as hay. They should be applauded for continuing their activities in an increasingly difficult environment of spreading suburbia development. However, the City should consider a lease of the lands currently licensed, and at length of term where the leasee (farmer) would then have surety that investment they make in the land (enriching the soil, maintaining fencing, etc) would have the potential of payback in a future year of crop yield or ease of harvest. +++
"This program is designed to marry prospective would-be farmers with available agricultural land to be farmed," he said. The farmer acts as a tenant and steward of the land, Harbinson said, in exchange for the right to farm there.
+++ The program via UConn has been operating since at least 2006. For example, there are currently shown new 2009 listings for 11 farms seeking tenants, and 20 farmers seeking farms. http://www.farmlink.uconn.edu/ +++
"We believe the Soundview Avenue property, with a ready house, arable land and upland area where a barn could be built, would be an ideal candidate for such an incentive program," Harbinson said. "As there is no budget crisis in Shelton necessitating selling off of its assets right away, there can be no harm to investigating this option and not rushing into the hasty sale of this valuable asset."
+++ The issue regarding agricultural use is in the short term a moot point as the BOA at it's 2009/Jun/11 meeting (p.14 of minutes) authorized a license to adjacent property owner and farmer Art Maybeck to farm the larger tillable portion of the parcel. The BOA is asking CC commentary for selling a carved out building lot with the existing farmhouse from the overall parcel addressed as 279 Soundview Avenue. Given the farmhouse in the core of the agricultural land, selling the house as a building lot would impact the ability to utilize the remaining farmland to it's full agricultural potential. +++
The commission will have the property evaluated by the Natural Resources Conservation Service to determine its appropriateness for the program, Harbinson said.
Anglace said he would be interested in looking into the program but it shouldn't halt the process of investigating a possible sale.
+++ Chairman Anglace is correct. According to Ordinance #839, which was recently reviewed by the Board of Alderman and adopted on 2009/Feb/11, after receiving the Conservation Commission and Park & Recreation Commission opinion (both negative to sell in this case), the BOA is to determine if they want to proceed, and if they do, THEN the BOA (NOTE: NOT the Mayor) is required to request an 8-24 referral from the PZC on the sale of the property. The Mayor requested and 8-24 referral in advance of this 4-sale process, not the BOA, and certainly not after receiving opinions from the PRC and CC. This step has not yet been processed by the BOA. It may be semantics in some people's eyes, but the BOA should not rely on an 8-24 referral made by the request of the Mayor in order to accelerate or by-pass the proper process. +++
"Let them proceed with [the evaluation]," Anglace said. "But I don't think we should stop the sale process for them to do that." The city needs to find out how much a sale could bring in to the city, he said.
+++ If the PZC 8-24 referral is positive the BOA may proceed further. If it is not favorable, the BOA must override the 8-24 referral with a 2/3 vote to proceed further. Then the BOA must have the property appraised, and as professional services that is likely to not require going out to bid to choose the vendor. At that point the BOA would know the appraised value, but as they only purchased the property less than a year ago, that is pretty easy to estimate regardless of the process. However that does not mean the same as "how much a sale could bring" as that is the market conditions of competitive bidding. To get to that step, their must be a public hearing, then the BOA decide whether to proceed and if so, must advertise to accept bids, which are received by the purchasing agent, opened publicly, referred to the Board of Apportionment and Taxation, who would determine the highest responsible bidder. The BOA reserves the right to reject any and all bids. The BOA approves the price and authorizes the sale. You can find all of this on the municode website that maintains the City's charter and Ordinances. It is Chapter 2, Article 1, Section 2-18. +++
He also questioned what financial benefits the city would see from the FarmLink program. "They can't expect us to get them the property to use - that's crazy, it doesn't make sense," Anglace said. "Someone is going to have to pay the city or else the taxpayers are subsidizing them."
+++ As with a license agreement (currently a few dollars per year for haying City Open Space parcels), a lease agreement with have a renumeration component, along with other terms demanded or negotiated by the City's fiscal authority - the BOA. +++
The aldermen will discuss at its July 9 meeting whether to ask the Planning and Zoning Commission for its opinion on a potential sale, which is the next step in the process, Anglace said.
+++ I have great confidence in the City's process on the "Procedure to sell City property" +++
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