Norwich inspections director to retire soon
James Troeger has led city’s response to casino housing, recovery houses, blighted properties, more
Norwich — Director of Inspections James Troeger recently flipped through newspaper clippings, chuckling or shaking his head at some of the milestones of his 25-year tenure of responding to crises and trends.
Troeger saw the rapid demand for — and abuse of — rental housing with the rise of the region’s two casinos. The addiction crisis brought overcrowded so-called recovery houses. And residents and politicians alike demanded a better city response to abandoned and blighted properties.
Troeger, 73, will retire in early 2020, although his exact departure
date is not yet set as he awaits city approval of a pending union contract for City Hall supervisors. But the cleaning-out process of his office in the Planning and Neighborhood Services building at 23 Union St. is well underway.
Troeger and his wife, Beth, a retired school teacher now working part-time at the Integrated Day Charter School, moved to a house in Scotland two years ago but plan to remain active in Norwich, he in the Sunrise Rotary and she as a passionate volunteer at the Slater Memorial Museum.
He started in December 1994 as a city housing inspector but in 1996, then-City Manager William Tallman appointed Troeger as the head of the inspections department. At the time, the city was in a transition. The downtown was depressed, but with the sudden rise of the casinos, urban rental housing was in demand again.
Overcrowding in substandard conditions rapidly became a problem, especially in areas within walking distance of Mohegan Sun Casino and to the shuttle buses Foxwoods Resort Casino then ran for its employees. City inspectors found beds in living rooms and hallways and walls dividing garages and basements.
“We were fighting with overcrowded apartments with the casinos,” Troeger said. “There were claims about people sleeping in shifts — hot-bedding — but that was never proved.”
Then complaints poured in from neighbors of what city officials came to call three-quarter houses — substance abuse recovery houses with little supervision and no regulation that halfway houses required. More overcrowding, with mattresses in hallways and living rooms, reports of rampant drug use and unsanitary conditions. Norwich officials lobbied for improved state inspections for rental subsidies the tenants were receiving, and the issue slowly quieted down.
“That was driven mainly by neighbors’ complaints,” Troeger said. “We haven’t had those recently.”
On the technical front, Troeger considers himself instrumental in getting the city to adopt a property maintenance code, replacing old minimum standards. He pushed for periodic mandatory inspections of residential rental properties, as well as the city’s blight ordinance that called for fines levied against negligent owners who failed to repair cited violations or tear down dangerous structures.
Blight fines are now a regular line item in the city budget, estimated at $38,000 this year.
The rental inspections certificate requirement was eliminated several years ago with budget cuts, but Troeger is advocating that the program be restored to ensure tenants have safe and adequate housing.
Clashes with historian
And he wasn’t shy about seeking demolition of problem properties, no matter their location in historic downtown or the city’s many mill villages — a stance that frequently put him at loggerheads with City Historian Dale Plummer and other historic preservation advocates.
Troeger kept a large yellow poster board tucked beside a filing cabinet in his office. “DEMOLISHED” is written vertically down the left side, with nearly three dozen photographs taped to the board, some with address or other notations. “HOMESTEAD” is written down the right side, with photos of rundown, foreclosed houses the city diverted to an urban homestead program to avoid auction or demolition.
“He’s not a friend to historic buildings,” Plummer said of Troeger. “In a city as rich, as absolutely rich as this one, to have a building official who was not friendly to historic preservation has been actually a major problem.”
The two clashed most dramatically over the city’s plan in the late 1990s to demolish the historic Wauregan Hotel, which had become a decaying, vacant condemned tenement building with fire damage and partially collapsed sections.
“I tried desperately to demolish the Wauregan,” Troeger said. “But that didn’t happen.”
The battle was fought in Hartford, with the state Historical Commission rejecting the city’s plan as developer Becker and Becker Associates stood by with a renovation plan. The $20 million restoration project was completed in 2006, including the restored grand ballroom, 70 affordable-housing apartments and four retail spaces. An eatery and convenience store, Punjabi restaurant, bookstore and the Wauregan Art Gallery now occupy the retail spaces.
But Troeger remains ambivalent about the outcome, saying it’s just another “low-rent” apartment building.
Plummer, who lives in the Wauregan, called it a major success story, with residents who shop downtown, attractive stores and restaurants. He said the Wauregan is a prime example of how Norwich can benefit from historic preservation over having “another hole in the ground.”
Troeger listed historic structures as one of the challenges the city faces: “How to deal with blighted structures that are considered historic that are no longer economically viable or reparable.” Applying handicapped-access codes in an affordable way to historic renovations is another challenge.
Ponemah Mill
There is one successful historic preservation project Troeger said he never could have envisioned: the $62 million renovation of the giant Ponemah Mill in Taftville. New Jersey-based OneKey LLC has completed the $30 million, 116-unit first phase at the main mill building and is well underway with the $32 million second phase with 121 apartments. Third and fourth phases are in the plans.
Troeger recalled a complaint from city officials early in his tenure. Shingles and roofing materials were falling from the mill stair towers in high winds. It felt hopeless. “There’s no way anyone’s going to restore that tower,” he recalled thinking.
“I never would have thought anyone could restore that building,” he said.
As he reflected on his and the city’s experiences, Troeger said he was appreciative of all the staff he worked with, from superiors to fellow inspectors, department secretarial staff and officials in other city agencies. He listed limited staffing as one of the challenges the department will continue to face in the future as it tries to tackle problem properties.
He said his own philosophy has been to find a level of enforcement that allows for development in compliance with existing codes, while ensuring safe occupancy for tenants. He also hoped to be helpful to homeowners and businesses in complying with the regulations.
“Simplify the permitting and inspection process to make it user-friendly,” he said.
The next big issue his successors likely will have to tackle is already here, Troeger said: Airbnb-type short-term rentals. The recent phenomenon has saved some of the city’s historic mansions by giving owners income to fund renovations. But they also bring large parties, parking problems and a steady stream of visitors in what used to be quiet residential neighborhoods.
“Somebody’s got to do something about all these Airbnbs,” Troeger said. “We’re getting complaints about traffic, parking, all the activity in a single-family neighborhood . ... A lot of people say it’s saving these big old mansions, so the owners have to do it.”