October 25, 2006

Mill River plan brings crowd together.

By Doug Dalena
Staff Writer
The Advocate

Nearly 100 people packed the Government Center last night for a public presentation of plans for the Mill River Park and Greenway, an ambitious project to restore the lower section of the Rippowam River and build a network of trails and attractions from Scalzi Park to Stamford Harbor.

Most of the crowd was enthusiastic about the vision for the park, but several people expressed concerns about specific elements of the plan.

"Obviously, it's wonderful," said Jon Smith, the city's planning director from 1973 to 1993 who helped keep alive an 80-year-old vision for turning the park into a central gathering place. Smith, who moved downtown nine months ago, said most in the crowd agreed. "You can tell from the crowd. From what I can see, there's no hostility -- it's all togetherness."

Residents asked how the city could save more of the park's historic cherry trees, who would pay for the improvements and whether the city would seize private land to make way for new sections of the park.

One of the first questions came from a representative of the Japanese American Society of Fairfield County, asking how many of the trees donated in 1957 by Japanese immigrant Junzo Nojima would be preserved.

Cindy Sanders of Olin Partnership, the chief landscape architect for the park plan, said most of the cherry trees must be removed because restoring the stream would require removing the deteriorating concrete walls that contain Mill River Pond.

Most of the cherry trees are planted on high ground near the concrete walls, which would become a slope down to the river's western bank under the plan. Of the dozens of trees, perhaps five could be transplanted and five left in place, Sanders said. More could be moved, but that could be expensive, especially since many of the oldest trees are not in great shape, she said.

"Like most plant material, it has a life span," Sanders said.

Jane Waugh of the Stamford Tree Foundation praised the overall plan but said many more trees could be transplanted. Waugh said the foundation's arborists had identified many trees that were healthy enough to transplant.

She offered the foundation's help, and the expertise of its arborists, to help the city transplant the trees.

By the end of the meeting, Sanders and Waugh were talking about how donations and volunteer work could provide for transplanting more of the trees.

Former city Rep. Ralph Loglisci asked why the Main Street bridge across the river would not include vehicle traffic when the concept for the park envisioned connecting downtown and the West Side.

"There's a roadway sitting there that could only ease some of the congestion" on Tresser Boulevard and West Broad Street, he said.

Mill River Collaborative Chairman Arthur Selkowitz agreed that the bridge, or an undulating modern bridge envisioned to replace it, should connect the two neighborhoods, but not the way Loglisci imagined.

"The way that will be achieved is not by cars, but by people," Selkowitz said, adding that making a walk downtown easier for West Side residents would bring more people to the park and downtown.

The bridge also crosses the narrowest part of the park, and putting cars on the road there could overwhelm the playground, which opened in May, and other pedestrian-friendly areas.

Land Use Bureau Chief Robin Stein said the city does not plan to use eminent domain to acquire the few parcels it doesn't already own.

Two larger buildings, an office building at 1010 Washington Blvd. and the Housing Authority's Stamford Manor housing complex on Main Street, would be replaced by more parkland in a second, long-range phase of construction.

Park funding would come from the city, state and federal governments, as well as a planned capital campaign by the nonprofit collaborative. Milton Puryear, the collaborative's executive director, has said the improvements would costs tens of millions of dollars.

"This will be an expensive investment for the city of Stamford," Selkowitz said.

Part of the funding would come from taxes paid on new development within the Mill River Corridor, a special zoning district surrounding the park, through a process called tax increment financing.

Many people wanted to know how fast the park would be built, and what of the many ideas on paper they would see soon.

The dam could come down by 2008, provided the state Department of Environmental Protection approves an Army Corps of Engineers plan to demolish it and restore the stream bed to a more natural state. Congress must approve the $6 million cost for the dam removal and river restoration.

Many of the proposed improvements could be done as the Army Corps of Engineers finishes that project, and others would be done piecemeal as funding becomes available.

Landscaping near the new playground should be in place by next year, and a section of greenway between Broad Street and Scalzi Park could be built on city-owned land within 18 months, Selkowitz said.

"The Mill River Collaborative doesn't want to spin its wheels," he said. "We are passionate people who want to see this happen in our lifetimes -- and I'm pretty old."