City Council - Special Meeting

You're ready.

All right, let's call the meeting in order. We'll start with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Theresa, please take the role. Okay. Mayor Jones here. Here. Carlson, yes. Here. Matson here. Jilling here. And Bowen is absent with notice. All right. Do we have a motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting? Make a motion to approve the agenda for tonight. Second. Any discussion? Hearing none. We'll vote. Carlson, yes.

Matson, yes. Gil, yes. Yes. Shilling, [snorts] yes. All right. We have one item on the agenda tonight. It's to review, discuss, and approve the real estate transfer between the city of Hartford and Gateway Hartford. Before we start, I have one of our uh one of the members from Gateway Hartford who had asked if he could have a second to introduce himself. So, I would like to ask Keith Matis up to the podium. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

You bet. Those that don't know me, I'm Keith Matis. Couple guys see your face, but I should put a name. Anyway, uh I'm the president of GHI. So, and I just kind of wanted to make myself uh [clears throat] introduce myself to everybody so you know who I am, which I do know mostly competitive. But I've been here in town for 30 years and your population's double and then some. I know we got some light industrial buildings in coming. Pretty good looking stuff. Good good direction. So um because of that lagoons get a little small outdated we got to build a new treatment plant which we did with what was that 9.4 million

grant grant. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you guys for that. But here's what it did do. It doubled my utility bill. It was $48 times two. It's a little tough at times. Get that off there as soon as you can. [clears throat] We'd love to do that.

Anyway, that gets us to this point. There isn't a hard deadline on moving dirt, mitigating the ground, but there is with some grants, federal money. So, including one that has a January 28th deadline. So pushing that side of things. Thank you. Thank you, Keith. Thanks.

All right. The way I'm uh proposing we're going to move this forward, I'm going to give you some background on on this uh [clears throat] transfer of paperwork and the resolution. We'll open it up if anybody has any questions, comments. They'll be more than free to come up and address. the council then will discuss and we'll move forward. So I'll start with this. Uh city's been working on setting up a special project entity which we have done to assist with the lagoon remediation repurposing of this land for future development. This special project entity is known as Gateway Hartford Inc. This entity will be able to apply for grant funding to remediate the lagoons and help the future land transfer as needed. In order to secure grant funding for remediation, the lagoon land will need to be transferred to Gateway Hartford, Inc. Once transferred to Gateway Hartford, Inc., they will work to remediate the lagoons, work on the master plan for the area, develop and market as needed. In order to move forward, this transfer involved two steps. One, the council will need to approve the real estate transfer agreement which lays out the agreement between the city of Hartford and Gateway Hartford, Inc. for the land transfer, remediation, and eventual development. Key items to note in the agreement are GHI has been created, Greater Gateway Hartford has been created as a nonprofit economic development corp to help facilitate the remediation of the lagoons and redevelopment of the property and surrounding area. Gateway Hartford, Inc. is eligible for brownfield grants and for the for this remediation which the city is not eligible for being the contaminant.

This grant if awarded will save the taxpayers approximately $2.8 million in funds that would otherwise be at the taxpayers's expense. Resolution 2026-3 will transfer the land. All associated cap costs for the trans with the transfer would be paid for by each respective party. Gate Gateway Hartford will be obligated to apply for grants for the lagoon remediation, develop a master plan for the area and move forward with developing including platting, zoning, infrastructure and marketing. If the lagoons cannot be remediated for whatever reason by Gateway Hartford, the land would revert back to the city. The city can also demand reconveyance of the land if greater if Gateway Hartford does not carry out the duties per agreement. Once Greater Gateway Hartford, Inc. has completed its agreed upon task, this entity will dissolve and any net proceeds will revert back to the city. Along with this, the council number two council also needs to approve resolution 2026-3 which will transfer the land to Gateway Hartford. All right, that's what we're going to discuss. Anybody in the crowd want to have anything they'd like to say?

A couple questions. Yep. Go ahead. [clears throat] Say who you are so the camera knows. Monarch Anderson. Um, so what does the development look like? I know that we don't have a plan or I'm guessing you don't have an overall plan, right?

But when I hear the city or this entity would then develop that area. Would would the intention be to have those like build ready lots or is that get rid of the the ponds, get it, you know, grid it out and then sell to a developer that would then come in and develop. What would the intention be there? That would be the that would be the plan to get the get the lagoons remediated, [clears throat] get them to what do they call that? uh level ready. Is that what they call that? Shovel ready.

