Site Plans, Municipal Improvements, Budgeting and Bonds

An Open Letter to All RTM Members:

All construction in the United States requires a "site plan" to ensure it conforms to federal requirements and has obtained all federal, state, and municipally mandated permits.  In Greenwich, every municipal capital expenditure exceeding $25,000 (including PCB remediation) must obtain "Municipal Improvement" status before it can be considered for funding by the RTM. Once approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission, based on specific language in Greenwich Town Code, "Final Site Plans" cannot be modified without returning to P&Z.  

Municipal Improvements funded by Tax Exempt Bonds must use the funds for exactly the purpose stated in the bond. All Municipal Improvements must be fully funded, and must have a "completion bond" to ensure the Town is not left holding the bag with half completed projects that "ran out of money."  BOE acknowledges it does not have even an estimate of the full remediation costs related to this bond request. Last year BOE convinced RTM MISA was "shovel ready" and could be completed within 2 years at a total cost of $29,000,000--just budget $17,000,000 right away, and "we'll do the rest!"

Now BOE stands before you, having spent more than $5,000,000 unsuccessfully trying to make the project "shovel ready",  asking for the remaining $12,000,000 and a $14,585,000 bond authorization for a project it knows it cannot build.

There is no federally compliant final site plan for the "MISA Footprint", nor is there Town of Greenwich "Municipal Improvement" authorization.  The budget request omits the "Music Instruction Space" entirely; makes no mention of the "Storm Water Retention Tank" or "Cofferdam" AECOM now tells us must be approved by EPA and installed in the fields before MISA Footprint construction can begin; provides no cost or time estimate for moving two million additional pounds of PCB contaminated soil to Ohio; has submitted no compliant final site plan to P&Z; is specifically NOT "Shovel Ready"; and could easily cost more than 3 times the current $44,000,000 "guesstimate.”   

BOE has none of the required permits for any of this work either within or outside "The MISA Footprint."  AECOM has already told BOE it will be required to file perpetual, unknown at this time, deed restrictions with the Federal Government controlling all future construction on the GHS site.  

DTC, the Interim PCB Remediation Consultant, has published a warning to The MISA Building Committee that The Town cannot disturb even a spoonful of soil on the entire property until permanent PCB remediation has been approved by EPA for the entire property--a process that could take years. (The Cos Cob Power Plant budget was authorized by RTM in 1999.) 

You are being asked to approve funding and bonding for a project that does not legally exist, and cannot be started until it gets full EPA/DEEP/ACE written approval, regardless of whether the underlying idea is good or bad.