Affordable housing complex to break ground in East Lyme
East Lyme — Town officials have confirmed that a developer will soon break ground on an affordable housing complex near Rocky Neck State Park.
The project, now known as Rocky Neck Village but which was originally proposed in 2013 by New London-based developers JAG Capital Drive LLC, now has all the permits it needs, Zoning Official Bill Mulholland said last week.
According to a plan submitted to the town, Georgia-based developer Harold Foley of HF3 Development Group LLC plans to build 56 apartment units, 36 of which, or 64%, will be designated as affordable housing. Town Planner Gary Goeschel said that with the addition of these units, he estimates that 6% of the town's housing stock will be designated as affordable housing.
The project was originally proposed in 2013, but the Zoning Commission rejected the plan because it would be located in a light industrial zone and residents were concerned about being exposed to chemicals then being manufactured in the vicinity.
After the state appellate court sided with the developer in 2016, Foley has said he bought the rights to the project after JAG listed the development rights in 2017 for $1.5 million.
According to the town records, JAG still owns the property, but Foley has said he has signed a contract to purchase the property once he obtained all the necessary permits from the town. Foley estimated last year the project would cost around $20 million to construct.
The project also received 25,200 gallons of daily sewage capacity from the Water & Sewer Commission last September.
Foley did not respond to requests for comment on the project last week, but Mulholland said Foley has indicated that work crews will start mobilizing on the site in the next week or two.
Mulholland also confirmed the project has included plans to extend a waterline to the town-owned plot of land where the future public safety building is being planned and which borders the JAG property.
The town plans use the waterline to provide public safety employees with drinking water because a deed restriction on the public safety property does not allow the town to use the property’s groundwater.
Questions have been raised about the restriction and whether the 650-footdeep well is contaminated. But First Selectman Mark Nickerson has said the restriction was a "boilerplate requirement" included by previous owner Honeywell with the purchase agreement. Honeywell confirmed this earlier this year.
Town Engineer Bill Scheer said earlier this year the town knows the well is not contaminated because Honeywell was required by the Department of Public Health to conduct more than 10 years of quarterly water testing until early 2019, when the building was vacated. The results never yielded unhealthy levels of contaminants, Scheer said, and the town has documentation of those results.