Community Development Advisory Committee

MINUTES OF THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE PUBLIC HEARING APRIL 20, 2009 3:30 P.M. Members Present: Co-Chairperson Les King, John Mathieu, Red McKeon, Demo Angelopoulos and Tamara Lanier Others Present: Jennifer Gottlieb and Linda Lee Smith The Community Development Public Hearing was called to order at 3:35 p.m. Les King, Vice Chairperson informed the public that they could speak 5 minutes per organization with questions and discussion. The subrecipients were informed that the committee had read through their application and they were to bring anything new or different that wasn’t included in their proposal. The committee also wanted to know how many people will be put to work and how many people within the income guidelines will be affected. AHEPA – Tony Petros - $45,000 AHEPA is requesting $45,000 for a roof patio structure. Tony Petros brought along a visual of the proposed structure. He has architectural drawings to submit if approved. He dropped off 1 copy of the aerial view and blueprint. If AHEPA were only partially funded they could possibly downsize the project but if the allocation went beyond a certain threshold (which is not specified) they wouldn’t be able to do the project. Tony Petros explained that they would take care of purchasing the patio furniture separately. The basic structure is between $40,000 - $45,000. It is a heavy-duty structure to provide shelter and shade for all the residents including handicapped to enjoy the outdoors. This building has 42 apartments, 50 residents all lower income senior citizens who qualify under HUD 202 program. They are recertified each year. Demo Angelopoulos stated that he will be abstaining from voting on this application and project. John Mathieu asked about whether leveraging funds was possible. Tony Petros explained that the money would be used towards the structure. Dime Bank gave them a grant and they have already received the funds in a special account hoping that they get this grant. Jennifer Gottlieb asked if they had looked at any temporary structures for shade? Tony Petros stated that they had considered it but that a permanent structure was preferable. They need something that will withstand the weather. TODAP – William Clark/Cindy Lounsbury $59,997.91 William Clark stated that TODAP had requested $59,997.91 to reconstruct the kitchen and upgrade fire codes to serve community meals. They had applied for funding last year. They do not duplicate services offered by any other organization. They are trying to provide community meals for needy families in a place people would be comfortable bringing their children. Cindy Lounsbury said that the kitchen would operate 3 days a week Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. and be run by 10 volunteers. They would also like to have a nutritionist and dietary person to help show the families how to cook healthy, nutritional meals at home. TODAP also runs a food pantry, which is used, by a number of different ethnic groups. Food pantry statistics show that in March 08 they gave 1,260 meals and in March 09 distributed 6,069 meals in 1 month. They are located 5 miles from Backus, UCFS is around the corner and they are receiving calls from all over the immediate area. This program is convenient to the Norwich/Taftville area and is heavily used by single parents and grandparents. Cindy Lounsbury said that they sent requests for donations from distributors for the appliances. The Catholic Diocese will supply them with ranges and refrigerators/freezers. Jennifer asked if they could satisfy meeting building codes with a lesser amount in case of the committee wanted to give a smaller allocation. The request was for $59,997.91 and they thought they would need most of the money requested. Demo Angelopoulos asked if there was an existing hood and ventilation system. They stated no there wasn’t. Demo was questioning the $8,000 estimate for an industrial hood and for fire suppression and everything required. They had received 3 estimates. Demo thought the estimate seemed low. John Mathieu asked what exactly was located there at this point in time. They have a stove and refrigerator but it is not up to fire code. He also asked if the meals they distributed in March 2009 were cooked. They replied that their current food pantry distributes canned and packaged goods. It is open 3 days a month, the 2nd Thursday, 4th Thursday, and 3rd Saturday of the month from 10 am – 1 pm. If they received the funds they would be doing 3 days every week of hot cooked meals. John Mathieu asked what type of cooking they were planning on doing. William Clark responded that anything that produces vapor or smoke has to be taken out. There is an old vent with a pull chain and it would need to be removed. John Mathieu questioned if they would be deep frying it would require a different type of hood and that would need to have fire suppression on the hood. Some hoods ventilate and you won’t need fire suppression, depending on what you are cooking. Mr. Mathieu stated that hoods with fire