Wednesday night’s Greenwich Planning & Zoning commission meeting featured a preliminary application for MI and site plan for a new rink in Eugene Morlot Park in Byram.
The Preliminary proposal is again for “the flip,” which refers to switching the location of the existing 70’s era Hamill Rink with Strazza field, so that the new rink is toward the middle of the park rather than tucked in the corner as it is now.
Existing Hamill rink. Dec 2023 Photo: Leslie Yager
View of existing Strazza field with rink in background. Photo: Leslie Yager
Representing the town was Greenwich’s Superintendent of Building Construction & Maintenance, Luigi Romano and Joe Siciliano, who is the director of Greenwich Parks & Rec Dept.
Kicking things off in favor of the proposal was First Selectman Fred Camillo who said the rink had become an embarrassment and was at the end of its useful life.
“This is a several decade effort,” Camillo said. “I’ve been going on that field since the late 70s and was on there every weekend for 35 years unpiring and coaching. People would sit in the stands and they had no idea there was a memorial grove behind there. Part of this plan is to make sure that is enhanced and people know exactly what is in that grove.”
Camillo said the project was at a critical stage, especially given there were private donors in the wings.
View from Strazza field of former Byram School and portion of Memorial Grove dedicated to veterans from Byram. Photo: Leslie Yager
Mr. Romano said modifications had been made since the application was previously reviewed by P&Z. He said there would be signage for the rink and both the Lyon House and the Veterans Memorial Grove
Also, the proposed parking lot had been modified to 121 spaces for peak use, noting that 116 cars had been parked at the rink for a big varsity game.
He said the flip, moving the rink to the north and into the field, would result in less blasting and grading in the area of the existing rink, and offer the benefit of PV potential with the greater southern exposure.
Romano said the proposed facility had been reduced to core features necessary for a rink, including four locker rooms, pedestrian areas, mechanical areas, rest rooms, skate sharpening, places to put on and remove skates, and a small event space.
“There is no room to shrink this further,” Romano said, adding that square footage had been reduced by not having dedicated locker rooms, concession stand or a pro shop.
Chili Cheese Fries and Chili Cheeseburger, plus a blue Shushee from Power Play Café at Hamill Rink in 2015. Credit: Leslie Yager
He said while the new facility would still have a larger square footage, the proposal had a reduction in impervious surface.
Romano said “passive recreation” had been foremost in survey responses about the park and that the walkway would be accessible.
While he said while 19 trees were proposed to be removed, 43 trees would be planted.
Further he said there were plans for bike racks and enhanced connections to Western Middle School and Sue Merz Way.
Finally he said today there are “large areas of pavement for no purpose that are circling the building for access as to how it was developed over the time period it was.”
The existing building is almost 31,000 sq ft and proposed building is 40,671 sq ft, for roughly a 10,000 sq ft increase.
Commissioner Peter Lowe asked about “discretionary items” making the new building 10,000 sq ft larger.
“I would say there are not any discretionary items,” Mr. Romano said. “Everything is pretty much core and required.”
View of rear of existing Hamill Rink from paved area at the rear corner of property. Photo: Leslie Yager
P&Z commissioner Mary Jenkins said the commission had to strike a balance.
“If space was not an issue, obviously the bigger the better,” she said. “But in this case we have an enthusiastic user population versus the overall population of Greenwich. I need to think about an appropriate balance between providing the absolute best ice rink in that location and balance it against the loss of a park and the loss of public green space.”
“I understand it is desirable to have four locker rooms with showers. On the other hand, is it reasonably necessary to in order to fully use that facility?” she asked.
Ms Jenkins questioned the timing issue justified having four locker rooms with showers? “I’m asking because you are encroaching on a public space,” she added. “You are in a park, not a commercial area.”
Romano said the four locker rooms were necessary to make the best use of ice time.
“We tried to combine as many uses as possible to try to reduce our proposed square footage,” he added.
Cos Cob Park features teak benches along walking paths for resting and enjoying the panoramic views. Photo 2015. Credit: Leslie Yager
Parks & Rec director Joe Siciliano said hundreds of hours had been spent doing surveys and seeking input on the rink project, including meeting with the leaders of the BNA.
“We didn’t hear any big opposition,” he said. “We went to the leadership to try to vet these things and give them opportunity for input.”
Siciliano said the concept of walking paths at Cos Cob Park had been “a home run,” and a continuous loop at Eugene Morlot Park would also be a huge hit.
