Window to spend grant money to close in September

The City Meadow Committee met on February 8 to chart its course of action in the year ahead.

Plans for a storm-water park in the phragmites-filled wetland below Station Place stalled in May 2015 when the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection rejected the initial drawings.

A second set of plans was sent to DEEP and the Army Corps of Engineers for approval in November of 2015. The Corps has given the plans its provisional approval. DEEP has yet to issue a ruling.

Once DEEP approves the revised plan, the working drawings will be commissioned and the project put out to bid.

“Our hope, if all goes well, is to start construction this summer,” said Samuel Anderson, a member of the City Meadow Committee.

The project was awarded a $500,000 grant from the Connecticut Main Street Center in September 2014. The town has two years from that date, or until September of 2016, to finish the project if the construction is to be paid for by the Main Street funds.

In a related development, the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission, which issued a special permit for the plan in 2012, decided on February 9 that the revised plan represents a significant departure from the original. The commission has asked the City Meadow Committee to file a new application for a special permit.