Stamford contractor’s yard gets icy reception

BRIDGEPORT — East End residents already feel they have to live, work and play alongside more noisy, dirty industrial sites than people do in other city neighborhoods.

So when a Greenwich land use attorney met with East End leaders Tuesday to ask that they embrace a Stamford-based contractor’s proposed storage yard for crushed stone, sand, mulch and topsoil, the outof-town lawyer got a polite but chilly reception.

“We’re a little gun-shy toward things of that nature,” said Tom McMillan, a member of the East End Neighborhood Revitalization Zone, one of several NRZ community groups that weigh in on economic development proposals around town.

Attorney Christopher Bristol did his best, but his unfamiliarity with the nuances of the inner-city sections that make up Connecticut’s largest municipality was on display.

“Is this the East End or the East Side?” an apologetic Bristol said as he tried to win over McMillan and his NRZ colleagues. “I just don’t have the knowledge about all the inner workings of the city.”

The property Bristol’s client, JCM Service Inc., wants to purchase for the storage yard — 2115 Seaview Ave. — is actually at the nexus of three sections of Bridgeport: the East End, the East Side, and Mill Hill. Bristol was advised he should also meet with the East Side and Mill Hill NRZ groups.

“Is there another one?” Bristol asked, trying to make sure he did not leave out an NRZ. “I didn’t mean that sarcastically. I’m trying to understand how these work.”

Memories of fire

But Seaview Avenue is represented by the same City Council members whose district includes the East End, Eneida Martinez and Ernie Newton. Martinez made it clear Tuesday she will do everything she can to see that zoning officials reject the storage yard.

“We’re looking for the East End to become a more beautifying location ... with housing, retail stores,” Martinez said.

That 2115 address, which made news in 2014 when a five-alarm fire demolished a perfume warehouse there, is directly across the street from a densely packed community of multifamily homes.

NRZ members said they were concerned about the noise, air pollution and other quality-of-life issues they believe would be affected if the contractor’s storage yard were opened.

Willene Gibson, an East End NRZ member, worried JCM’s plans would worsen the neighborhood’s already high asthma rates.

And Police Lt. Paul Grech, who attended the East End NRZ meeting for an unrelated issue, added he, too, thought the storage yard was a bad idea because of the truck traffic.

“We have 2,000 students who walk to school in that area,” Grech said. “We can’t be having these trucks come in and out.”

Martinez compared JCM’s plans to a former storage yard farther down Seaview Avenue that had been run by O&G Industries until political leaders, including Mayor Joe Ganim, in 2017 successfully went to court to force O&G to clean up the land.

Bristol said his client is “a much smaller operation. ... He’s certainly no O&G.”

Cleanup plans

Bristol argued that the storage yard would actually be “a really great first step” in helping to revitalize that section of Seaview Avenue following that devastating Sept. 11, 2014, warehouse blaze. The property, though cleared of debris, would be further cleaned up and landscaping and new fencing installed, Bristol said.

“All things considered, we’ll be improving (the lot),” Bristol told the East End NRZ.

State Rep. Andre Baker, D-Bridgeport, asked if JCM could store its materials “in a hangar-type facility” rather than out in the open.

Bristol said the storage yard would be wellscreened from the public and nothing kept there “should be rising up” in visible mounds.

“O&G started small,” Martinez said. “We do not want to bring another company on to the East End to do what O&G started. ... Once you’re there, it will take us years to get you out.”

The Bridgeport Planning and Zoning Commission had scheduled a public hearing on the storage yard for March, but Bristol and JCM agreed to delay that after learning about the city’s NRZs. Bristol apologized Tuesday for proceeding with the zoning application without first engaging the community groups.

“I had absolutely no idea,” Bristol said. “I would have come to you guys first.”

He anticipated Monday’s planned zoning hearing would also be put off until he had a chance to meet with the other NRZs.

Martinez afterward said the Mill Hill group would be even less open to JCM’s storage yard because many of its members are longtime homeowners who do not want more industry in the neighborhood.

“Mill Hill? Forget about it,” Martinez said. “That’s a tough NRZ, I’m telling you.”