Shovel ready or whatever they call that? And then begin the process at that point to market it to developers. And if I misspoke Mark and said the city's going to the city won't be developing this. Well, that that was my question, I guess. Yeah. No, the city's not going to be developing. If I said that, I miss Oh, we're once we transfer the land to Gateway Hartford. Yeah. They're going to be in charge of making all this happen. But Gateway Hartford, would they develop that then for build ready lots or is that just a mitigate ponds, grade things out and get it ready

ready and then a developer would come in, build roads and put infrastructure in. What does that look like? TBD. There's no plan at the moment, right,

to do that. Um, I think the conversation's been had to reach out to developers and work with them to see what they provide for a plan. The only plan the the city and Gateway Arford has to um use as a point of reference at this point is the plan that ISG had put together a couple years ago. [clears throat] So, we'll start there. Um, but as far as if we try to solicit, you know, developers to just purchase the whole 72 acres, that'd be ideal and then it's done. But that was my question, I guess, as somebody that's in that. Yep.

You know, the risk and all that that goes along with it. The cost, the risk, you know, I was just curious if that's something the city was looking at taking on or if that's something that, you know, the taxpayers would want to avoid. Well, that's why this uh first piece of transferring to the nonprofit that can apply for the remediation grant, it's huge. Yeah. I mean, if that honestly there's a lot of value in the land for the city and offset other costs. If that doesn't happen and the land reverts back to the city and we're back to square one that I mean that changes this whole deal, I will tell you. No, I I understand that. It's obviously you don't know what I mean we don't have an extra look like

Yeah. We don't have an extra 3 million laying around that we're ready to go do that if that happened. Yep. Atlantic County from here uh or but what I want to say is there's anformational meeting tomorrow night with ISG and developers some of our people will be there with concepts what kind of preliminary news too yeah and really to talk about how are we going to go how what do we got to do to get this grant application one you know yeah that's a big piece of it and that's a huge piece of this deal so you're asking asking questions that if we're acting like we're we don't cuz we don't know. I mean, there's things we just don't know.

Yeah. I think that's why it's important to have the provisions in the agreement, right? If it if they don't if Gateway Hartford can't secure grants, then we've got a whole other the land needs to come back and we need to re-evaluate. Sure. Yeah. I mean, our hope is is that we don't get to the point where we can't get it remediated, comes back to the city, we can't find other sources to grant this deal, and the state comes to us and says, "Oh, by the way, what are you guys going to do with this?"

Yeah. There's Yeah. impacts the value obviously. So, cuz the way it sits right now, I don't know if a if a developer would come in and say, "Oh, yeah. I'll buy this on the betting on the fact that I can get all this done." Sure. You know what I mean? Yep. Okay. Thank you. You bet.

Anybody else? I guess I'll say a few things here. So Eric Bucking here. So your meeting tomorrow night for theformational meeting Yep. is after the land transfer. So that So just like Keith said, everybody's got a lot of questions. You don't know how this is going to go. Correct. But let's just start by transferring the land without questions. And that's those are the right steps. You have to transfer the land so that we can apply for the grant by the 28th of January. And what is that grant? We know how much that grant is. It's open-ended at this point, isn't it?

It is. I mean, obviously, it's through the state, but basically the dollar amount will be up to the state. So, it's it's not capped at like 600,000 or 800,000 or whatnot. You could possibly get the full amount. Not saying we will, but So, we have an engineers estimate that we'll base our grant request on. Yes, we will request. They [clears throat] will request for the whole thing. So if you let's say you get 800,000 or a million bucks, what will you do with the shortfall or what will you do with that million bucks if you are granted that that doesn't complete that project?

That's a great question. Um come back to the city and ask for the balance to refinish the remediation. The intent of Gateway Hartford is to remediate the property to get it ready so it could be so it's a sellable lot because you can't just leave it. It's contaminated, right? So 2 million's less than 3 million. So anything we get would be a bonus. I think timing and speed is always the question. Yeah. And the number's always been out there. It has it's never been a secret that it's going to cost the the price has increased

pretty substantially like everything but it it started out at a million to remediate it and then it went to7 and now it's at three. So, is there anything in your guys's bylaws or um articles of corporation that state like let's say you get let's say you get a million you get a million dollar grant. You start with a million dollars worth of dirt. The nonprofit becomes essentially inoperable because there's no funds and there's a million dollar property already. Is there any safeguards in those articles stating that you can't just go and sell that said land to a any developer or any organization for a dollar just to get it out when I need to. Somebody says, "Hey, I want to come in and I'm going to do I'm going to bring project XYZ into this into this land and I'll buy it from you for a buck and do the remainder of the mediation." Well, I think speaking from my experience with federal grants in other settings, if we take money for a purpose and don't complete that purpose, you didn't fulfill the requirements of the grant. So, I don't know if the city get a third of what you need, would you even can you technically start your project?

