Welcome everyone to the February 4th, 2026 meeting of the Danbury Planning Commission.

I will open with a roll call.

Uh Mr.

Kyocchio.

Here.

Ms.

Hofstetter.

Here.

Mr.

Nazario.

Here.

Chairman Finaldi is here.

So we do have a quorum and we do not have to seat.

We do not have any alternates to seat.

Um, I did ask Joanne, you know, we were supposed to get another new member.

Forgive me, Alaya Novas, I believe that's the pronunciation, but apparently apparently up to this point, we're not really sure what her status is.

Um not really sure what the status of that new member is, and uh we'll just put that one aside for now.

I will follow up on it, Arnie, and let you know.

Thank you.

And before I get to the uh agenda, and I will have a more formal you know announcement when we get deeper in.

Um, there were two items uh under continuation of public hearings.

Uh the number one was BRT Sconset, and the number two was Danbury Mill Plain Realty LLC.

Uh, just in case anyone had tuned in uh for either one of those applications, uh, we have received uh requests from both applicants to continue uh both matters until our next meeting.

So if anyone was tuning in to hear testimony or give testimony on either one of those, um we will not be doing that this evening.

And like I said, I'll make the formal announcement when we get there.

Um uh commission members, uh, the minutes of the January 21st, 2026 meeting were previously distributed.

Unless there's any corrections or discussion, I'll entertain a motion to accept those minutes.

Mr.

Chairman, motion to accept those minutes.

Second.

Second, Helen, any discussion?

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

The minutes are accepted.

Our next meeting is scheduled for February 18th, 2026.

And um, before we get to the capital improvement plan, I will just read the standard Zoom intro.

This meeting of the Damer Planning Commission is being held on Zoom as a virtual meeting, even though this meeting is a virtual meeting.

Members of the public and interested parties, parties continue to have the opportunity to participate in the meeting in a couple of different ways.

You can participate via Zoom and see the audio and the video, or you can call in by phone and participate via audio only.

Please be aware that we may have to mute your microphone or telephone to avoid an echo or some other background noise.

Instructions on how to participate in the meeting appear on the City of Danbury website.

All in all of the documents and materials that apply to the matters to be discussed during this meeting, including the agenda, are also available on the City of Danbury website.

As always, if you have any questions regarding how to participate in the meeting, please contact the City of Danbury Planning and Zoning Department.

As a reminder, the entire meeting will be posted on and can be seen on the City of Danbury website.

We will follow the posted agenda as per standard practice.

If prior to the meeting, any questions or comments on agenda items were submitted via email to the planning and zoning department, those comments will be read during the appropriate portion of the meeting.

Finally, please remember the technology glitches do sometimes occur.

Please be patient if that happens.

We'll move right to the first item on our agenda for discussion of possible action.

Uh the proposed capital budget plan, financial year 2627, um to 3132.

I mentioned briefly to Waleed, particularly for the benefit of our newest member, uh Sydney.

Wally, if you would just give us a fly over what the capital improvement plan is, um, why it's important, and uh why this is a matter that comes before the planning commission.

So I'll turn it over to you.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening, Mr.

Chairman.

So my intent is not actually to have a very long presentation.

Uh I would like to keep it more like uh big picture, so to allow you to ask me questions after.

But for the sake of the discussion, I will just talk about what the CIP is.

It's a requirement by the state law legislation to have a general idea of how the C city is gonna spend money on big projects over five years, but we do it here six years, and the idea is each cycle of budget, which is annual, should be guided by the capital improvement plan.

And it's also needed not just for the city to know how to allocate funding.

It's very important for it to be adopted by the planning commission as well to allow the fund department to seek uh funding outside of the city.

So it's very important for the city budget as well as for applying for funding, be it the state funding or even federal funding.

And it's by state law, it has to be adopted by the planning commission.

So the way we do it here, we do it for six years.

Legally speaking, it can be for five years, but just would like to actually have more of a time span.

I will start by giving a big picture, and I hope that you found that this year's CIP was easier to understand.

I'm talking about the Excel sheet.

It has been greatly improved compared to what you used to see before.

Back in like last year, for example, we were talking about, if I'm not mistaken, 28 different columns.

They were very difficult for everybody to make sense of what it is, be it you as a planning commission or all the departments.

So there were a lot of confusion about what each column stood for and the functions.

