Days before a Fairfield County suburb is expected to vote, Vessel Technologies is cautioning that the chief safety concern about its affordable housing project — the risk of contaminated wells — is based on entirely wrong information.
New York-based Vessel, which is already in court with Glastonbury and Newtown, is trying to avoid suing a third Connecticut town.
When Bethel’s planning and zoning commissioners took a straw poll in late September, they unanimously said they’ll vote against a zoning permit for Vessel’s proposed five-story, 75-apartment project there. The formal vote is set for Oct. 14.
But Vessel contends their reasoning includes misinformation.
The primary reason they cited was the risk of polluting drinking water in three nearby houses. The homes draw from wells within 1,000 feet of an area where Vessel would be blasting rock, commissioners said, and that could constitute a public safety risk under state regulations.
After that meeting, though, Vessel had staff and consultants research town property records. They found that although two of the three wells come within 1,000 feet of Vessel’s property line, they’re actually much farther from the section where it would be blasting. And the third home has been connected to public water system since the mid-1980s, which commissioners appeared not to know last month.
The five-story apartment complex that Vessel Technologies plans in Bethel. (Courtesy of Town of Bethel)
“We’ve notified the town planner of this. We’d never want the town voting on something that’s factually inaccurate,” said company Executive Vice President Josh Levy. “We’ve addressed every technical question they’ve had and there’s simply nothing unresolved that would affect health or public safety.”
Since it came to Connecticut about four years ago Vessel has sued four Connecticut communities for rejecting its 8-30g projects. All are variations on its core model: A prefabricated building with small but ultra-high-tech apartments. The arrangement of units and the number of floors vary from town to town, but the architectural style is always identical.
It won quick, controversy-free acceptance in New London, where it has entirely leased out a 30-unit building, and in Avon and Cheshire.
Zoning boards in Simsbury, Glastonbury, Rocky Hill and Newtown all voted against it, and Vessel challenged each one in court. The 8-30g law gives affordable housing developers a major legal advantage in wealthier communities; those towns must demonstrate that the project would create significant health and safety hazards that outweigh the need for more affordable homes.
The Glastonbury and Newtown cases are still pending, but Vessel fared well in the other two before trials. A settlement in Simsbury allowed it to build 48 of the 80 units it initially proposed, and an out-of-court deal in Rocky Hill gave permission for it to build 96 apartments — more than three times what it initially sought — so long as it relocated to a different part of town.
In Bethel, the company wants to build 75 mostly one-bedroom units on a roughly 4.3-acre site along Nashville Road. The property is on a hill with enough tree buffer that nobody passing by would see it, Levy said.
“Bethel needs those apartments. There’s a deep, deep need for affordable housing for young teachers, for kids who’ve graduated college and want to return and live in the area,” Levy said. “They’re the people who frequent the restaurants and stores and make the community more vibrant.”
Levy said some towns have spent $150,000 to $200,000 on legal fees fighting 8-30g affordable housing.
Like other builders, Levy said he’s encountered resistance in some communities as soon as the term “affordable housing” comes up. But he emphasized that 70% of Bethel’s project would be leased at market rate, 15% at rates affordable to people earning 80% of the average median income, and 15% to people earning 60%.
“There’s an imbalance of wages and cost of living in Connecticut and around the country. Costs are continuously going up, wage increases aren’t keeping up,” he said.
Those income caps work out to $56,070 to $67,284 for one-bedroom apartments, and $67,284 to $89,712 for two-bedroom units. That means municipal workers, administrative aides, emergency medical technicians, librarians, auto mechanics and similar workers.
“Change can be scary, I know. But everyone in (the Vessel facility in) New London is employed, 100%. We have at least six military people, we have an independent wedding photographer in her first apartment.”
