Urban Dispatch

@urbandispatch.bsky.social

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Safe streets & Transit. People need somewhere to sleep and the sidewalk isn’t it. Believer that better more livable cities are possible. Let's stop letting perfection get in the way of progress. Anon here but happy to chat/meet up IRL Hartford, CT

Rendering of the 18,000 sq foot mansion to be built in Greenwich
The city also is constrained in taxing because about 1,500 properties — including state offices, hospitals and religious institutions — are exempt from paying local property taxes. The state does pay the city of Hartford a payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, but it is far less than would have otherwise been paid. In 2022, the city estimated that $370 million would have been paid by exempt properties, while the PILOT payment was $52 million.
Arulampalam dismissed any speculation that the revaluation delay coincided with next year’s mayoral campaign as cynical and out-of-touch “when so many people are hurting right now.”
Bridge mentioned
Map showing possible intrastate middistance transjt routings
People dressed up enjoying Bridgerton night on Pratt St In Hartford
2014 rendering of a shop rite grocery store along Main Street
screen shot from https://ct-citizens-assembly.org/ reading An Assembly of Everyday CT Residents to Define the Future of Local Funding The Connecticut Citizens' Assembly is a groundbreaking democratic initiative designed to give residents a direct voice in state policy. By bringing together a representative group of citizens from across the state, we aim to solve the complex challenge of funding local public services. From transportation and infrastructure to education and emergency response, local public services are the backbone of our communities. Our mission is to give a representative sample of the people of Connecticut a chance to set their priorities for public service provision and funding.
Property owner Lon Syla previously pitched a plan to the commission in 2023 to build 15 apartments there, with first floor retail and 15 parking spaces. The town’s zoning regulations, however, required more parking spaces than Syla had proposed. As a result, Syla withdrew his application. Thomas said the new state law no longer requires off-street parking for projects with less than 16 residential units, if there is public parking nearby along with access to train and bus lines. This proposal has all of that, Thomas said.
day ahead price graph for NE ISO shoeing big price spike as the sun sets
new record at 4,956 MW
ISONE price chart today July 2
Wallingford CT mandates being struck through
Slide from MassDOT about the planned service expansion on the inland routing and NYC through running of service
Aerial view of the new State Street project showing ped bridge, longer platforms, new entrance
Interior rendering of the new station Canopy at New Haven Union station from a platform view
Stupid Achievement Certificate for New England hitting 1 GW of Grid Solar today 10 April
Site plan for new development in Glastonbury which shows over 400 parking spaces for the proposed housing development
ISONE max solar record of 998 set at 11:15 am on Friday April 10
Vacant lot at 36-40 Brook Street in Hartford's Clay Arsenal neighborhood
Photo of current conditions which is a grassy empty lot and boarded up building
Graph showing record production of utility scale solar production since April 2021 in New England
Grid generation mix for April 9
Image showing model unit with stage furniture, a view of Old Statehouse, and a Dog in a suit drinking a martini portrait on the wall
Fuel mix graph showing a large yellow swell during daylight hours crushing the peak periods of demand
List of seven records which were smashed in the last four weeks with maximum solar records set earlier today April 8
Parking Lot map of East Windsor's Broad Brook town center area showing 25% of the land area as parking lots
Solar field in East Windsor
Map of transmission lines in the East Windsor area with a circle around the solar development hot spot area
Map of solar facilities marked in yellow which have been approved in East Windsor and Ellington
Carbon footprint map by zip code in CT
bus crayon from L+M to Uconn Avery point hitting all major demand points inbetween
SEAT route 11 which runs across Groton CT
“As vehicles continue to age out of the state fleet, the Governor will work with DAS to replace them with EVs and balance the state’s procurement needs with the goals laid out in SB 4,” Blanchard said in an email. “Since both the federal regulatory and manufacturing environment have drastically changed since SB 4 was enacted, those benchmarks may need to be reevaluated next year as the initial goals were very ambitious.”
Graph showing US Evehicle sales by month with big growth then halving after tax credits expired
displAy with cupcakes cookies And scones
graph of electricity supply showing a peak around 1:30 today with 77 percent of the totAl a combination of solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear
Electricity realtime electricity prices for Sunday March 29 2026 showing negative rates from 10 am until 3:30 pm
Max wind production in New England growing quickly in last 6 months to a record 1,740 MW
New England record solar daily output time series graph. Last record was set on March 28 2026 at 982 MW
NYS ISO map showing power prices under $1 across the state and negative on Long Island
ISO NE home page showing negate $20 price for power and a string tilt towArds renewables
Graph showing the first zoning code in CT in West Hartford having zones designed for multi-family buildings being just 4% of the land area and contrasting that to modern day zoning where only 2% of the land is for apartment buildings
Hartford City bond obligation showing $4.6M in annual payments on its stadium debt
Headline on CT Mirror: PURA gives final OK to sale of Aquarion Water Co.
Why is State Rep Holly Cheeseman being appointed to the PURA board? She owns a children’s museum in Niantic and all her exhibits are being sponsored by energy companies. She gets EVERSOURCE money. How is this not a conflict of interest?????
