Comings, Goings and, of Course, the Bog Turtle in 2006


SHARON — The town of Sharon had a fairly eventful year, with a lengthy development controversy coming to a close, the Amenia landfill cleanup resolved, a new town plan written, an ethics code for town employees considered, a new administration at Town Hall, considerable attention paid to affordable housing, and the notion of adding enforcement powers for the Inland Wetlands Commission floated.

TriArts got a new head, the town garage got new doors, Sharon Center School got a new principal, and the Clock Tower got a facelift.Rehab to the Rescue

The long-running squabble over the Jackson Hill property of Robert DePretis ended when he reached an agreement with Vista Partners of Westport to buy the former Sharon Manor nursing home and property for use as a substance abuse rehabilitation facility geared to high-profile clients.

Vista Partners includes Terry Dougherty, founder and president of Mountainside, a rehab in North Canaan; his right-hand man, Martin Fedor; and Don Van Dyke, a Mountainside board member.

While Mountainside’s stated mission is to provide addiction recovery services at an affordable price, the new establishment will cater to wealthy and prominent individuals — and will be expensive. The site is ideal for the purpose, Dougherty said, allowing for seclusion and privacy, and with plenty of space to build residential and recreational units for the guests.

Mountainside is a not-for-profit organization; the new facility will be for profit.

Planning and Zoning Commissioners, not to mention Depretis’ neighbors, were pleased with the prospect, especially in the wake of contentious hearings going back to 2005. DePretis originally proposed a condominium development of around 30 units, restricted to residents 55 and older, that met with ferocious opposition by neighbors and other concerned citizens, who pulled out all the stops to defeat the proposal, including a long and ultimately irrelevant excursion via the Inland Wetlands Commission into the life of the bog turtle.

The development was eventually denied, because of a technicality in the paperwork, at a Planning and Zoning hearing Oct. 13, 2005.

Ever resilient, in April 2006, DePretis then unveiled plans for an 86-unit complex, with no open space, and with 30 percent of the housing slated as "affordable," a move that could have allowed circumventing some zoning and wetlands regulations.

DePretis unapologetically and publicly stated his belief that he had been given a raw deal by the town, and took a certain satisfaction in the public’s reaction to the second proposal.

And there the story remained until late October, when the Vista deal was announced.

At that time, Fedor said he thought construction of guest rooms, tennis courts and a gym could begin as early as this month.Amenia Landfill

The process of cleaning up the old Amenia, N.Y., landfill (identified as a Class II Superfund site in 1992 and the source of pollutants as well as endless headaches for the towns that used it), took a big step forward in September when Amenia officially took over ownership of the property.

In an example of different interests working together and avoiding lengthy litigation, the towns of Sharon and Amenia, the entities in charge of the facility during the years in question, and the state of New York hammered out an agreement with provisions for excavation and cleanup, a membrane to go over the site’s affected areas to prevent further contamination, remediation and continued monitoring and maintenance.

Sharon’s share of the $5.5 million price tag was an immediate $129,000 for past oversight costs, and $93,000 over three years for other related costs up to this point.

Sharon is also responsible for maintenance and monitoring for 30 years. First Selectman Malcolm Brown said two weeks ago that there was an accounting glitch (with a New York jurisdiction paying a Connecticut town) but he and Amenia town officials had spoken and were confident it would be worked out shortly.Speaking of the First Selectman...

Brown’s first year in office found him confronted with a variety of issues. Not a man to leap into anything, the first selectman looked at energy costs and an ethics code, among other things.

Energy costs kept returning to the selectmen’s agenda, with sharp spikes in fuel prices and electricity rates threatening to add significant expense to the town. Brown encouraged residents to attend workshops on how to save energy and helped get new doors at the town garage, a vast, cavernous building that had old, ill-fitting doors.

The ethics code discussion is the result of Legislators in Hartford reacting to a set of particularly gaudy scandals involving big-city mayors and the former governor. Towns are scrambling to write their own version, lest the heavy hand of Hartford hand them a version not to their liking.

Brown has studied several versions and is in the process of finishing a code for Sharon — one he hopes is clear and concise.