suppression would cost more than $8,000. Demo Angelopoulos asked if they were building a commercial kitchen and if they worked with a certified contractor and Building/Health Inspector and fire code so it would be built properly. Demo thought that the committee would need more than the sketch that was presented if a complex system is required. TODAP solicited 3 estimates for the application. William Clark said that the Fire Inspector visited the site and told them what they would need for the hood so they feel confident that the right system was specified. Demo asked if the Fire Inspector had coordinated with the contractor on the plans. TODAP replied he had not. Demo thought they should look at this project much more in depth to what they exactly would need. Demo said that to put in a commercial kitchen he thought it would be a bit more expensive just for the hood. John Mathieu, who has experience with the fire department, said the 6 burner commercial stove with a griddle on it would be like a frying pan; and he thought it would not require fire suppression. Norwich Recreation Dept. – Lou DePina - $100,000 Lou DePina presented on behalf of the Recreation Dept requesting $100,000 for the Occum Park Improvements to include building 2 tennis courts, a Little League size ball field, parking probably for 10 cars and a couple of mini soccer fields. Lou DePina gave clarification stating this was not the Red McKeon Park. This is the park behind Austin’s Garage at the intersection of School Street and Route 97. Lou DePina stated that Occum is separated from the rest of the City and it doesn’t have the best recreational facilities. The nearest tennis courts are 10 miles away. The nearest baseball field is in Taftville. John Mathieu asked if this was on the City Plan to swap some land around the ball field and asked if access would be from the School Street side. Lou DePina said yes and they will be widening the road there for the Byron Brook Project. Tamara questioned what type of practices they would hold. Lou said that the site itself doesn’t lend itself to any type of league play. It will be used to play tennis, or coach Little League practice but not suitable for Little League games. It’s more of a neighborhood park than a league. Lou DePina said that they could do things with reduced funding, the ball field estimate $20,000, tennis courts $60,000 - $70,000, parking $5,000 - $10,000. If you need to reduce the amount of funds, the committee should know the per cost per project component. SCADD – Liberty House Roof Replacement – Jack Malone -$22,000 Jack Malone, Executive Director of SCADD had applied for CDBG funds to replace a roof on Washington Street for $22,000. SCADD does not the own the building. SCADD has a 10-year lease with an unspecified start date. SCADD would like to renew the lease when it expires. The building is 90 years old. The renovations to the building that have been done thus far were done by SCADD in conjunction with the owner. Jennifer Gottlieb explained how the Property Rehab Program works for investor owners. They contribute their share amount whereas with this CDBG program there is no share. The owner of the building had been told to apply to the Property Rehab Program when he called the Office. There is no published rule on this subject but the policy has always been that the Property Rehab Program gives owner-investors an opportunity to this kind of work so those applications do not come before CDBG. If this project is funded as a pure grant through CDBG, that may not be fair to other owner-investors who abide by the share requirement of the Property Rehab Program and may undermine the integrity of the Property Rehab Program. Norwich Housing Authority – Charles Whitty - $100,000 Charles Whitty, Director of the Norwich Housing Authority (NHA) stated that he was requesting $100,000 for Bathroom Renovations at Rosewood Manor. Also representing NHA were Paul Gauthier, Vice Chairman of the Board of Commissioners and Steve Garstka who was the City Engineer for 30 years. The Rosewood Manor is a State Elderly Handicapped Disabled Facility with 110 units off of Hamilton Avenue. The first 80 units were built in 1970 and the final 30 in 1980. The bathrooms are basically original the original bathrooms. The estimated cost of this project is estimated to be $275,000 - $300,000. NHA is breaking this up into parts and doing a third each year unless they can access a large amount of resources in one year. There is a safety issue with the bathrooms as well as an inefficiency issue. Norwich DPU did an analysis of the project and indicated there would be a savings of approximately 27% in the water consumption because they would put in cost efficient faucets and showerheads. The tenant’s bear all costs for utilizes, directly and indirectly. Eighty (80%) of the people who live there have incomes of less than $15,000 a year. Mr. Bilda, General Manager of Norwich Public Utilities, stated in a support letter that the resident’s electric bill would go down because it would cost less to heat the water. There would be a direct savings to the