Mansfield’s Opportunity Zones Set the Stage for Potential Development

By Ryan Bologna
April 14, 2019
Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut Newswrit­ing II

There are about 9,000 fed­er­al­ly des­ig­nat­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty zones in the coun­try, 72 in Con­necti­cut, and Mans­field is the only rur­al town in the state.

The Town of Mans­field and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut are col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Con­necti­cut Eco­nom­ic Resource Cen­ter to deter­mine what should be done in the oppor­tu­ni­ty zones. Spokesper­son Stephanie Reitz said UConn is giv­ing $25,000 to CERC in this col­lab­o­ra­tion. Mans­field Coun­cil­man David Freud­mann said the town is giv­ing $35,000 to CERC.

Town Man­ag­er Der­rik Kennedy said the fed­er­al­ly des­ig­nat­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty zones help cer­tain select­ed areas in devel­op­ment and it is good news that Mans­field and UConn applied for and received an oppor­tu­ni­ty zone.

“It’s a real­ly great thing,” Kennedy said. “Through the fed­er­al government’s tax act two years ago, now these oppor­tu­ni­ty zones were cre­at­ed.  What it does is it pro­vides high-net worth indi­vid­u­als across the coun­try to invest in eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment jobs and infra­struc­ture in these fed­er­al­ly des­ig­nat­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty zones.”

Kennedy said he wants the town to lead the way and start a trend that oth­er towns follow.

“I want to be the first town to real­ly go for­ward with these oppor­tu­ni­ty zones and real­ly make this a thing,” Kennedy said.

Freud­mann said he is all for devel­op­ment until tax­pay­ers are relied on.

“If the devel­op­ers want to come and spend their own dime on it, I’m fine with it,” Freud­mann said. “I’m all for devel­op­ment. I’m against tak­ing from the taxpayer’s pock­et to pay for it.”

The four areas of focused devel­op­ment are in the north­west quad­rant of Mans­field.  Four Cor­ners and King Hill Road are the two areas on town prop­er­ty while the Mans­field Depot Cam­pus and the uni­ver­si­ty Tech Park are the two UConn properties.

Freud­mann said that the tem­plate for Four Cor­ners is the exact same one that was used for the Down­town Storrs area as well. He said that the project involved 3/4 mil­lion dol­lars just on pre­lim­i­nary work, and tax­pay­ers are still pay­ing for it today.

Kennedy said there is a lot of poten­tial growth in the Four Cor­ners area because of the recent exten­sion of sew­er and water lines to the intersection.

“With­out the util­i­ties, you’re not going to get a lot of growth on telling peo­ple that they are going to have to have their indi­vid­u­al­ized sep­tic tanks and try to fig­ure out where they’re going to get their well water from,” Kennedy said. “Now with util­i­ties there, they could just tap in like they’re in a city and go.”

Kennedy said Mansfield’s plan of con­ser­va­tion and devel­op­ment, which is a 10-year plan that every town is required to have, influ­enced the plans in Four Corners.

“We had to make sure that the zon­ing regs allowed for the prop­er devel­op­ment in that area that we were antic­i­pat­ing based on what the plan of con­ser­va­tion and devel­op­ment said they want it to be,” Kennedy said.

Over the course of the plan of con­ser­va­tion and devel­op­ment, the Four Cor­ners area should look sim­i­lar to how down­town Storrs does after res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial devel­op­ment, Kennedy said.

Kennedy also said the oppor­tu­ni­ty zones will help decrease the town’s reliance on state aid, which is present because of all of the land that is not tax­able because it is owned by UConn.

The oppor­tu­ni­ty zones might ben­e­fit UConn as well because of the devel­op­ment it would attract that it wouldn’t be able to do oth­er­wise, Kennedy said.

“It might be that shot in the arm that UConn couldn’t do by itself in attract­ing entre­pre­neurs and oth­er types of build­ings that are going to go on your tech park.” Kennedy said.

May­or Paul Shapiro said because of unique cir­cum­stances the town was able to receive an oppor­tu­ni­ty zone.

