In small CT town, a warehouse developer wants to rezone 37 acres but doesn't specify why
Indus Realty Trust wants the town to change zoning for the 37-acre tract from residential to CPT, which is a buffer between residential and commercial/industrial areas.
Indus Realty doesn't specify its plans for the property at 44 Seymour Road if the rezoning goes through, but its proposal to the town notes that developing the site for homes would be problematic because two key utilities are absent.
'Public water and sanitary sewer are not readily available. They currently are located 2,000 feet to the east on International Drive in Windsor,' Tim Lescalleet, Indus Realty's executive vice president, wrote in a memo to the Planning and Zoning Commission.
'The cost of this extension makes a straightforward residential development under current zoning not economically feasible,' Lescalleet wrote.
The company will present its case to commissioners in a hearing Tuesday at 7 p.m. at town hall.
The property is just west of the Windsor border and also just west of where International Drive becomes Seymour Road. The Granby Village Condominiums complex is just a couple blocks past 44 Seymour, and land to the west of that is residential or undeveloped.
But to the east, large tracts along International Drive are the heart of the Tradeport freight hub for southern New England.
Much of the land had been tobacco fields for General Cigar and later Culbro Corp., but that industry declined in the 1980s and 1990s. Massive sections were cleared to make way for mega-warehouses and logistics centers near Bradley. Indus Realty is a distant successor business to General Cigar, but is long out of the tobacco industry and instead concentrates on warehouse development in the South and Northeast.
Just over the Windsor line, some of those include the 300,000-square-foot Tire Rack distribution center, the 1 million-square-foot Walgreens distribution center and the 1 million-square-foot Dollar Tree warehouse. Such development has meant significant tax revenue for host towns; Windsor values those three properties alone at a combined $150 million.
But amidst a huge spike in warehouse expansion just after the Covid pandemic, residents in several Connecticut towns sought moratoriums, bans or size caps on new projects. They mostly complained of tractor trailer traffic on town roads, truck noise and nighttime lighting from the buildings. The Silverman Group, a major New Jersey developer, sought to build an 800,000-square-foot warehouse in East Granby in 2022, but opponents successfully lobbied the town to maintain its cap of 400,000 square feet.
Indus Realty's application to the town says the rezoning opens the land to development possibilities including business and professional offices, medical offices, stores, personal service establishments, restaurants, assisted living centers, motels and warehouses.
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