I don't think that would be wise. Obviously, it's going to be a board decision, but for me, as I played that out, that Gateway Hartford would have to come to the city and say, "Okay, this is what we got for a grant as the contaminator, the polluter in the property. Let's work to find the other 2 million." Grants usually come with a specified time frame to complete and you continue to follow up as it's required in the grant. The intent is not for Gateway Artford to one-third it or half weigh it or 3/4 it. It's to completely get it remediated and give it back to the city

or in other words the city [clears throat] if you are granted 3 million essentially you're like hey this project is going to work. We're going to grant it back to the city. It's possible, but there's also nothing saying that once that land gets transferred, there's nothing saying that it can't be sold to another entity as well once it's in that nonprofit, even us as a development foundation. There's nothing saying that we can't sell our land as a nonprofit to any given organization for a dollar. Um, in [clears throat] my reading,

I think this Yeah, go ahead, sir. In my reading, it can be sold for the purposes of economic development, but if they cannot complete the remediation, they can't just they they have to complete the remediation otherwise it comes back to the city, the land, which is what bullet five says, so in your sit in your scenario, if that were to happen, the only way that that could happen would be the agreement of the party purchasing it for a dollar. In your case, there would have to be an agreement in place that they would fully agree immediately. Correct.

Yeah. That in the reconveyance here it says there's an alternate to reconveyance. uh Gateway and the city may agree that Gateway may sell the property to a mutually agreeable third party which will then assume responsibility for remediation of the lagoon site for future re redevelopment.

So what would the so yeah I mean obviously if you guys are granted the 2.8 billion, 3 million, whatever it is. It's great because now all of a sudden you have an asset that you could essentially possibly market to a developer to um you know it's interstate project should be minimum 30 $40,000 acre land. It should be good asset to the city but um not to the city to gay Hartford with the intent that if there's any money left when it's all said and done comes back to the city at that point. We're not going to get money off the land until everything's said and done and it's all sold. That's the way it's written. I mean, we're not going to be selling every parcel and taking a chunk. This thing has to be finished. They got to sell 71 acres and have it done

and then they're done. Then they dissolve. Then the money Well, if there's anything left, then it comes back. That's how we That's how we drew it up. That's why we wanted it wanted it drawn up. So yeah, it says in the event Gateway Hartford or its successor by assignment merger or reorganization is unable to carry out its duties under this agreement or attempts to sell, assign or lease to a private third party developer, city shall have the right but not the obligation to demand gateway reconvey the entire property back to the city. So we either drag it across the finish line or we give it back to the city.

I guess one other concern and it kind of is leading to um what Mark had to say with Mark said obviously I'm on the HABF board. We have a 40 acre development and 140 some acre parcel of land which Travis you and I have had that discussion about that 140 acre parcel of land. it's not that desirable piece of land. Um, feel like there needs to be something done with that. But as an outside developer looking into the city of Hartford, knowing that there's 100, we have like 180 acres, 160 to 180 acres of land to develop and now all of a sudden there's another nonprofit developing 70 more acres. How does an outside developer looking in see Hartford as a very inviting community as a developer? Our purpose is to remediate the ground whether that at that point we decide to develop it or sell it to a developer said that you either see it through the end or give it back to the city

but the the board ultimately has ultimate say once it's remediated do we take the next step is there interest in that or do we give it back to the city so that's where way back it's TBD if we go back to Mark's comments I mean I guess I'm not a developer so I probably don't view things uh the same way, but this land is going to be ready for development for years. Few years, probably be few years, but I mean 27 at their earliest. Yeah. 27.

Yeah. And there are adjacent parcel owners interested in collaborating on what the development in that area looks like. Um I think if the assumption is that it will absolutely only be in for sure industrial park I mean I don't know if that's an absolute right or is it some other type of right whatever it is whatever it is as a nonprofit is I mean even for us as a nonprofit we can we can manipulate the numbers to bring businesses into town way different than a private developer can for I guess What I was trying to say is tough competition for outside development.

