City ready to take over property near airport
Officials say owners of 1-acre parcel haven’t followed orders on wetlands
DANBURY – City attorneys have drawn the line after owners of a residential property next to Danbury Municipal Airport failed to comply with orders to restore wetlands that were filled in a decade ago.
The city intends to acquire the 1-acre property on Miry Brook Road “either by negotiation or by eminent domain,” once Danbury’s environmental commission determines the extent of the wetlands damage.
“Since the property is adjacent to the airport and has access to the airport, it would be extremely important for city use or for airport use,” said Laszlo Pinter, the city’s managing attorney and deputy corporation counsel. “It would also result in the remediation of the wetlands issue.”
Pinter is referring to a triangular-shaped single
family lot, 300 feet from the southern tip of the airport’s runway 35. The city has tried in vain to compel the owners to comply with a
10-year-old court order to remove the fill from the wetlands on the property, said Michael Safranek, the city’s airport administrator.
“We’re working with the Environmental Impact Commission to move forward on this now,” Safranek said on Thursday. “The property is becoming more and more blighted with unregulated activity, and we think it can be used for the public good.
The City Council on Thursday was expected to authorize Pinter to “begin the process of acquisition, either by negotiation or eminent domain.”
The property owners, listed on city records as Carl Sayers and Carl Sayers II, could not immediately be reached late Thursday afternoon for comment.
The property, which includes a 2-bedroom Cape Cod-style home, is appraised at $200,000.
When asked to describe negotiations, Pinter would only say, “they have not been easy.”
Before the coronavirus pandemic struck Danbury
14 months ago, the Sayers’ property at 25 Miry Brook Road had been linked with another problem property at 89 Wooster Heights Road, east of the airport’s runway 26.
The city’s plan was to acquire both properties for a total of $430,000 and clean them up for a total of another $380,000 – and then submit the expense to the Federal Aviation Commission for reimbursement. The hope was the FAA would reimburse 90 percent of the city’s expense, and the Connecticut Airport Authority would kick another 7 percent.
The city reasoned that the projects would qualify for FAA reimbursement because acquisition would provide a cleaner buffer for takeoffs and landings by preventing trees from growing into the runway path. Danbury remains one of busiest general aviation airports in the state.
On Thursday, city officials said the Wooster Heights Road site had cleanup-related complications that had to be dealt with separately. Officials added the FAA was not keen to reimburse Danbury for either site, so the city was acting its own.
“It’s a good idea for the city to move forward as it should with any enforcement that needs to be taken,” said Shawn Stillman, coordinator of the city’s blight-fighting department, Unified Neighborhood Inspection Team, or UNIT.
Pinter agreed. “[T]he acquisition of this parcel would of great public benefit and of DXR benefit and instrumental for ancillary uses that would benefit the municipal airport including, but not limited to, construction of aircraft hangars, and/or construction of maintenance storage facilities…and/or expansion of access to private and public facilities serving the airport,” Pinter wrote to the City Council.