Sidewalk funds still a question
$400,000 needed for Route 7 redevelopment
NEW MILFORD — Town officials have agreed to go ahead with the first part of designing sidewalks along Route 7, but stopped short of making an actual commitment to build them.
The Town Council recently approved $70,000 in town funds toward a $400,000 local match to a
$1.8 million federal grant to design and build the sidewalks. The finance board could take its own vote on the funds as soon as June 12.
This comes almost three months after a man was fatally struck on Route 7 near John Pettibone Community Center. Seven pedestrians have been hit on the 5.5-mile stretch of road in the past 10 years, including three near the Pickett District Road intersection in the past five years.
Questions remain, however, about whether the areas selected are the best places to add sidewalks based on safety issues and usage, as well as where the town will come up with the remainder of the
$400,000 to meet its 20 percent match to the $1.8 million grant.
There’s about eight miles of road along Route 7 from the high school to Bridge Street that town officials and residents would like to have sidewalks, based on input in the Plan of Conservation and Development.
New Milford has been tackling this issue in a piecemeal fashion for years since sidewalks weren’t added when the initial Route 7 expansion happened. The town now requires sidewalks be added whenever a development or redevelopment happens on the busy road.
Right now, sidewalks would be installed at Candlewood Lake Road South to Sullivan Road, Pickett District Road south to Three Brothers Family Restaurant, by the Taco Bell and from Aspetuck Avenue to connect Canterbury School to downtown.
These sections could change during the design if the data shows a greater need in a different part of Route 7.
Public Works Director Mike Zarba said these sections were selected because they’re in front of townowned buildings and so the only way to build the sidewalks is through grants or the town pays for it.
He said business owners and other property owners along Route 7 will build the pieces in front of their establishments.
“The goal is to have sidewalks on all of those stretches of road,” Zarba said at a recent Town Council meeting. “We filled in the gaps with what we felt would be best served in terms of tax dollars.”
Some council members argue it will be more cost effective to proceed once there is a concrete idea of where the sidewalks should go, while others worry they’ll lose the grant if they hold off and would not be able to get money like this again for the work.
Tammy Reardon, New Milford’s grant writer and compliance specialist, said the grant program is constantly changing and sidewalk money might not be available again. For example, New Milford wouldn’t have qualified for the latest round of federal money because it focused on regionalization.
Zarba told council members that most of their questions about safety and where the need for sidewalks is should be answered during the first design phase, known as the 30 percent design. At that point, the town can also pull out of the federal grant project with no penalty.
New Milford actually received the funding because another town pulled out when it got to that point, Reardon said.
The Town Council has agreed to proceed to the design phase because it doesn’t have to identify where the full $400,000 comes from now and can approach that when the construction starts. There’s also a chance it can be split between two or three budget cycles.
“We all know we don’t have $400,000,” councilwoman Katy Francis said at the last meeting.