It might not be a um a competitor to the type of development that HADF is currently has. I'm not saying I'm saying it's any outside developer potentially. Well, I guess that was, you know, the city's creating competition for somebody like our group that is developing and has land. Well, I don't think a business park is in your development. No, this industrial focus then this isn't industrial focus, right? There's also a master plan

component that goes with this. We're going to have this thing master planned out which is going to start shortly. Yep. if we can get through uh the paperwork. And the other thing that Gateway Hartford is bound to is that master plan. We've we've tried to put some guard rails in there so this deal gets to the end in a fashion that benefits the city. We I mean we're looking to create, as we called it, Gateway Hartford. We want to create a nice window into the into the city. It's not an industrial park. It's a uh what's the track houses? What's the place that uh we talk about on

the Golden Triangle? Golden Triangle 229 and 229 where they built City Bank and in there those types of that's oh Tom's call in our mess lake to the party. But I I think you know you mentioned it's right it has that interstate you know visibility. I think there's other types of businesses that aren't that might be more interested in that. Not for convenience because certainly it'd be convenient for indust you know for an industrial park type situation as far as traffic in and out but it's also pretty attractive in terms of other commercial development. I mean I'm sure it would be attractive to a lot of private developers.

These are really gateway hardford questions. Do you have any questions regarding the transfer of land? Well, the trans I mean here and it is a Gateway Hartford question as well, but you're transferring it. You guys both have an interest in Gateway Harford and obviously you have some information about it. What is our interest? Aren't you board members? Yeah, but what do you mean by interest? What are you saying? We have the interest of the city. What are you saying beyond that? I'm saying you're on the board. So, you've obviously had conversation and And what are you inferring? I'm saying you have information about what you have intentions for this land for.

The only intention we have is to get it transferred, get a master development plan going, get it remediated, get it different businesses about, you know, the same goes. I mean, honestly, there's ideas there. Well, sure there's ideas. I I think if you go back to the point that if you look at the master plan that the city has what is that that's why it's in part of what we put forward to Gateway Hartford is has to comport with what that master plan looks like and that property along the interstate doesn't look like in the master plan an industrial park the existing that's my me

I I have not talked with Gateway Hartford but when you say it has to comport with the master plan. When I recall looking at the master plan, that's what was along that track.

All right, question. [clears throat] All right. Anybody else? If not, we'll move forward. Any action from the council or discussion that we need to have? And I just see this as step one and then and then moving on and then we'll have to monitor as we go along. Absolutely. But this step one is critical for that uh grant. And then that's why I'll be voting yes for this because uh it's all about that grant. And then after that then I'll might be switching votes. Yes. No. We'll have to see, you know,

just because I don't know. There's too many unknowns.

Yeah. There's reszoning. There's a lot of steps. I would say my vote is based on um there's a lot of worry about if this isn't a perfect plan, what if we don't get the grant, what what is going to happen if things it's a it's a risk to benefit for me if this can go well. Gateway Harford can get a sizable grant. It doesn't kill the city to take care of this remediation from a financial standpoint. And then at the end of it, if we could sell it outright to a developer that somehow matches the vision uh in the city plan um and we get cash back to pay for we talked last week, we need a new water tower in 5 to 10 years. We want a community event center. We want a swimming pool. We don't have money for that. No one else is going to write us a check to take care of those things. So, this is our opportunity to make our best step forward to get money back out of this property and take care of some of the needs without having more expenses. So, that's why I'm very interested um in this.

All right. Uh according to our attorney, we could go into uh executive for legal counsel if we felt the need. I'm I'm about 8 minutes away. I thought the meeting was just seven and I apologize. Okay. I think we'll be done before you get here. [laughter]

Shut the meter off. Uh is there any questions or concerns with anybody that we would need to discuss further? If not, is there any action from the council? I'll make a motion to approve land transfer to Gateway Hartford, Inc. Second. Any more discussion? And can we add to authorize Ardan to sign an agreement to that? Sure.

And to add that Mayor Ardan Jones can sign the agreement. You want to amend your second? Second that amended motion. Okay. All right. Any more dis any other discussion hearing? None. We'll vote. Shilling. Yes. Harach, yes. Peele, yes. Matson, yes. Carlson, yes. All right. Uh, do we have to vote then on resolution 2026-3? Approved the agreement. So now the resolution was actually transparent.

Yep. This is uh Erin Shidu, the attorney for Julie Hartford. Yes. I have a bad connection. I just wanted to confirm. Was there a second on the motion that was brought? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Thank you, Eric. All right. The next up is uh resolution 2026-3, which hold on. Let me get there. was a resolution approving the transfer of the real estate to Gateway Hartford.

Make a motion uh to approve resolution 2026-3, transfer of real estate to Gateway Hartford, Inc. Second. Any more discussion on this one? Hearing none, we'll vote. Carlson, yes. Yes. Matson. Yes. Kio. Yes. Parach. Yes. Shelley. Yes. All right. Anything to go into executive session for hearing? None. Motion to adjurnn. Some move. Second. Somebody. I'll second. All in favor? I thank