tenant. There would be between 12-15 jobs created during the construction phase of this project. The NHA will pay for the cost for Architectural & Environmental Testing that is required. If the project is funded in 2010 they need this testing done this fall and will be able to go to bid in the spring. The NHA stated that this project creates direct savings in consumption and cost. They are a City agency. Mr. Whitty stated that the NHA didn’t exist the City would inherit 686 units of housing. He stated that the state of Connecticut does not provide maintenance costs or operating expenses on state public housing. The only revenue they receive is the rent paid by the tenants. Steve Garstka explained the amount of water damage on the sheetrock and the peeling paint are constant maintenance problems. Mr. Whitty explained that they would be installing a 3-piece tub surround. Presently there is a handheld shower. There will be insulation between the surround and the existing wall. The Housing Authority has contributed and makes payments each year to the City’s annual budget. Since 1991 they have made payments of almost $5,000,000 to the City of Norwich. Taftville Fire Dept./Roof Replacement – Fire Chief Jencks - $110,000 Fire Chief Timothy Jencks presented on his request for the roof replacement at the Taftville Fire Dept. The roof was built in 1969 they replaced in 1989. It’s a rubber roof with a 20-year life span. The building has settled in some areas and the proper pitch was never done thus it leaks. They have tried to budget for it in the past 5 years through normal budget process and it has been cut every year from the budget. It is a City building and houses City fire apparatus and staffs about 55 firefighters. The community room in the back is used by other community organizations such as the crime watch, Taftville Lions, Taftville Little League and Girl Scout Troop. The City Engineer was to accompany Chief Jencks but he had a previous commitment. They had been working with him. He is the one that came up with the square footage and estimate. An estimate was included with his application and a copy of a letter of support from the City Manager. The roof is leaking in several areas at the rear of the building where they have most of their MIS equipment on the computer server. If not addressed soon they will end up with a mold issue and other long term affects Norwich Public Schools/Phase II Control System - Dolores Thayer & Jeff Brining - $150,750 Dolores Thayer, Facility Supervisor and Jeff Brining from DPU Energy Service Director presented. Four years ago Norwich Public Schools stated working with NDPU to provide HVAC maintenance support for the schools. NPU did a comprehensive analysis of all the Norwich Public School building prior to first applying to CDBG in 2007-8. The first phase the NPS completed with CDBG funds was efficient lighting at the six qualifying schools. They are now installing a Direct Digital Control System for the HVAC systems with CDBG in 2008-9. The current application has several components that build off of their work over the last two years. The Committee has a list of the NPS’s priorities if they cannot fund the whole request. The first priority is an air handling system at Wequonnoc. NPS and NPU briefly summarized the components on the list. At the bottom of the list is a retro-commissioning report for Greeneville School. Retro- commissioning reports are done by expert engineers for a particular facility. They identify the problems and recommendations for that facility in depth. Demo Angelopoulos asked them to clarify how the digital control system they are currently installing interfaces with this request. Jeff Brining said that the computer system is like the fiber net backbone – it enables them to install the measures that they have outlined in the application. You need that backbone in order to be able to automate the system. This is the modern way to do it. They could have rehabbed back to vintage 40-50 year old technology or they could upgrade to modern technology. The cost difference wasn’t much different once they made the investment for that infrastructure. The infrastructure didn’t save anything by itself but will deliver savings when these components are done. It is the skeleton for the new system. For example you have communication from schools to the Central office and NPU dispatch center. They can place sensors in schools and control conditions there on off hours as opposed letting problems fester until the nest week starts. They are presently out to bid on the digital control system. If they could only get partial funding on the priority list it states that the air- handling unit is first because it is a health safety issue, it won’t actually save energy and could actually cost more energy. But it will make the environment more conducive to recreation and other programs. The children also eat lunch there. The air-handler unit and retro-commissioning for Greeneville stands alone because they are kind of separate projects. All the middle projects build on being installed together. There would be