The Preserve Remains Legal Issue

ESSEX:

    The Preserve, the proposal that sought to develop 210 homes and an 18-hole golf course on nearly 1,000 acres of property in Essex, Old Saybrook, and Westbrook, is apparently still wending its way through the courts and town officials believe Essex should be represented.

    Acting on a request from First Selectman Philip Miller, the Board of Selectmen and then the Board of Finance recently approved a $5,000 appropriation to retain legal counsel as the case moves to the Appellate Court. The $5,000 appropriation will require approval from a town meeting.

    The Preserve was proposed by owner and developer River Sound LLC, a company consistently described as a subsidiary of Lehman Brothers Holdings Incorporated. The property is located largely in Old Saybrook, however, a major access to the property would be developed off Bokum Road in Essex and the proposed golf course would impact neighborhoods in the Bokum Road and Ingham Hill Road areas.

    At a special town meeting in 2006, Essex residents approved an expenditure of $20,000 to hire an environmental law attorney to represent its interests before the Old Saybrook Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Commission, where the proposal was being heard. The town hired Matthew Ranelli, an attorney with the Hartford-based law firm of Shipman and Goodwin. With Ranelli, the town gained intervenor status at the Old Saybrook hearings and offered both comments and testimony.

    After a lengthy battle before the Old Saybrook commission, the developer was denied a permit in a 5-4 decision. River Sound appealed and the case was sent to Middlesex Superior Court. In February of this year Judge Julia Aurigemma upheld the commission’s decision to deny the proposal as presented.

    In a separate decision, however, the judge affirmed an earlier 2004 Inland Wetlands Commission approval for a freestanding golf course, a proposal brought forward by a different, now defunct developer. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, acting on behalf of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), appealed this decision.

    The result of Aurigemma’s two decisions has brought all the parties–River Sound and the opponents–into Appellate Court. It is Miller’s interest, and the interest of the selectmen and the Board of Finance, that the town of Essex be represented during the course any action at the appellate level.

    “While the attorney general’s office, the Connecticut Fund for the Environment, and others have been doing the heavy lifting so far in this appeals process, our role has been diminished,” Miller told the selectmen and finance board members recently. “I believe it is important, however, that we continue to be represented as we move into the Appellate Court. I anticipate that our role would remain modest, but important.”

    He said he believed Ranelli, who would again represent the town, would be filing a brief in the town’s behalf.

    Residents from the Ingham Hill Road area attended the selectmen’s meeting in mid-September to urge support for the requested $5,000 appropriation.

    Robert Fisher said, “This proposal puts our wells and groundwater at risk…I don’t feel safe until this thing is killed.” Kenneth Bombaci added, “We have been fighting this for years and have probably been to more than 100 meetings. Everyone told us Lehman Brothers was too big to fight. Well, here we are today, close to the end and we need to keep fighting.”

Lehman’s Fall

    With the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings, questions have arisen again about possible opportunities to purchase the 1,000 acres that comprise The Preserve. Miller has described the property as “a giant wet, rocky sponge, the source of three separate watersheds–the Oyster River of Old Saybrook, the Trout Brook watershed of Westbrook, and the Mud River watershed of Essex.”

    In conversations with the selectmen and finance board members at meetings in mid-September, Miller said Judge Angelo Santaniello, a state trial referee, told all the parties involved in the latest court action to meet to attempt “to find common ground.” He said he could not discuss the issue further but the parties would be meeting with the judge again.

    Residents attending the Board of Selectmen’s meeting last month asked if Lehman had been contacted about a possible sale in light of the investment bank’s collapse just days before. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has said he has reached out to Lehman and Miller said efforts have also been made by Gov. M. Jodi Rell and her office. The finance board unanimously approved the additional appropriation, contending that it would be best for the town as a move to safeguard its position in the future.

    State agencies, environmental groups such as the Connecticut Fund for the Environment, and others have contended over the years that The Preserve acreage could be purchased by a coalition of public and private sources, if the price was right. River Sound, they contend, has placed too high a price on it.

    At the same time, Sam Stern of River Sound said in an online blog in August, “Lehman Brothers has always been and remains open to a sale of the property known as The Preserve to the state and other conservation-oriented agencies. The state and these same agencies have purchased at least 10 inferior to similar parcels of land, ranging from 16 to 650 acres of undeveloped land at prices ranging from $23,478 to $53,889 per acre, with an average price of $33,854 per acre. Representatives of the state and a multitude of others have lauded The Preserve as an invaluable parcel of land. If that belief is so universal, there is no fair and equitable reason the value should be any less than the same entities have paid for inferior to similar parcels in the same environs over the last three years.”