Emphasizing that they don’t oppose affordable housing, top educators in Glastonbury nevertheless are cautioning that a proposed 266-unit apartment complex near Naubuc Elementary School could worsen traffic that’s already severe.
“The real issue is: This is dangerous,” schools Superintendent Alan Bookman told the Town Plan and Zoning Commission last week.
The sprawling new complex would have a parking lot exiting onto Griswold Street, a two-lane road already subject to congestion and speeding, educators said. Putting hundreds of additional cars in a new parking lot across Griswold from the elementary school driveway could jeopardize children, especially youngsters in the new apartment complex who’d have to wait for a bus along Griswold, educators said.
“We’re deeply concerned about the safety of our students staff and family. We’re particularly troubled by the plan to place the entrance directly across from the (school’s) eastern parking lot exit,” said Kristen Basiaga, president of Glastonbury’s teachers union.
“This would send additional residential traffic straight to the heart of a school zone during arrival and dismissal times,” she said. ” From the teachers’ perspective, traffic is already a serious problem at Naubuc.”
Traffic safety was the key issue that arose during the commission’s lengthy hearing, which will resume Feb. 17.
Safety is one of the only matters that commissioners could cite to justify a “no” vote, since developer Domenic Carpionato’s Main St. Group LLC is proposing the project under Connecticut’s 8-30g law. Designed to stimulate affordable housing construction in towns where it is lacking, the statute essentially exempts developers from traditional zoning concerns if they earmark 30% or more of their homes for moderate- or low-income people.
The proposed layout of five apartment buildings and a clubhouse for Domenic Carpionato’s 266-apartment complex in Glastonbury. (Courtesy of Town of Glastonbury)
More than a dozen residents along with several leaders of the town’s school system said they think directing traffic from the complex onto Griswold near the school’s entrance is hazardous.
Consultant Matt Baldino, however, said a traffic study over 24 hours in December showed no students walking to Naubuc, and recorded just seven pedestrians using the nearest street crossing. He reported that data from the study showed the project’s traffic wouldn’t jeopardize public health or safety.
But Bookman said no students walk to Naubuc because the town provides busing.
“Quite frankly Griswold Street is too dangerous for us to have students walking to school,” he said.
But the school system doesn’t send buses into private developments, he said, so the estimated 35 new Naubuc students that would be added by the apartments would have to cross Griswold and walk to school.
“We’re not going to pick them up from across the street from Naubuc. And that’s not a street in the morning that you want to cross,” Bookman said.
“The issue is going to be in the mornings when we’re starting school. You have 266 apartments where people have to (go to) work and have to leave from one exit; at the same time we’re bringing into the school 430 to 440 students. Plus all the staff members. Parents drive their kids to school at the same time,” he said.
Carpionato plans five buildings of three to four stories each with studios and one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments.
There would be 453 parking spaces and a network of sidewalks through the complex along with amenities including patios, an inground pool, barbecue areas, a dog park and more.
Among the speakers was a homeowner with a petition signed by nearly 300 people questioning the safety of the driveway location, and another who said Griswold Street crash data in a consultant’s traffic study didn’t line up with information she obtained through a Freedom of Information request.
Commissioners continued the hearing until Feb. 3, but that session was later postponed to Feb. 17.
