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Torrington approves Red Mountain Trail application; city engineer details wetlands work
Summary
The Torrington Inland Wetlands Commission accepted the city's application to construct the Red Mountain Trail, a 0.6-mile segment of the Sue Grossman Greenway, with staff to incorporate commission conditions into final design. The project includes two small wetland crossings and will be built with a state grant and a city match.
The Torrington Inland Wetlands Commission on April 1 accepted the City of Torrington's application to construct the Red Mountain Trail, a roughly 0.6-mile segment of the Sue Grossman Greenway from North Elm Street to the Naugatuck River, with the commission declining to treat the proposal as a significant activity that requires a public hearing.
The trail application, presented by Paul Kunzins, deputy public works director and city engineer, was funded in part by a Connecticut Recreational Trails Program grant awarded in August 2023. "A grant for the amount of around $400,000 was, was approved for this project with a 20% match from the city," Kunzins told the commission. He said the grant covers trail construction up to, but not across, the bridge over the Naugatuck River; bridge work would require a separate phase and funding.
Commission staff and the city's consultant described the planned alignment and the limited wetland impacts. The design calls for a 10-foot-wide paved trail along McDermott Avenue, through the Ocean State Job Lots property to an old rail bed and north to Newfield Road. Kunzins said the design will widen sidewalks and reconfigure the McDermott/Farley Place intersection to shorten the crosswalk and improve safety.
The only wetland crossings identified in preliminary plans are two small culverts near Station 55+00. Kunzins said those crossings "would be put in" to drain an intermittent flow that crosses the proposed trail, and that the consultant SLR International will finalize erosion control and other measures in the final design. Commission staff noted the construction footprint for wetland disturbance would be small: "If you measure that area, it's maybe 50 feet by 30 feet wide," a staff member said during the meeting.
Kunzins described other design features and mitigation ideas raised during the discussion, including daylighting a piped riprap swale to improve drainage and provide compensation for the small wetland impacts. He also told commissioners the plan includes a small trailhead/parking area that would serve four to six cars and space for maintenance vehicle turnaround near the river.
Commission members asked about tree removal along Ocean State's parking lot, the presence of encampments along portions of the alignment and potential legacy contamination near the former rail corridor. Kunzins said Ocean State agreed to grant an easement for the trail segment beside its lot and that SLR had performed geotechnical borings; he said he had not seen evidence of contamination in those borings. He also said the city will incorporate any wetlands commission conditions into the final design.
The commission voted to accept the application and to treat it as not a significant activity for which a separate wetlands public hearing would be required. Commissioners discussed, but did not require at this stage, a separate public hearing in council chambers that would reach a wider audience.
The commission listed standard design and mitigation conditions for final plans, and staff will review final erosion-and-sediment-control, culvert sizing, and planting/mitigation details during the design phase. The city plans to return to the commission with final plans and any required wetland crossing details.
The trail project is part of a broader Sue Grossman Greenway effort to connect neighborhoods on Torrington's north and west sides; Kunzins said the Red Mountain Trail would be a key link and that future phases could extend north toward Sunnybrook and Stone Ridge parcels the city owns.
Votes at this meeting on the trail application were reported as a commission acceptance; the motion to add the item to the agenda and the subsequent acceptance were carried by recorded voice votes ("Aye") and the chair announced the motion carried.
Looking ahead, the city will complete final design, incorporate the commission's conditions into permitting documents, and return to the wetlands commission for final sign-off on any plan elements that affect regulated areas.