What Is Affordable Housing?


On Aug. 2, the selectmen invited a group of interested parties to speak to the issue of affordable housing, a concept that most people are in favor of in theory and at best ambivalent about when confronted with the prospect of, say, a condominium complex.

The Sharon Housing Trust, which seeks donated land for a parcel program, began work on its first project at Lover’s Lane and the Millerton Road late last month, but land trust president Melinda Sweet acknowledged that the process of obtaining and developing properties for use as permanently affordable housing stock was proving more difficult and more costly than anticipated.

Charlie Snyder, manager at Sharon Ridge, said that the way rents are structured there makes it difficult for the ideal scenario: A young family moves in and is able to save enough to buy a home and moves out, making way for the next family needing a leg up.

"A guy makes $40 more a week and he’s got to give us 30 percent. Our system is flawed," he stated.

Gene Lattimer and Mike Silverman from the Sharon Housing Authority said two more buildings could be added at Sharon Ridge, creating eight more units.

But between the Sharon Ridge type of approach and the nascent parcel program, the number of homes available to people in Sharon continues to shrink — and middle-class workers look elsewhere.

Lost in the shuffle is the fact that while Connecticut municipalities are required to have 10 percent of their housing stock classified as affordable, the law also allows towns some leeway — and a four-year grace period — as long as 2 percent of a town’s housing is affordable. It is not as easy as it might appear to simply label housing units as "affordable" and build them without interference.

And in case you were wondering, "affordable" in this context means a household spends no more than 30 percent of income on housing. In 2004, the median price for a home in Sharon was $277,500, which would require an income of $84,534. A potential home buyer at Sharon’s median income of $59, 476 would be short some $25,000 and change.The Town Plan

The Town Plan of Conservation and Development, written under the aegis of the Planning and Zoning Commission and presented to the public at a hearing June 23, elicited comments that highlighted the affordable housing squeeze and the tension between forces seeking to maintain open space and those looking to develop.

"Cluster housing," meaning condos, apartment buildings or multi-family dwellings, is opposed by many on aesthetic grounds: They don’t like the way it looks. And any change in zoning laws allowing smaller lots makes some people nervous.

Larry Powers of the Sharon Land Trust said he feared the prospect of cluster housing on two-acre lots.

"That’s a dangerous concept for a town our size," he said.

But the Housing Authority’s Lattimer quickly shot back: "When designed properly, for the location, it presents a reasonable approach for the development of affordable housing in a rural community."

One interpretation of the plan’s section on the town’s sewer and water system might suggest that some hope that availability of water services could be used to make or break any new development scheme, at least within the central part of the town served by the system.

But Sewer and Water commissioners quickly scotched that idea, concentrating instead on improving the existing system, beginning with repairing the Calkinstown Dam.

The system could expand, according to commission Chairman Steve Szalewicz, but at the new customer’s expense, as was done for the Sharon Playhouse.

But long-time commissioner Harry Hall cautioned that new development "with a large demand would require study...and construction. The new development (or the town) would have to pay for it.

"That cost is subject to a huge variety of potential demands, and the commission is not equipped to deal with such an enormous problem."Comings and Goings

Karen Manning took over as principal of Sharon Center School. She had been principal at Lee H. Kellogg in Falls Village, and replaced William Oros, the interim principal who in turn replaced Philip O’Reilly.

Donna DiMartino, a nurse, traveled to impoverished areas of Ethiopia under the auspices of the World Health organization and Rotary International to provide vaccinations. And Liz Hanwacker, a student at Clark University, spent her spring break in Nicaragua with an organization called Bridges to Community, helping subsistence farmers with agricultural and construction projects.

Longtime Sharon Center School teachers Carolyn DiDomenico and Kimberley Chirichella put on their final school show, "The Best of Mrs. D and Mrs. C." The hugely popular pair retired this past school year, and were noted for putting an unusual amount of boffo into their productions.

Finally, the staff at TriArts said hello to Alice Bemand of Kent, who took over as executive director of TriArts.

Up the hill, the Clock Tower said goodbye to accumulated grime and got its bell fixed besides.

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