Public Comment
After Mr. Romano reintroduced the application and commissioners asked questions, several residents testified during public comment, including Bill Drake from the rink design committee, Ric Loh from the Parks & Rec Board.
Testifying against “the flip” were Byram residents Don Sylvester, Al Shehadi, Lucy von Brachel, Roz Nicastro, Joe Kantorski, Joe Pecora, Liz Eckert, both Anne & Mike Kristoff.
From Byram, Clare Kilgallen testified in favor plan as proposed.
Bill Drake said there had been an overwhelming number of letters in favor of the project.
“Eighty-four percent, or 2,189 residents support flipping the locations of the rink and ballfield,” Drake said. “Commission members, you’re in a real dilemma and I sympathize, but it’s all of your making, and you can get out of it.”
Mr. Drake said it was a “small minority” opposed to the flip and that for the commission, making peace between the opposing groups was a “political task” not a “zoning task.”
“You’re putting this dilemma on your own shoulders. Please leave the designing and programming to others,” he added. “There is no practical alternative proposed by the very small, recalcitrant minority.”
Ms Alban clarified that the commission did indeed have a design role in the process.
“We have greenscape requirements. We have landscape requirements. We have zoning requirements. We have lighting regulations and we have parking regulations,” Alban said.
Ric Loh, a member of the Parks & Rec board testified in favor of the proposal, said many alternative sites had been explored, but none were viable and the town was simply out of land to develop.
“Believe me would love to do something more grand and bigger – some Utopian kind of thing, but we cannot do that. We have minimized what we are proposing,” Loh said.
He added that two feasibility studies had been completed to explore renovating versus rebuilding in the same place or building a new rink across the field.
“The new rink will be much more efficient. It will be more able to take advantage of the sun,” he said.
Loh said that the process for replacing New Lebanon School was also a flip, and so too is the plan going forward for Central Middle School.
“We all understand that nobody likes change coming to their neighborhood,” he added.
Anne and Mike Kristoff testified against the proposed rink location.
“When you guys talk about being ‘out of land in Greenwich’ – you are out of land in Byram,” Ms Kristoff said. “When you stand in the memorial grove dedicated to the veterans of Byram, you look out and see green. You see field. The skating rink is there, but it’s hidden…Just put (the new rink) back where it is, where it’s unobtrusive.”
Lucy von Brachel agreed.
“The argument in favor of bulldozing an entire park in a residential area rather than building on the existing footprint has been to avoid inconveniencing a subset of skaters for a season or two,” von Brachel said.
“I also urge you to not to dismiss the opinions of Byram residents based on leading questions and surveys presented to you without full context,” she added.
“It is because of the investment of money and labor by neighbors, veterans and the baseball community that this park even exists. It was private citizens, not the town who planted that grove of trees. It was private citizens, not the town who cast and placed the markers for those trees and fought to have the park protected from development.” – Lucy von Brachel, Byram
“After the town closed Byram School and left it to the Housing Authority, the town neglected the field. It was volunteers running the Babe Ruth League, locals, not the town who rehabilitated it in the ’90s. They raised the money for everything from the grass to the dugouts,” she added.
Ms von Brachel asked that the voices of Byram not be dismissed.
Also, she recalled that the RTM Budget Overview Committee had voted to cut $900K from the capital budget for the project.
“They reported that the reasons were the expanding scope, the lack of a comprehensive estimate, the potential cost, the negative impact on neighbors in McKinney Terrace and Putnam Green, the impartiality of the survey questions, and more,” she added.
Don Sylvester photographed in 2021. Photo credit: Leslie Yager
Sadly, Wednesday night will also be remembered for the death of Don Sylvester, who was Commander of the Byram Veterans Association and Officer with CT Veterans of Foreign Wars.
For years Mr. Sylvester was vocally opposed to the flip and putting a new rink in the middle of Eugene Morlot Park out of respect for veterans honored in the memorial grove.
Mr. Sylvester talked about the “scenic quality of the park” and its “environmental value.”
“Does the project embrace it or destroy it? Does it diminish the quality of the are?” he asked. “Does it change the area? Does it take away from the vision originally sought for the area?”
“Can any board member here tonight explain any value they see in plopping a Walmart-sized building on this property?” he asked.
Mr. Sylvester was in the middle of testifying to the commission when he suddenly went quiet. He was with his friend David Wold who said Mr. Sylvester had a fall. Sadly, Mr. Sylvester died.
(We will share information on services and an obituary when those are available.)
