The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Plan for 120 new apartments in Torrington submitted
TORRINGTON — An application for development of 120 apartments in the Greenbrier Estates subdivision is expected to be scheduled for a public hearing in April.
The application by TDF Enterprises LLC, which shows the company is owned by Thomas DeFranzo of Windsor, includes plans to build four residential buildings, each containing 30 apartments, near Notting Hill Gate and Wimbledon Gate North.
A scheduled meeting of the Inland Wetlands Commission was canceled Tuesday night due to a lack of a quorum. However, Rista Malanca, the zoning and wetlands enforcement officer, acting as the agent of the commission, accepted the application by the developer.
“I believe it is in the public interest to hold a public hearing,” Malanca said. A date for the hearing will be scheduled once the commission members are consulted on calling the public hearing, she added.
“There have been previous applications,” on the property under consideration, “but nothing was ever built,” Malanca said Tuesday.
“There are roads and multiple singlefamily houses built in the area,” she said. “We will determine if there is an impact,” to the wetlands, she added.
The application shows there are seven acres of wetlands within the planned 11acre development. The property is located on the Litchfield town line.
DeFranzo declined to discuss the application on Tuesday stating, “I don’t want to talk about it until it’s before the Planning and Zoning Commission.”
DeFranzo left a message later in the day and referred questions to Daniel Ferraina of Windsor, who state records show is the principal of the company.
Since taking office, Lamont has said he does not support raising the gasoline tax, which he believes is already too high, nor the use of “priority bonding” that would borrow to support transportation funding and add to the state’s debt.
Republicans have continued to pitch their plan to prioritize bonding to pay for infrastructure improvements.
“Under our plan, we could create construction jobs now and immediately start work on the roads and bridges that need attention right away,” Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano and Sen. Henri Martin, R-Bristol, said in a statement. “The governor’s tolls plan will take at least five years to get up and running; and in the meantime, the governor’s budget swipes funding for transportation, stealing infrastructure dollars to use elsewhere.”
The Lamont administration pushed back against the Republican narrative, which points out that Lamont freezes money from the new car sales tax scheduled to go into the special transportation fund. The money would have kept the fund solvent for longer than anticipated under Lamont’s budget proposal.
“The idea that the Republican plan does not take any additional money from taxpayers is laughable. Since when is borrowed money free?” Colleen Flanagan Johnson, Lamont’s senior adviser, said. “Their idea to ‘Prioritize Borrowing’ will result in an income tax increase, doesn’t fix the deficit in the Special Transportation Fund, and saddles Connecticut taxpayers — including our kids and grandkids — with 100 percent of the cost of principal plus interest. And, with that level of borrowing, programs such as municipal aid and school construction will be drastically cut.”
Lamont and toll supporters argue that 40 percent of the toll revenue will come from out-of-state drivers. They argue that borrowing to pay for the improvements relies on only Connecticut taxpayers.
Republicans argue the state could adopt their plan and immediately start making improvements.
“Instead, the governor’s plan would allow Connecticut’s infrastructure to deteriorate for another five years or more, worsening the state’s problems so that tolls can be seen as a savior,” Fasano and Martin said.
Tolls were removed from Connecticut’s highways in 1985.
Lamont proposed putting tolls on interstates 84, 91 and 95 and Route 15. The proposal calls for installing about 53 overhead tolling gantries on some 330 miles of roadway.