If you look at the Excel sheet that was sent by Joanne, the latest one I'm talking about, you will see you have about total of 14 columns.

I'm talking about each tab within the work book or Excel workbook.

Each one says what it is for.

So once you go to any column and you actually look at it, something will pop up telling you that's what it is for.

I would say compared to last year, for example, I didn't get any comments from any department about the logistics or what does this mean, except for one comment that tells you how different it was to give you an idea.

Last year I spent hundreds of hours talking to different departments to help out explain what it is for.

But anyway, I'm trying to share I will try to share my screen with you to give you some of the highlights.

Can you all see this one?

Yes.

Yes.

A lot of numbers, but to give you an idea, this year, this number here was 699 plus million.

This is the total required over six years.

And to give you an idea about how different it is from last year, last year the total number was 795 million.

If you compare it with what we have, this is about what 96 million less.

And the main reason why is if you recall, last year, the city actually opened the new high school.

I'm talking about the one on the West side that made a huge difference in terms of what we are asking for.

And again, this huge number, it's over six years, it's not for one year.

What is actually being asked for for this financial year is this number here.

I'm just trying to find it.

It will be 136 million 517.

It's more than last year.

Last year was 129.

And I will explain why this number is bigger when I'm actually giving you more highlights.

Moving actually on, I will start by talking about what is different from last year.

Very quickly, for example, here, which I explained before.

If you look at the total number of columns, it's about 14.

Very easy to see, and you don't have to shift over each time.

And this is what I was talking about.

If you actually you don't have to click, if you go over any columns, it will tell you exactly what it is for.

I don't know if you can see this.

Sometimes it is slow.

I will just see.

The total cost is the money coming from the city or for or is it coming from a different source?

And how it will be spent over six years.

That's the goal of the CIP.

For whatever reason, over the last 20 years, it kept changing to the point that few, if any, understood what the sheet is about.

Now it's way easier.

You don't need anybody to explain it to you.

One thing that we added this year, and I'm gonna go all the way here to the end of the sheet.

I have this tab here, assessment office.

We didn't have it before.

It's being added for the first time.

The reason is they would like to buy a new vehicle, which is about 24,000.

And every five years, you have to do a whole assessment of the city that will cost about half a million dollars.

So this is a new tab that didn't exist last year, for example.

And because I am from planning, I will go and talk about what planning is asking for.

What we are asking for in terms of the planning needs.

We're asked for contingency of 600,000 for the downtown projects.

The downtown project is totally administrative by planning and not engineering.

And we are starting phase two this summer, and we need to have a contingency of 600,000 because just to give you an idea, the more you start digging, which you must have seen it, I hope in downtown, the more work you you find out that you need to do.

For example, we are into a lot of elder uh sorry, old infrastructure.

We need to upgrade our traffic signals, all of that has to actually come from somewhere.

That's why we would like to have the contingency.

Another one, we're asking for 200,000.

It's because of the new housing mandate that came from the state.

I'm sure you have been following the new housing mandates.

We need to activate quickly.

So we need to have this in case we actually end up having to hire a consultant, which which we would need at some point.

Another one we're asking for from planning, is we need to update our watershed regulations.

They are over 20 years old, and I'm sure you know it already.

It has a lot of redundant sections and sections that are outdated.

So we need a consulting engineering company to review what we have and look at improvements.

Now I will move on to talk about some of the interes that we have.

I'm talking only about the big ones.

So one usually the big ones come from engineering, water, or sewer.

To give you an idea here, I don't know if you can see item number 23, or which is project 16.

That's one of the biggest asks.

It's 54 million dollars, and it is over more than one year, and the reason is it's because of the PVAS treatment, which is federal requirement now.

So there's no way out of it.

Also, another big ask is 11,800,000.

It's for water distribution or improvements as well.

Another big ask, which is the one from sewage.

I know there needs to be improvement to the west side sewage line, which is over 20 million dollars.

Another big ask is say over three million for mill plane sewage extension.

There are other asks also from water, but they are not as significant as the ones I just mentioned.

One thing I would like to point out is that, and thank you for actually, Bob, for pointing this out.

There's an entry here that has been entered twice by different departments, and I'm gonna actually I have the note here.

So under the building, sorry, public buildings.

I'm just looking for the tab here.

Yep.

There's one entry, which is five million dollars.

Bear with me, I'm just looking for it.

So this one is being asked for the attaining wall at the magnet school, it's five million.

