Two Other Connecticut Towns Grappling With Public Lands Issue

Haddam, it turns out, is not the only town in Connecticut fighting to save public lands from being turned over to private developers.

In New Britain there’s a move afoot to take part of a city park, the A.W. Stanley Park, so that it can be used for big-box development.

And in Meriden, Summerhill LLC, a Carabetta company, has requested that a 13-acre knoll at the entrance to Cathole Mountain be excluded from the Cathole Mountain Ridgeline Zone, which protects the property as open space, so Summerhill can build townhouses on the land.

The plan was sometimes heatedly, before Meriden’s Planning Commission this week.

In New Britain, a grassroots group has reformed to fight the park land transfer proposal there. The issue is similar to one that’s been brewing for some time in Haddam, where some state officials want to trade 17.4 acres of state-owned land near a picturesque turn of the Connecticut River in Tylerville, to the owners of the Riverhouse at Goodspeed Station. The banquet facility developers want to build retail space and other associated developments on the land, which abuts their property.

In return, the Goodspeed partners have promised to give the state 87 acres they own in Higganum, which abut the Cockaponset State Forest.

The New Britain Herald wrote this story about the Stanley Park proposal recently, which would see part of the park given over for the development of a Costco store. The Costco would apparently bring New Britain badly needed tax revenues from retail growth.

There’s also an online petition circulating against the Stanley Park plan.