Change Needed At WDC
10/05/2007

Change Needed at WDC 

Column By Bob DeCosmo

Waterbury Development Corporation’s shakeup of its top staff can only suggest that there are problems at that agency. The combination of Waterbury’s various development agencies under one roof and streamlining its management sounded good, but it has failed. Not only does Waterbury need to get this development agency refined, it needs to do so quickly and get it right.

The first sign of problems for our city’s development and housing needs emerged long before the first WDC employee departed. It was Neighborhood Housing Services executive director, Adele Strelchun retiring from her job after more than 20 years of being Waterbury’s hardest working housing advocate and community champion. Ms. Strelchun left her agency in frustration after WDC took over the checkbook for NHS‘s long standing neighborhood loan programs that utilized federal funding sources. The additional bureaucracy that WDC imposed to NHS’s loan processes prevented Ms. Strelchun’s staff from quickly assisting homeowners in need of funding for repairs. Now Waterbury apparently has two housing agencies in disarray!

While one could usually look at statistics and argue both sides of any equation, Waterbury has no ability to debate the highest unemployment rate in our state for almost 6 years running. This dubious honor is quickly supported by another un-debatable blemish, our per capita tax burden on homeowners. Alarmingly Waterbury property owners have the highest or second highest tax burden in Connecticut depending on which of the two accounting methods Hartford uses to asses its woes! With property tax revaluation looming we can no longer feel good about talking about how great Waterbury is, we need to demonstrate that fact with economic development.

This economic development for our city can not come from Big Box Retail outposts being built here as some officials have proclaimed. Big Box Retail adds little to our community’s economic health in the long run, it‘s like treating a virus with aspirin. In fact large retail stores are stimulants for poverty as they pay little wages and supply mostly part time employment for their workers. Worse, the profits at the cash registers quickly leave Waterbury for corporate America with little money left in our city to go around. Attracting and assisting the establishment of mom and pop businesses here is better in the long run for us, small business owners will buy homes, stabilize neighborhoods and become part of the community, generally they make better neighbors. This type of unconventional development is historically lacking in Waterbury because it requires a lot of effort to accomplish the task and hard work and bureaucracy don’t seem to mix.

Currently the Waterbury Development Corporation has several projects on the drawing board and they consist of all city projects; either a school, city hall itself, or a stalled site reclamation. No private investment projects of any significance are on their books and this needs to change because a development agency needs to develop, not administer.

Waterbury needs to reach out to developers and assist them with their projects making it easier for them to succeed. Other cities have gotten it right, why shouldn’t we make the bold moves required to revive Waterbury? If the focus and format at WDC does not change, then I propose an appropriate name change for the agency to the more correctly entitled “Waterbury Administrative Agency for Inflated Tax Payer Funded Government Construction Projects“.

The Duggan School project is a government project. Its costs might be inflated because of mandatory union labor requirements. Nonetheless, it has been a long sought after community based endeavor for the Brooklyn Neighborhood Association. If not for the persistent effort from the Brooklyn Neighborhood Association and its members, notably Lisa Velez, Frank Perella and the Jerry Covino family, this proposed school renovation would probably not be a reality today. I think it’s great we have this important project that will not only benefit our city’s education needs, it will improve a depressed neighborhood, or will it?

The city is using its eminent domain powers to acquire the adjoining land and structures surrounding the school and across West Porter Street for parking. The administrating agency for the project is the Waterbury Development Corporation, but their consultants seem to be ignoring the true Brooklyn neighborhood revitalization needs. To use a couple of clichés, let’s “Kill 2 birds with 1 stone,” but WDC’s consultants appear to be “Penny wise and dollar foolish.”

WDC’s current plan leaves both surrounding 16 unit brick four story walk-up structures and their ever ominous presence intact. This is shear lunacy for anyone knowing the neighborhood needs and aspirations, let alone common sense!

What is another million or two spent in a bonding package when we can truly have neighborhood revitalization and un-obscured clean building lines for the new school? This is not happening here and it needs to. I think both of those brick building have been rehabbed twice in the past 30 years. Fearing the possibility that those properties will go through another boom, bust, board-up, abandonment and rehab cycle again is simply not worth the risk for a couple million more. Waterbury needs to include those structures as part of the Duggan School Project and have a complete encirclement around the school and not this land carve out as proposed.

The acquisition, demolition and tenant relocation costs pale in comparison to the upside boost the neighborhood gets in visual aesthetics and minimizing the downside risks associated with those buildings knowing their prior histories. While they are under competent management and ownership today, it’s better to be preventive and well worth the added expense to the project. Why risk dealing in the future with gun toting, gang infested, drug factory properties surrounding a grammar school?

So in conclusion, WDC needs to get it right or don’t do it at all. That agency if it is to be revamped needs a progressive executive director that is a visionary. WDC should wear two hats at all times. It should be a public relations and marketing operation seeking to encourage private capital to come to our city and then accommodate the needs for that private sector development. In essence become a one stop headquarters for all development work, both public and private. It needs to assign case managers to each project for accountability. Its mission should be to expedite the construction and regulatory requirements for development efforts and provide financing from local, state and federal sources. Finally it needs to have much less reliance on meeting its payroll obligations from tax-payer funded city projects, we can find lower cost options here.

The Waterbury Mayoral Debate on housing issues is October 23rd 7:00PM at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church , 937 Chase Parkway. The debate is being co-sponsored by the Waterbury Property Owners Association and the Waterbury Board of Realtors. Housing impacts us all and Waterbury has several pressing housing needs that must be dealt with. The questions are being prepared by a panel of tenants, Realtors and property owners. If you have any serious housing issues you wish to be considered for presentation in the debate, call 574-7777 and speak with my office administrator, your input is appreciated. Members from organizations as well as the public are urged to attend this free debate focused on our housing needs.

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