It was entered under public build as well as as under construction.

So I will ask you, Mr.

Chairman, when you are actually adopting it to delete one of the two enters because it's exactly the same under different departments.

Okay, what were the two headings?

And the other one was construction.

Okay.

And the same entry, five million for the retaining wall.

Uh like it pairs to the attaining walls.

Okay, so the repairs to the retaining wall for five million was under two different categories.

Um public buildings and construction, and we have to amend that to make sure it's only included under one.

Okay.

Under one.

Maybe I can find the second one.

So what I'm showing here is one of the two.

I don't know if you can see it.

Yeah.

This item here.

Yeah.

Yes.

So if I go to construction.

Yeah, it's project number five under construction.

Yeah, I'm just trying to find construction here.

It's all the way towards the beginning, yeah.

Okay.

Yes, I find it here.

And it's the one here.

It's this one, which is item 12 or project number five.

I have it highlighted in yellow.

Okay.

I don't want to go on and on, but those were the main highlights I wanted to point out.

I would like to just open the floor for discussions or any questions you might have.

Should I stop sharing, or would you like me to keep the Excel sheet?

Um, you can keep the shared screen on there for now, Walid.

Um I'll first go to Mr.

Kyoko.

I did read the back and forth between you and Waleen.

Were all your questions answered, Bob, or do you have any more?

I have a few, I guess in general.

Um there's a lot of uh bridge replacement uh activity going on.

Uh so are any of these uh candidates for funding from someone else other than the city, or is are these all gonna be uh on the city's dime here?

Because I mean it's a there's a fair amount of them, and it's a fair amount of dollars if you add them all up.

Absolutely.

So you mr.

What I know is some of them uh can apply for funding, some of it actually can apply to funding for FEMA, and uh also as I state uh programs, but none of it is guaranteed.

So my understanding is we oh sorry, they were submitted under funding from the city for now, but this will allow engineering to apply for the funding opportunities, but again, to be clear here, and this is I know this for a fact over the last 20 or even uh 15 years, city has applied for a lot of funding.

It doesn't mean you will be successful at landing all the cost.

You will be lucky if you get a portion of the cost.

Um, do you know if they're gonna try to do one of these a year or how the kind of the time frame?

I mean it seems as though they're and and I know this is uh you know, kind of throw everything at the wall, and then uh once this gets once they do the whole budget, they determine actually the the dollars that really can be uh allocated towards the capital plan.

It's not gonna be anywhere near the 100 and whatever million you show there.

Um it's probably gonna be more than uh probably five to ten, maybe um, which is kind of crazy, but um, so it's just what um I I just for curious as to how they determine which ones really need to be, I mean it need to be done or how they pick, and they all seem to be urgent.

Well, this has been actually put on the back burner for uh many many years.

So what is going on now is engineering saying to saying to us, meaning us, meaning the whole city, hey, we have an issue.

Most of them are urgent.

We know that we are not gonna get funding for all of them, but we are putting everything out there so everybody knows that there's an issue.

Okay, and of course, city will have to be strategic.

They will have to see which one is needs immediate attention because there's as you know, limited budget.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, all right.

Um, under under the highway, um, every one of everybody's favorite is uh road repair and maintenance and paving, and um there was some big dollars there, if I remember right.

Um I recall that we issued a bond last year.

Um I don't know, 50 million dollars.

There's a supposedly uh a big chunk of that was gonna go for road paving that's so that they can get more done of it done with it.

So I guess my question is the dollars that are for 2627.

Is that actual coming out of our capital budget?

And or is where are the dollars that were um issued for the bonds?

Are those all used up, or are there more to come for the for that, or how does it how does that fit into the plan?

Because I didn't notice um there was any you know bonding or other funding money on on those line items.

Yeah, if you can't question, I might actually if like we're still showing services.

If you could click over to highway, Bob's talking about I think the 54 million dollars shown for a highway.

Yeah, project two there, it's nine million for this year.

Yeah, I thought it was a 59 million.

Okay, okay.

You if you click on it, you will see that uh talking about 240 miles of public height of wave, and this would be over six years.

So this is unrelated to the bond.

Okay, so this is above the uh bonded amount.

Yes, that's different, yes.

And and do you do you know if all the bonding dollars were spent on paving already, or if that that continues as well and it's gonna supplement this going forward?

