Construction faces at least six-month delay

By Christopher Sinclair

The project to transform the sunken wetland in Norfolk’s town center into a park and storm-water treatment site has been rebuffed by state and federal permitting authorities, according to Steven Trinkaus, the project’s consulting engineer.

The plan received a $500,000 state grant in September 2014. It includes public walkways and a series of settling ponds through which runoff water would pass before entering the Blackberry River.

Both the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and the Army Corps of Engineers must approve the project before construction can begin.

The problem, according to Trinkaus, is that DEEP’s regulations don’t allow storm-water to be retained within wetlands. The plans will be redrawn to treat runoff in a different way. “It’s not a big deal,” says Trinkaus. “We’ll make the pond smaller. And the public-access part is OK.”

The application will be resubmitted in the coming month. Allowing four months for review by DEEP and the Army Corps, construction on the park could start as early as next fall.

“It’s going to make the project less expensive,” says Trinkaus. “We’re going to be moving less dirt.”

The evolution of the project goes back at least four years. Pete Anderson, a member of the City Meadow Committee, recalled several ideas that arose during a February 2011 meeting at Norfolk’s town hall, including: “A pond or ponds for fishing, a central pavilion for public use, an orchard, a sugarhouse, public parking…and a system of trails and walkways to bring people into the Meadow.” This last suggestion has emerged as the lone survivor, and the plans include a park and a series of walking paths that will help to bring a sense of cohesion to the downtown center area by connecting the separate commercial pockets that surround the Meadow area.

Some in town have questioned the plans, saying that Norfolk already has an abundance of natural beauty. They feel that a parking area would better serve businesses in the downtown area, as parking in the center is conspicuously scarce. To this point, Anderson noted that, “The City Meadow Committee always intended that some form of public parking be included.”

When asked about the issue of parking, First Selectman Sue Dyer commented that the physical characteristics of the space do not lend themselves to the development of a permanent parking area, and that the town would be compelled to replace the area of wetlands two times over elsewhere in town if the Meadow were to be developed for parking.

When asked about the utility of the City Meadow Project in the context of Norfolk, Anderson responded passionately, saying that his own picture of Norfolk “is hugely colored by our presence in nature.” But, he continues, “The City Meadow Park will provide a different sort of experience, more public, more accessible yet more intimate in some ways—educational, a microcosm of the larger Norfolk experience.”

Independently of its beauty, the park will be useful, says Anderson, because Norfolk has a problematic downtown area that “faces outward, away from itself,” rather than one that faces in on itself, “making a cohesive whole.” Expounding on the uniqueness of the situation, Anderson claims that he doesn’t know “of another town in Connecticut where the town center has been brought together into a unified whole by the simple means of a landmark environmental improvement.”

It is evident that Anderson, as well as others on the committee, relish this challenge, and look forward to working to add this sense of cohesion to Norfolk’s downtown through the addition of the City Meadow Park and its trails, both of which will add beauty and fluidity to the area.

For now the town will have to wait as the final plans are reworked and refined, and look forward to the start of yet another chapter for the ever-evolving town center.