001Good evening. We'll call to order tonight's public hearing. Um, this is to discuss the town's option to become a member of the municipality of the Connecticut Municipal Redevelopment Authority. Okay. Town of Rocky Hill legal notice of public hearing. The town of Rocky Hill will hold a public hearing on Monday, April 7th, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. in the council chambers of town hall, 761 Old Main Street, Rocky Hill, Connecticut, to solicit public comment regarding the town's option to become a member of municipality of the Connecticut Municipal Redevelopment Authority, MRDA. The Connecticut Municipal Redevelopment Authority, MRDA, was established in 2019 pursuant to section 8-169I, of the Connecticut General Statutes to assist municipalities, stimulate economic and transit oriented development, encourage residential housing development within development districts, stimulate new investment within development districts, and provide support for creation of
002vibrant multi-dimensional downtowns. interested parties may be heard at this time. Well, for the record, I'm Ray Carpentino, town manager. Um, that legal notice just about covers everything I was going to say. Um, the purpose of this public hearing is to solicit uh public input and the town's option to join the uh Connecticut Municipal Redevelopment um agency or the MRDA as we call it. Um this is sort of a followup to the uh town council's last uh March 17th meeting when we had executive director of the MRDA uh David Cororus come in and give a brief explanation of what the MRDA is and how it bas basically works and what the process is. So I'm going to run through a few uh very few slides make this quick um of that uh process and what the
003MRDA really is. Let's see if this works. Beautiful. As it was published in the legal notice, the uh MRDA was established in 2019 uh pursuant to uh Connecticut General Statutes. And the purpose was to assist municipalities. Um again to um stimulate economic development around transit hubs or around highdensity downtowns. um to encourage residential housing um development and economic development within uh development zones, which I'll explain what those are in a minute, and to stimulate new investment um within these development zones, and to provide support for the creation again of a vibrant uh multi-dimensional is what they call it, but multi-purpose cultural uh amenity downtowns, highly dense with a mix of uses. Now the assistance comes in a form of a number of different um items. Um access to funding which is really priority for us
004and also um technical assistance to support municipal efforts again to uh spur economic development and housing development and land use planning. Um it provides uh we can access economic analysis uh funding options and funding assistance, marketing, community engagement um exercises and also coordination with public private partnerships uh which in economic development we call matchmaking. Um the MRDA process is really consist of four basic steps. Number one, uh the town council has to pass a resolution at a public hearing. Um which is why I'm standing here right now. That's the process. Step one. Step two is to um get certification of what is called housing growth zones. That is a statutory definition. Um HGZ's is what I will refer to them in the next few slides. Um that is where the MRDA reviews the existing zoning
005regulations in town um in areas that are designated by the town to be eligible or desirable for housing development and commercial development. And again I have in parenthesis um housing is not necessarily affordable housing. It's market rate affordable whatever the town wants. There are no restrictions with this program. Um if the MRDA determines that our current zoning satisfies the density requirements, the walkability, um the diff the mix of uses within the um town center districts and our commercial districts along the Silstein Highway and our Glastonbury Avenue corridor down to the river um which I think they will find those very um satisfying. they will certify those zones as eligible. If our regulations um if they feel they are not eligible, they will work with the town planning and zoning um essentially to um modify those
006regulations so they are eligible. Um again, it's up to the town if we want to work with them. You don't have to work with them. It's all voluntary. The third step is a uh memorandum of understanding. Once uh these areas or boundaries are uh identified and certified, we have to sign a memorandum of understanding which I do not have the details of that but we will know those details before we sign anything. And item number four um time to develop, time to market. uh once theou is executed, a developer, any type of entity, even if the town wishes to do something um in one of these uh growth uh zones um they apply to the MRDA for that particular development which has already been approved by the town um to apply for financing, funding, marketing,
007all those other assistance items that I mentioned earlier. um um that developer would be eligible for the town would be eligible for and it's very important this is like the most important slide the town retains complete autonomy through the whole process u all actions decisions are local MRDA does not require us to do anything that we do not want to do as far as the development goes the regulations go there is no cost to the town there's There's no obligation for the town to stay in the program. It can opt out at any time. We assume no risk whatsoever with the program. I just added a couple of maps. This is the existing zoning map. Um if you see the dark red area, that's um where Route 160, Silus Highway, Glasmary Avenue, they all merge