I don't know if they spend money from the bond on actual constitution, but they would be doing it soon, which is different from the uh 240 miles that uh asking for 50 million dollars for over six years.

Yeah, because I I remember this line item was kind of the every year X dollars X miles of of the city roads get paved, and they try to do as many as many as they can, and they have you know certain life's life spans like 20 years for each road, even though most of them are probably over than that over that.

So they try to do the as much as they can.

Um so that's why I understand that the nine million.

Uh I'm just curious as to you know, there was a big chunk of of that 50 million bond going for road paving, and whether whether that was completed or not uh during this year, or how if that's gonna continue or it wasn't used at all.

I don't I don't know what the answer is to that.

The best of my knowledge is what I just mentioned, the acibit items and the 50 and 54 million dollars.

Let me go over the six, and you're talking about that might be easier here.

It's highway.

Yep.

Yeah, no, I see it's a 50 more 54 million total project, and it's 240 miles over all of the city roadway there.

Um they try to do 20 miles a year.

Yes, this is the one you're talking about.

Am I correct?

Yeah, yes.

Yes, so is that talking about for this financial year nine million?

And it's not a secret, the city has a lot of public item ways that needs a lot of improvements.

So I know this has is an assistant in some areas, which is different from the bond, because the bond was mainly about if I'm not mistaken, the one you're talking about is a new fire station bond that included some public item improvements.

That's it.

Okay, all right.

Uh let's see what else.

Yeah, go ahead.

That's that's pretty much all I had.

Um I'm good.

I know some had questions about uh last year, the budget, how much was actually assigned to the capital improvement last year?

57.7 million dollars were assigned for last year's uh capital improvement.

So that's what was assigned.

And that's city funded that 57.7 million, that's all from the city.

That's good.

That doesn't include what we might get from the state or the federal government.

Yes, that's great.

Okay.

That was the answer from our finance department.

Okay.

So again, for Sydney's benefit, this this doesn't mean that all this stuff is gonna get done.

Um, this is a glorified wish list.

Um if we had a magic wand, we'd wave it and all this stuff would get done.

But it you know, like Bob said, it goes from this to some sort of a prioritization um process, and uh the other people have to decide what gets funded and what doesn't.

But this um it just gives you an idea as to the magnitude and the scope of capital improvements we need in the in the city.

It's an expensive thing to keep the city moving forward, and you know, allocation of scarce resources.

Is that fair, El Walid?

Absolutely.

That's the main reason why doing it just to show the gap between what we would like to have and what we realistically can have.

To give you an example, I can go back here.

Just that might make it easy for everybody.

I'll go back to can you all see this one?

Yep.

Yeah.

So for example, if you look at what what is being asked or by different departments for this year, you will see this huge number, which is 136 million plus 517,000.

I wouldn't be surprised of if what gets approved by the budget goes down to 60 million or so.

Yeah, wow.

I'm talking about the city budget.

I'm not talking about now you have this.

You can actually in tandem with what the city is giving you.

Each department can apply for different funding outside the city.

Yeah.

So just to give you an idea, I think the entire budget, everything for the city is around what 330 million plus or minus, somewhere in there.

That's exactly what it was last year.

Yeah.

About what 190 of it is for the school.

Yes, some width, yes, is uh somewhere in that range, 180, maybe 190.

I don't know.

And then you know, you've got you know, everything safety, whatever, every so it's um it's a big expensive city to keep moving forward, and um what we're doing, fine.

Just to give you an example, because examples are easy to understand.

If you look at what's going on in downtown in terms of all the sidewalks and improvements, it's over 20 million, only eight was were financed by the city.

Okay, the rest came from the state or the feds.

Well, you from the state.

Okay.

Of course, the state means different agencies, so it's not the same agency.

That's where it's gets to be very complicated.

Got it.

All right.

Okay, well, big numbers.

Hope we can do the best we can and fund all these all the all these projects are worthwhile.

It's just a question of what they're gonna do.

So uh anyway.

Anything else, commission members for Walid?

Any other questions?

Um, Mr.

Chairman, I I um we started down um the road of what the general processes for this.

So, you know, my understanding was you know, the department heads would come up with their budgets, and then it would come to I guess the planning department.

I know Wally from what you've all you've been saying here, you get got to know it very, very well and worked with the departments to make these numbers, and then now it's before us, and you know, we have to do our work here and make you know make sure it looks viable from uh uh planning commission standpoint.