some additional cost if you were to break down certain ones. The true breakdown line items are listed. The engineering and design are an estimate based on a percentage of cost. The question was posed whether there was a long-range facility plan for Greeneville School. Delores Thayer said she will check with administration but with the economy and current construction at Kelly, another school construction project is not likely in the very near future. YMCA – Bob Congdon - $269,000 Bob Congdon and two others are on the Board of Directors at the YMCA presented a request. The Board made an announcement to close the YMCA on April 30, 2009. There has been a huge out crying of support from the community and the City to see what they could do to prevent the closing. They have 21 residents at the YMCA. They service 50 children in the daycare and 150 kids average week at the summer camp. They have put together a sustainability plan. They have talked with Westerly YMCA about a merger with them. They are applying for block grant funds to fix their heating system because its lack of operability is a big obstacle to running the facility. This would be one component of a plan to make the YMCA sustainable. They are concurrently doing a fundraising drive through a group called Friends of the YMCA. Thus far they’ve raised $65,000 in the last week. If the CDBG grant was approved, it would be an important contribution towards achieving the goal of sustainability. The YMCA offer services that are very essential to certain low and moderate income people and are not replaceable elsewhere. They believe their goals are achievable. Jennifer Gottlieb wanted it stated for the record that there was $269,000 of stimulus funds that will be available to be committed this year. She explained this funding is different from any other funds ever received. These are stimulus funds and this is the first time in history that we have received them. Job creation and/or job retention is an important goal of the stimulus. Bob Congdon said it would retain because the YMCA employs 80 employees, 15 full-time and 65 part-time who will all be losing their jobs by April 30, 2009 unless they can find a way to keep the YMCA open. From a stimulus point of view if they can make this happen it keeps 80 people working and serving the right populations. There are parents who will lose their childcare at the YMCA ad therefore are in danger of losing their jobs. Jeff Brining is on the Board of Directors with the YMCA. A long term sustainability plan for the heating system at the YMCA would be to replace the steam furnace with a gas fired hot water system and that would cost an estimate of $1,000,000 for a fully modern system that provides multi zones. The heating for the residences and swim pool and gym is an ancient steam fired system. Les King asked if the boiler was fixed could they continue with services, is there enough cash flow for the operating budget. Bob Congdon stated that the first component of a plan is successful fundraising. They have about $130,000 of outstanding accounts payable and they need about $100,000 of operating capital to be sustainable. But through reorganization they believe it would make the YMCA sustainable. The question was posed if they would be able to continue operating under a bankruptcy and also get rid of some debt that way? Mr. Congdon replied that their lawyers are working on every possibility. But the reality is they needed to make this decision based on available cash flow; and they could not project meeting payroll after April 30, 2009. The membership has been hanging in there until the end. The last draft is through the end of April. There haven’t been many people leaving but very crowded in the evening. People take things for granted until they are in trouble. Currently they have 1,600 members and they would need to have an estimate of 3,000 members to be sustainable long term. They want to address the parking situation as well. David Anderson said he thinks that the Norwich YMCA is the only one without it’s own parking. The question was posed if there is access to the YMCA from behind the Viaduct parking lot. There is a stairway that goes up the side that is not user friendly. It could be a viable alternative to a parking area. When they did their rehab they put in an elevator shaft and the infrastructure but not the elevator. That would make the entrance from the ground level much more attractive. Jeff Brining from NDPU spoke on the status of the existing boiler. It is running on a temporary basis and someone is monitoring it whenever it is operating. April 30th will be the end for this equipment. If the facility remained open the NPU would bring in a temporary steam boiler and pipe into the facility. There would be some re-piping to isolate the damaged equipment and tie in the temporary equipment. This would probably cost about $20,000, $12,500 of which would be to get the unit delivered and put fuel in it and tie ins. Additionally, there would be a fuel cost. There is a central boiler, with everything in the building operating off this one