New London No-Development Corp

Fort Trumbull Circa 2008: Waist Deep in the Big Muddy
Crank the Wayback Machine to Summer, 2005. When the U.S. Supreme Court allowed New London, Connecticut, to use eminent domain to take the property of people living and doing business in the waterfront neighborhood of Fort Trumbull. The Supreme’s decision on Kelo v. New London was the cherry on an ugly sundae. New London and the state supported quasi-public New London Development Corporation (NLDC) had been trying to take Fort Trumbull for years. The “public use” justification? Fort Trumbull, with its hodge podge of single and multifamily homes, and its mix of moderate and low income residents, could be replaced by a deluxe and delightful development project that would generate more revenues; easing the burden on New London property owners and providing more cash for local government and public education. (That nearby Pfizer Pharmaceutical also wanted Fort Trumbull to become a more upscale accessory wasn’t included on the official bennie list.)

A small group of Fort Trumbull owners (including Susette Kelo, under whose name the Supreme Court case was filed) resisted being sacrificed for the greater good. Even when paid some folks have a thing about being forced by government to git for the rich. Claire Gaudiani, then president of Connecticut College (a private college in New London that advertises itself as “highly selective”) and a former NLDC exec, decried the resistors’ selfishness– essentially claiming they were costing local minority children a better education. As for the elderly people and families in Fort Trumbull who didn’t want to leave long time homes, Gaudiani famously declared that “anything working in our great nation” had required “skin on the sidewalk”. New London’s manifest destiny was to become “a hip little city”.

Androids may dream of electric sheep, but urban planners fantasize over faux hip.

This is all water round the Fort Trumbull peninsula. After the last few resistors departed in 2006, Corcoran Jennison, the preferred developer for the Fort Trumbull project, got cracking on a tony utopia. A thousand condos bloomed. Crowds of affluent young professionals now sip lattes and tap laptops in cafes overlooking the Long Island Sound. Revenues are rolling in. Property taxes have been slashed and children are learning to read and write as well as kids did a half century ago.

The real squeal–

Fort Trumbull is a residential wasteland. Ain’t nothing going on but the mud. According to Corcoran Jennison, the makeover is mired in the slack lending market. Speaking of slack, Corcoran Jennison has been dragging its feet on the Fort Trumbull residential redo for years, citing a string of reasons. The NLDC has had to get tough with Corcoran time and time again. Stern warnings have been issued. Fines have been levied. Deadlines have been drawn and redrawn in the sand. And Corcoran Jennison’s residential plan, as presented to the citizenry of New London in 2000, has undergone some important changes. By 2006, the development model had morphed from condos into apartments. New London’s Zoning and Planning Commission had no authority over the switch from home ownership to multifamily rentals. The NLDC and its parent, the State of Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD), called the shots. As it was in the beginning, so it continues.
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