Clare Kilgallen said that current code drove both the proposed rink footprint and square footage, which she said had been the case with both the new New Lebanon School and Central Middle School.
“When you make something new and you’ve waited 50 or 70 years, time requires more space because of code,” she said, adding that there were also new, more stringent regulations for lighting and landscaping.
“Just being practical, I think it would be helpful to provide a graphic that shows a massing of the building. This 40,000 sq ft building, as opposed to a true Walmart warehouse, which is 140,000 sq ft, not 40,000 sq ft. That’s a massive difference, literally.”
Kilgallen said she wondered how many residents understood the current application, and suggested Parks & Recreation create a fact sheet to give an overview for the RTM and the public, and have the project presentation shared with organizations including the BNA, Byram Veterans, 9th District Veterans Association, and PTA’s before the project is submitted as a Final.
Al Shehadi, chair of the Land Use Committee for the BNA, questioned the list of comparable rink facilities submitted by the town and suggested the list had been “cherry picked,” leaving out important information.
Liz Eckert, vice chair of the BNA, asked the commission not to approve the Preliminary application. She said the leadership of the BNA had agreed the location was “just not the right thing.”
“I completely agree we need a skating rink,” she said. “I have been in every one of these rinks and there is no comparison to the location.”
Eckert, who noted a tree in the memorial grove was dedicated to her brother in-law, said the park had very significant meaning.
“I think looking from that grove into a 42,000 sq ft building is a smack in the face to these veterans and a smack on the face to the families of these veterans,” she said.
Eckert added that a new housing authority residential building for seniors (Vinci Gardens) was being erected adjacent to the park and McKinney Terrace would suffer from lights, noise and traffic.
She said she had been pressured to support the proposal by town officials.
“I will support it somewhere else, just not here,” Eckert said.
Joe Pecora who previously testified that the proposed ice surface wasn’t big enough back in Dec 2021 saying he supported an even larger, Olympic size rink, seemed to have a change of heart. He questioned the traffic and congestion that would come to Byram as the result of the proposal.
“I can’t imagine that the new rink is not going to increase traffic from the existing rink, no matter what location you put it at,” he said, going on to describe congestion in Byram and having to have cars towed that blocked his driveway.
P&Z chair Margarita Alban agreed there was concern about further congestion in the surrounding neighborhood.
Mr. Pecora said the new senior building, Vinci Gardens, represented “quite a change.”
“And remember the surveys going out are giving just two choices – the existing location and the proposed location,” Pecora added. “It’s not asking would you like it more centrally located in town.”
At the end of the discussion, Ms Alban said if the commission moved the application forward to Final, they would suggest the applicant go to the Architectural Review Committee first.
“One of the things we would be looking for is, can you preserve the park for usage? Can you phase the construction in such as way that there is reasonable passive (passive recreation) access. And how are you going to control traffic and deliveries? And, of course, tree protection,” she said. “Parents have been stopping me and saying they want hot chocolate. I have to lobby for a concession stand.”
Alban asked for that the proposed office space uses to be labeled, to balance the goal of preserving green space, and having adequate parking.
The application was left open. The commission will tentatively vote on the preliminary application and MI at their Nov 19 meeting.
See also:
P&Z Balks at Rink Proposal: Cost is Not Our Purview, Greenspace Is Nov 30, 2023
New Hamill Rink to Be Rebuilt on Existing Footprint at Morlot Park in Byram Feb 2022
P&Z Watch: Hamill Rink Plan “An Enormous Amount of Site Disturbance” Dec 8, 2021
P&Z Watch: Hamill Rink Plan “An Enormous Amount of Site Disturbance” Dec 8, 2021
Veterans Blast Hamill Rink User Committee: “There Will Be Hell to Pay” June 24, 2021
Selectmen Vote on Naming Resolution to Protect .6 Acre ‘Byram Veterans Memorial Grove’ in Perpetuity Nov 24, 2021
P&Z Watch: Plans for Historic Thomas Lyon House, Gateway to Greenwich, Well Received by Commission Dec 8, 2021
Rink User Committee Votes on 2-Way Access Road, Relocation of Hamill Rink Despite Veterans, BNA Objection May 29, 2021
Adding Access Road to New Hamill Rink Could Bump Users for at Least a Year A During Construction May 6, 2021
RTM Cuts $900 from Budget for Design Work for Hamill Rink at Eugene Morlot Park May 11, 2021
Rink User Committee Votes on 2-Way Access Road, Relocation of Hamill Rink Despite Veterans, BNA Objection May 29, 2021