Arunan Arulampalam, Hartford Land Bank CEO, announced his bid for the City’s top office as the city’s mayoral race continues taking shape.

The field of candidates currently includes former state legislator, Judge Eric Coleman, and city council member Nick Lebron. Arulampalam emphasized that like many families in Hartford, he is from an immigrant family who found safety and opportunity in Hartford. He added that his roots as a Hartford native uniquely position him to help the City’s overlooked and underestimated residents advance within their communities.

Prior to being Hartford Land Bank’s CEO, Arulampalam served as deputy commissioner for the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection, under Governor Ned Lamont.  Arulampalam also serves on the boards of the Hartford Public Library and the House of Bread and as a commissioner on the Hartford Redevelopment Authority,

Once elected, Arulampalam’s plans for the City include holding slumlords accountable for maintaining their properties. Otherwise, the City will reclaim and redevelop those properties that are in disrepair.  As a success story, Arulampalam also lauded the Parkville Market which he would like to replicate across the city of Hartford. Further information may be viewed on the Hartford Courant website.

Source credit: Stephen Underwood, Hartford Courant, Jan 05, 2023.

An article authored by Edmund H. Mahony and published in the Hartford Courant on September 12, 2022, informs  that bills submitted by  a lawyer retained by the MDC Chairman, William A. Dibella, has created discord within the Commission’s leadership.

The district board has authorized the expenditure of up to $50,000 to independently investigate how one of the lawyers Dibella retains for his private business was able to submit bills amounting to $60,000 in legal fees for work that the board had, several months earlier, signaled that it would not pay for.

At the same time, the full board defeated the move to send the $50,000 appropriation to the Commission’s Board of Finance from caution that it could languish while undergoing further review by Dibella’s loyalists who control the board.

The article continued that MDC’s Internal Audit Committee has demanded written answers from Dibella to questions including whether he had intervened to secure payment for James Sandler, the personal lawyer whose work for the MDC is in dispute. Until January, Sandler was contracted with MDC that paid him about $190,000 a year and (according to MDC’s commissioners and staff) he has collected about $2.8 million in fees from the MDC since 2008.

Further details may be viewed on the Hartford Courant website.

Image Credit: Courant File Photos

A community meeting will be held at 6PM, on August 31, 2022, at the Artist Collective to allow the Upper Albany residents, business owners, and other community stakeholders to provide their input through discussion with the developers selected to complete the Albany- Woodland development project.

This vacant parcel of land that is located at the corner of Albany Avenue and Woodland Street – in the heart of the Upper Albany community – could hold the key to making the community a place  of destination instead of simply a pass-through between the suburbs and downtown Hartford.

The City of Hartford is promoting its redevelopment plans for revitalizing the Upper Albany area in Hartford and City officials have expressed their interest in listening to the ideas and visions of community leaders, advocates, and other people in the neighborhood.

According to an article authored by Kenneth R. Gosselin and published in the Hartford Courant dated Sunday, August 7, 2022, the state Supreme Court has ordered a new trial in response to the developers’ appeal of the 2019 ruling by jurors that sided with the City of Hartford’s decision to terminate Centerplan Construction Company and DoNo Hartford, LLC as builders of the proposed $71 million city-taxpayers’ funded 6,000-seat Dunkin’ Donuts Park stadium. The project also included a future mixed use development (apartments and storefronts) around the ballpark.  The City’s basis for terminating the developers highlighted missed construction deadlines, cost overruns, and incomplete work.

The article continues that Centerplan and DoNo are seeking $90 million in damages for wrongful termination on basis that the delays were due to changes ordered by the City.  It is expected that this new trial will be more complex because the City had subsequently hired a new builder for the storefronts and apartments around Dunkin Donuts Park, and even more costly than the first trial because of the time that will be expended to examine the stadium plans and determine who ordered the alleged changes.   Mayor Bronin alleges that failure to terminate Centerplan would have cost the Hartford taxpayers “tens of millions” additional dollars and the City would have neither a baseball team nor a baseball stadium to validate the expenditure.

The stadium was competed in time for the 2017 minor league season after Centerplan’s surety company stepped up and hired a new contractor to correct and finish the work at a cost of $40 million dollars. Further details may be viewed on the Hartford Courant website.

An article authored by Kenneth R. Gosselin and published in the Hartford Courant dated July 28, 2022, provides a recent update on the zoning dispute between the City of Hartford’s department of development services and the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA). The strong CRDA objection to the City’s department of developmental services’ endorsement of the proposal for Hartford’s first adult-use cannabis shop at 89 Arch Street (corner of Arch Street and Columbus Boulevard) in the Front Street community was upheld.

CRDA argued that zoning throughout Front Street and the broader Adriaen’s Landing development district (which includes Arch Street) in Hartford falls within its purview. Based on submitted land and remediation surveys and master development plans that dates back to 2000 when Adriaen’s Landing was developed, the committee concluded that the property located at 89 Arch Street falls within the CRDA zoning jurisdiction.

The CRDA opposes the cannabis shop on the basis of long-standing agreements to shape developments that prohibit uses including check-cashing, pawn shops, firearm sellers, the sale of pornographic items, head shops, and cannabis sales. The article continues that in response to the Zoning Commission’s decision to uphold CRDA zoning jurisdiction, Derrick C. Gibbs, Jr., a partner in the proposed cannabis shop commented, “We tried our best. We thought it was a good location. We’ll go to another city. It’s not a big deal.”

The above information was excerpted from the Hartford Courant. Contact Kenneth R. Gosselin at kgosselin@courant.com for additional details.