Lawmakers Debate New Agency To Coordinate Development Near Transit

HARTFORD — A bill designed to help communities foster private development near transit stations cleared a legislative committee Tuesday.

Advocates said the idea will help Connecticut towns and cities benefit from bus and train stations and emphasized heavily that no community will be required to participate.

Critics — overwhelmingly Republican — said the measure risks creating another costly governmental board at a time when Connecticut is laying off employees.

“This could cost at least $200,000 a year for new staff, at the same time we’re looking at a billion-dollar deficit and we’re supposed to be making government smaller,” Sen. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton, said after the 18-to-13 vote

A similar measure was hugely controversial last year because it would have created a quasi-public agency with rights of eminent domain and the ability to override local zoning regulations. Committee Chairman Tony Guerrera stressed that those elements has been removed, calling the new version “very watered down.”

Sen. Cathy Osten, a Democrat from the 19th District in southeastern Connecticut and a prominent booster of the bill, said it will enable towns and cities to get technical assistance for fostering new development near Metro-North, Hartford Line, CTfastrak and Shore Line East stations. The service would be offered through a new board to be called the Transit Corridor Development Assistance Authority.

“Sixty towns have said they want this, and people are always saying they want more public-private partnerships,” Osten told her colleagues on the committee.

Catherine Smith, commissioner of the state Department of Economic and Community Development, has previously said the measure would revitalize neighborhoods near transit stations.

“Once approached by a municipality, the authority’s focus will be on working with the municipality, relevant regional organization, and appropriate state agencies — such as DECD — to concentrate housing, parking, and cultural and commercial development near transit stops, which will help to improve the quality of life and economy of the municipality,” she testified last month.

The measure passed with only one Republican — Rep. Tom O’Dea of New Canaan — voting in favor and just one Democrat — Rep. Peggy Sayers of Windsor Locks — voting against. The bill now goes to the full Senate.

Much of the brief debate Tuesday was unintelligible to reporters, lobbyists and even legislators who tried to listen as a small core of committee members gathered in circle in an oppressively noisy second-floor lobby of the Capitol.

Lawmakers usually discuss issues in the quiet, spacious hearing rooms of the Legislative Office Building, but Tuesday’s brief meeting was moved with little notice to an open lobby where even some committee members complained angrily that they couldn’t hear.