008at one area. That's our town village center. and the outlined red that goes to the right, that is the Glastonbury Avenue corridor. Both of those items are um statutoily designated village district uh village districts. Um and they require special architectural review for any development that happens there. Um and you see the light pink that goes up to the top. That's the rest of the silistine highway. And the uh dark pink is the regional where Walmart is area of Walmart and on the border. And I show this to you just to see where we will be focusing um if we do decide to uh opt in where we'll be focusing our efforts for uh um establishing these uh growth zones. This next map was compiled by our planning and economic development and community development office. Um
009you see the uh I guess it's orangey pinkish. That's the existing downtown center zone. The uh outlined purple area is what uh we're looking at to be proposed to be eligible at least the first eligible eligible um growth zone um under the MRDA program. Um, and if you can I don't know if you can see closely enough, but you see some red titles here. These are uh apartments and condo developments. And about within a half mile to 3/4 of a mile, there about 1,700 multif family units within the downtown area within town hall, within the municipal campus, u within the river, within Prairie Park. Um, in addition to that, there's probably an equal number of single family houses. Um so those that type of development is very attractive for additional commercial development and downtown development.
010Um retail follows residential. You know that's the process. It's always been the process. Um retail um will not locate where there's not a market. Um and other personal service establishments will not locate where there's not a market. But I think we have a very strong market um particularly if we access some of the MRDA benefits here. And I think that is all I have. Just want to recognize the development team. Me always first. Steve Silac, director of community development. Kim Richie, town planner. Ben Winter, assistant town planner. Alander main economic and business development manager. Um, so I think I am finished with this presentation. If you have any questions, I do. Ray, we we've had this uh this recent phenomenon in town now of apartments being added to office parks. So we've got the vessel
011project already in the works. And we have another one um not vessel but another uh um apartment complex um going through the you approval process also I believe in corporate ridge. Correct. Right behind the hotel. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, so it seems like we're almost backing into mixed use in that area. We we have existing office space and now we're having residential being overlaid there. And it just seems to me that if this is going to be happening, and it is that some some thought should put into how do we make those different pieces harmonize? I mean, it it's it's sort of becoming another mixeduse zone almost by accident. And I'm wondering if um MRDA if there's a possibility for that district to be recognized as in effect a mixeduse zone. And it seems
012like this because this is kind of unusual circumstance that we're we're sort of backing into. Um seems like it lends itself to a need for some technical expertise on how to make what's becoming like a new neighborhood how to make it work. Do do you see any potential for Mr. our association with MRDA to assist with that. Wait, Ray, before we go to that, just want to This is a the public hearing portion. Y so here for the public to speak. This is on the council agenda this evening. So could you just hold that question till we get to the council agenda? So everybody's here. We'll have two more seats. I guess that's fair though. I think the answer to the question might inform Well, I don't Well, I guess there's nobody here, is there?
013Well, that that's what I wanted to get to first, Bill. That I want to see if anybody did have the opportunity to speak before we get into Bill. You can go over there now. Fair enough. Well, Mr. Sitting Chick, I have a little grace here. Just give me Can you answer question? Can we just delay it to see if anybody does want to speak and then I'll be happy to go back to That's fair. Um, you did ask thorough questions. Is there anybody from the public that wishes to be heard on this matter? Seeing none, go ahead with the answer. Thank you. Absolutely. Yes. Um that is really the purpose that we would I find as an initial benefit for entering into this program is getting access to that type of uh planning, economic analysis,
014land use development planning. Um that's a great idea. I did not think of that and I'm not sure if anybody else in across the hallway redevelopment at the community development thought of that. But yeah, that's something that I think we need to look at because you're right, it's we want to keep the the value of that office park up also. We, you know, so we need to be careful of what is actually being improved as far as the value of the development. Okay. Thank you. All right. Seeing that we have no one wishing to be heard from the public, I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing. Make a motion to close the public hearing. Second. All in favor?