“Because the cen­sus tract that includes Four Cor­ners includes our res­i­dence halls,” Shapiro said. “Stu­dents, even if they have rich par­ents, don’t have mon­ey. Because of that strange fac­toid, we became an oppor­tu­ni­ty zone. We applied for this des­ig­na­tion. We were surprised.”

Shapiro said that build­ing hous­ing in Four Cor­ners will help attract investors and ben­e­fit residents.

“If done right, Four Cor­ners can work real­ly well by offer­ing mul­ti-fam­i­ly hous­ing, per­haps dif­fer­ent options than [what is] avail­able in Storrs Cen­ter, and it will take the bur­den off of those of us who pay res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty tax­es,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro men­tioned UConn fac­ul­ty mem­bers devel­op­ing tech­nol­o­gy as an exam­ple of poten­tial investors, along with oth­er options.

Reitz said there are no plans right now for the Mans­field Depot Cam­pus and the Uni­ver­si­ty Tech Park, which are the two oppor­tu­ni­ty zones on UConn’s cam­pus, but the uni­ver­si­ty is mak­ing their best use of them in their cur­rent state.

“For now, we’re max­i­miz­ing our use of sev­er­al build­ings with research and spe­cial­ized engi­neer­ing pro­grams and would be open to ideas from the pri­vate sec­tor as ways to use oth­er parts of the prop­er­ty,” Reitz said.

Freud­mann said he sus­pects that UConn would like the town to take over the Depot Cam­pus prop­er­ty and he is con­cerned about contamination.

“UConn would love for the town to take it over,” Freud­mann said. “It’s prob­a­bly con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed. I’m not claim­ing any­thing UConn did caused that. It’s from the old Mans­field Train­ing School.”

CERC is meet­ing with prop­er­ty own­ers and advis­ing the town coun­cil based on data analy­sis on what to do in these areas, Kennedy said.

After gath­er­ing all of the infor­ma­tion on the oppor­tu­ni­ty zones, CERC will then give that to investors to get feed­back on what they would be inter­est­ed in doing, Kennedy said.

Freud­mann said he had some con­cerns about the col­lab­o­ra­tion and is weary about UConn’s involve­ment with CERC.

“Why does the town have to get involved in it?” Freud­mann said. “The very fact that UConn is kick­ing in $25,000 to this study. UConn wouldn’t give a dime to the town.”

Court­ney Hen­dric­son, vice pres­i­dent of munic­i­pal ser­vices at CERC, said that Mans­field is dif­fer­ent com­pared to oth­er areas that have been des­ig­nat­ed as oppor­tu­ni­ty zones.

“Mans­field is unique in that they are not only one of the few rur­al oppor­tu­ni­ty zones, but that the town is being proac­tive,” Hen­dric­son said.

Hen­dric­son said that CERC has met with prop­er­ty own­ers, UConn staff and local busi­ness­es seek­ing invest­ment. The goal is to get a wide range of voic­es and allow them to tell CERC what they want to see done in the oppor­tu­ni­ty zones, she said.

William Rood, a Mans­field res­i­dent, was not ful­ly famil­iar with the oppor­tu­ni­ty zones, but he said it is some­thing that the town should jump on.

“It seems like a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty,” Rood said. “I don’t know all the ins and outs of how it works, but if there is a chance for the town to devel­op areas that they wouldn’t be able to on their own, then steps should be tak­en to take advan­tage of the opportunity.”

Rood also said that he remem­bers when Mans­field didn’t have the Down­town Storrs area and that more devel­op­ment like that would be a pos­i­tive move for the town.  He said oth­er res­i­dents he knows might not be informed enough about what the oppor­tu­ni­ty zones mean.

Kennedy said he noticed oth­er towns not tak­ing as much action or tak­ing advan­tage of these oppor­tu­ni­ty zones like Mans­field is.

“It’s such a huge deal,” Kennedy said. “A lot of towns I don’t think real­ize how big of a deal this is, and that’s why we’re try­ing to get out in front of it.”