Then after that, just in general, high level, what you know, what happens and how long does the whole process take?

We got it's going from here to where next and who has to approve it and how long will it take.

So to answer a question, it needs to be adopted, be it as it is, or if you actually would like to have changes, that's fine, but needs to be adopted today.

Yeah, okay.

Sorry, go ahead.

No, I just okay.

I understand we have to do something here, but after that, what happened?

What's the process?

I guess going forward.

You send it to the mayor's office, and the mayor's office will have an official copy, and when uh looking at the actual budget for the year, you will be looking at the document we have and to see how much they can allocate to the different departments based on the financial abilities.

So it would be the mayor, mayor's office, finance department.

Actually, they might already be talking before it's being adopted because there's not enough time between now and the financial year.

So you keep talking and you keep finding out which ones are more of a need that must be done by the city, which one can wait for another year, maybe two years, and it's a decision made usually by the mayor's office and finance.

Okay, so of course the council after that to approve or um to ask for changes.

So you the last one you just said was the city council.

Is that what the last step would be uh the city council?

Okay, thank you.

All right, thank you very much.

That's helpful.

Anything else?

Commission members again.

Again, um, we have to make a a motion to approve or deny the CIP again.

I would remind um whoever's making the motion to amend uh the CIP to the remember there was a an entry for five million dollars retaining wall for the school that appeared twice, one under public buildings, once under uh construction services.

I think so.

We're gonna have to uh delete that from one of those two, but I believe that's the only uh correction that um we're gonna be suggesting.

So with that said, I'll entertain a motion, Mr.

Chairman.

I I'll make a motion to approve uh the uh capital improvement program budget um as presented, uh subject to uh deletion uh of the duplicate items, one of the duplicate items for the five million uh reference to the retaining wall, either in construction services or in uh engineering.

Thank you, Bob.

Motion's been made.

Do I hear a second?

I'll second.

Thank you, Helen.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye.

Aye, aye.

The CIP moves forward to the mayor's office and to the city council.

Thank you, uh Waleen, for your hard work on that.

Uh that's it all.

My pleasure.

I'm gonna mute myself now.

Okay.

Um looking at our agenda, uh, commission members.

As I mentioned earlier, we have nothing under public hearings.

We have two items shown under continuation of public hearings, and um let me just go through those briefly.

BRT Sconset LLC, application for revised special exception, revised site plan approval for an existing previously approved cluster development, the ridgetop sections 482 B34826 in the RA40 zone, 10 day meet drive F09038, special exception number 589.

Uh, let's see here.

We have uh Allie received an email from um Steve Sullivan earlier today.

Uh dear Allie, please continue this application to your next scheduled meeting on 218 26.

No testimony will be heard from the applicant and team.

Thank you.

So, unless there's any other discussion, I'll entertain a motion to continue this matter till our next meeting on February 18th.

Mr.

Chairman, so moved.

Thank you, Helen.

Do I hear a second?

Second.

Second, okay.

Motion made and seconded.

Any discussion?

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay.

Item two under continuation.

Dambray mill plane realty LLC application for special exception, site plan approval for automobile service station, service garage, inconvenience market, section 3e2, 3e, 9, 5b, 2b1, and 9.

The tr with trip generation greater than 500 vehicles, trips per day in the CA80 zone, 85 mill plane road D14013, special exception number 805.

Um looks like uh on February 3rd.

Um Joshua Padera sent an email to Allie.

Um, hi Allie, sorry for the delay.

Yes, this is confirmation that there will be no testimony at tomorrow's hearing, and the public hearing should be continued to the next meeting on 218-26.

Thank you, Joshua.

I think it's Pedrera, Principal Cohen and Wolf PC.

So again, Commission members, unless there's any discussion, I'll entertain a motion to continue this matter until our next meeting on February the 28th.

Mr.

Chairman, so moved.

Thank you.

Do I hear a second?

Second.

Second, any discussion?

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Okay.

Um looking at our agenda, we have nothing under old business, referrals, new business correspondence, or other matters.

Um I think there's a few items under for reference only, which you're feel feel free to take a look at.

You know, call Allie or if you have any questions.

Um other than that, I think we're set to go.

So unless there's anything else, Commission members, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Thank you, Helen.

Second.

Second.

I can bob any discussion.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Meeting is adjourned.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you, everyone.

Thanks.

Have a good night.

Good night.

Bye bye.