piece of equipment. Originally there were two, one failed and now the second one is failing. There is separate heat for the residences but not separate hot water provided. With the heating season behind us if there was a temporary or separate system for hot water you wouldn’t need a heating system for six months. The pool is heated with the steam. They looked at 2 options: To tie into the hot water system at that central point and just feeding hot water but actually it wasn’t any less expensive to get the temporary hot water piece of equipment. If they are going to continue to operate the facility right now and to tie it into the steam system – it would give you the pool heat and showers. This would be the only realistic way to do it. The annual savings for the complete build out would be $120,000 - $140,000 a year. Payback would be in 8-9 years at present energy prices. The lead-time would be 6-12 weeks on equipment. If simply taking out the equipment and replacing it with a similar one looking at September 1st to have it up and running. It would take a few weeks to get the bid spec put together and minimal amount of engineering which the NDPU would be happy to support. Then place the ad out to bid; 2-3 months to actually receive the equipment then install it. There is definitely a lead-time. But with a hot water system with an 8-year payback, NPU believes it would be foolish to put another steam boiler in and put a temporary patch on it. Bob Congdon stated that it would be much easier to raise funds if the public knows that the City and the region are behind the YMCA. The temporary equipment would act as the current equipment is there. There would be no interruption to service. But there are other issue unrelated to the mechanical systems would affect that. This project would have to follow Davis Bacon wage rates. Jeff Brining said that they had done the original study for the YMCA and he didn’t think it incorporated the Davis Bacon wage rates. Reliance House – Sue Caplet - $15,500 Sue Caplet, and Erik Clevenger the director of the Homeless Shelter for 16 Penobscot Street, which is an 8-bed facility. Sheila Lake who is the administrative oversight for this program and also prepared the grant. They had been awarded $9,300 funds last year to replacement windows and as they proceeded she contacted Jennifer Gottlieb and Wayne Sharkey and realized they hadn’t done a lead study prior to applying for the funding. The Office of Community Development agreed to reserve their grant until 2010 while they try to resolve the lead situation. The exterior of the building is painted with lead paint. There was a study done by Boston Lead and the final report was that they needed to encapsulate the lead paint. It would have to be wet-scraped by someone trained to do that and then the entire building would need to be painted. Their regular maintenance subcontractor has taken the Lead Safety Practices 1 day certified training in March and will work on the wet scraping and vacuuming of the paint. They have a painters estimate for doing the job and that is what they are applying for $15,500 to paint the entire building and proceed with the replacement windows. Last year they applied for funding for energy efficiency windows. There are no code issues. It is considered a 3 family building. There are no children on the premises. There is a day program on the first floor. There are sleeping quarters on the top 2 floors. The committee believed that doing vinyl siding may be a better long-term solution than painting and asked Reliance house to submit an estimate for vinyl siding. 26 Shipping Street – Jennifer Gottlieb - $87,000 Jennifer Gottlieb is requesting $87,000 for the 26 Shipping Street rehabilitation of the South Façade masonry. With the EPA grant we committed to reuse of the masonry building for something productive. Water infiltration through crumbling masonry threatens the very structural integrity of the building. The EPA grant funds can only be used for environmental cleanup work and not restorative work for the building. After demolition work of the shed is done through the existing grant, there will be quite a large area available for parking. This area could provide parking for approximately 50 cars or more. This building has really nice view of the river from eth third floor and is in a targeted redevelopment area. If you demolish the building in front of it, the river views become even more attractive. The question was posed of how many square feet are listed on the property card. The square footage is 12-15,000 sf. It is a lot of money to rehab this building but it is actually more money to build new construction and you won’t get the same quality of building and probably nothing will be done at all. The exterior wall is the masonry wall. What is behind the wall is it block wall or wooden. The windows are going to be blocked up with plywood. The next Public Hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 3:30 p.m. A Special Meeting is scheduled for Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. The public hearing ended at 5:25 p.m.