What’s Included In The Deal?

By Steve Bigham

At a cost of $3.9 million, the town has an opportunity next week to take over the ownership of the Fairfield Hills campus in the heart of town. It has been a much talked-about issue, one that has the potential to shape the town’s future for many years to come.

But what exactly does the town stand to get in the deal?

According to the terms of the agreement signed last week, Newtown would receive 185 acres of land in and around the main campus buildings. It also includes four acres and two buildings across the street on Trades Lane. Much of this land is open space and there is plenty of room for the construction of badly needed athletic fields. About nine buildings would be demolished, under First Selectman Herb Rosenthal’s recommendations, with the remainder left intact, their uses to be determined through the creation of a master plan sometime down the road. Mr Rosenthal last week suggested that the 60,000-square-foot Shelton House be used to house all town offices, including the Board of Education.

Originally, the total Fairfield Hills acreage was 821.8 acres, which stretched from Queen Street and Mile Hill Road South to the west to the Pootatuck River to the east. North to south, the property stretched from Grand Place/Commerce Road to Nunnawauk and Hitfield roads.

The state’s offer to Newtown does not include some 300 acres now under the control of the state’s Department of Agriculture, much of which can be seen by motorists as they travel along Queen Street. That land, which features large meadows and hills, barns, and a railroad track running through it, was transferred to the Department of Agriculture back in 1998.

The boundary of the 185 acres the town plans to buy is Wasserman Way to the north, Nunnawauk Meadows to the south, Nunnawauk Road to the east, and Mile Hill Road South to the west. The core campus, where the largest buildings are located, makes up about 60 acres. The remaining 100-plus acres surrounding the campus are fields or wooded areas.

In addition to the 185 acres which will be voted on next week, the town also owns other parcels of former Fairfield Hills property. Two years ago, it purchased 14 acres and eight houses of former state property along Queen Street. Nunnawauk Meadows elderly housing owns 65 acres of former Fairfield Hills property. The town was given 22 acres along Wasserman Way as part of the Garner Correction Facility agreement and eight acres at the sewer plant off Commerce Road. The town also stands to receive an additional 37.54 acres off Commerce Road (to be used as a technology park) and another 21.66 acres along Deep Brook was conveyed to the town last year for open space use.

The state used 114 acres of former Fairfield Hills land to construct the Garner Correctional Facility in the early 1990s and in 1998 transferred 298.28 acres to the Department of Agriculture to preserve farming on the site. Legislation proposed by State Rep Julia Wasserman stipulates that the land remain as open space or farmland in perpetuity. Of that land, the Second Company Governor’s Horse Guard uses about 60 acres. The state has retained an additional 50 acres.