list of vehicles to be procured by the City of Hartford ranging from ladder trucks to street sweepers down to lawn mowers
Graph showing permitting since 1966 which shows current permitting is about 25 percent of historical highs
Townsel said that he wondered why the city would conduct a survey in the middle of the district’s busy testing season. He said the school district has already had three state audits and a Blue Ribbon commission from the city just last year. “Outside entities came to the schools district with a list of mandated dates for what the school district must adhere to,” Townsel said. “The mayor went out and did a scope of work on the school district without our members (being) a part of it. How is someone going to do a scope of work on the school district without the superintendent even being part of that? Let alone our parents, teachers and building leaders were not apart of that.
But Townsel, who has been with the district since Aug. 4, 2025, said there is a structural plan to mitigate the deficit in the long term. He said the mayor’s assessment that school officials “don’t have a plan” intentionally mischaracterizes the district’s intensive cost cutting and mitigation measures. Over the last 11 years, the district has mitigated $200 million in costs and eliminated 644 positions to adopt balanced budgets each year. Towns said the deficit is structural, caused by factors outside of the district’s control, such as students leaving the district for Open Choice schools.
Hartford also is asking the state to cover all transportation costs for students participating in the Open Choice program, including door-to-door services, which could save the district another $6 million.
The district also is advocating for commitments from the 2025 legislative session, including full funding for the SEED and Excess Cost grants, and rate-setting for special-education services and transportation. With 38% of the budget spent on special-education tuition and 28% on transportation, fully funding the grants could save $17.1 million, and caps on these costs could add another $13 million.
Under the 1996 Sheff v. O’Neill agreement, the state mandates all Hartford students who want magnet school or Open Choice seats are able to access them. While some have praised the agreement, which created greater educational opportunities, some argue it hurts the district financially by drawing students — and funding — out of the public school system into magnet and Open Choice schools. Nearly a quarter of the district’s budget now goes to tuition for students who leave the district. “We lost 1,300 students in the last year. We historically were a district around 25,000 students, we’re now around 15,000 students,” Arulampalam has said. “We lost a quarter of our district since 2020. The educational experience, saying this as a father … doesn’t match up to the educational experience for kids in CREC or other neighboring school districts. Over 40% of our students are not picking Hartford public schools.”
Revolution Wind power will cost the states $99 per megawatt-hour, about double the cost of Millstone nuclear power. The offshore construction project cost $5 billion to build. The gas-fired power plant that began producing electricity in Oxford in 2018 cost about $700 million, or one-seventh the cost of Revolution Wind, and generates about 12% more megawatt-hours, with no intermittency. How these numbers ever could translate into a $500 million savings is a mystery to us. Perhaps DEEP could offer consumers a more detailed explanation.
As we've reported in our coverage of the Allston I-90 project, MassDOT wants to acquire additional train layover space in the Boston region – railyards where it can park trains overnight – to serve the new Inland Route and other new Compass Rail services. MassDOT expects to spend about $200 million on this project, "and we have a site analysis is underway," said Slesigner. Congress's February spending bill included a $1.2 million earmark for MassDOT to start planning new "positive train control" (PTC) systems on the state-owned tracks between Springfield and Greenfield, where Amtrak currently runs the Vermonter and the Valley Flyer routes. Federal safety rules require PTC as a condition for running more frequent passenger service. MassDOT expects to begin construction next year on its $108 million project to upgrade tracks between Springfield and Worcester for higher-speed passenger trips. The project will benefit the new Inland Route and the proposed Boston-Albany route.
Rendering of a soccer stadium with a swoopy roof line on the riverfront in Bridgeport
Bart Simpson holding a Monkey's paw
ISO-NE graph of regional energy demand and power resource mix
Data map tool showing the CT Fastrak East system overlayed the region's population and jobs density by census data
Eversource appealed the decision and within weeks, a Superior Court ordered PURA to reconsider its decision. The court said PURA overstepped its authority by substituting its view of the public interest for that of the legislature. The court sent the question back to PURA with instructions that effectively required the regulators to approve the sale. PURA reversed itself in a proposed final decision approving the sale a week ago. The Authority said it continued to have misgivings about the sale, but said it acknowledged Superior Court Judge Matthew Budzik’s decision that the legislature had the final word in establishing terms of the sale. Tong said his office has determined that PURA does have the authority to determine whether regulatory decisions are in the public interest. He said the legislature can establish the terms of a sale, but the regulators can determine whether it is in rate payers’ interest. “It is my formal legal opinion that Judge Budzik’s decision changed nothing,” Tong said. Tong drew a rebuke from commissioner Holly Cheeseman when he asserted that the PURA commissioners were being pressed by Eversource and the regional authority to approve the transaction. “I understand that you may be feeling pressure from the applicants,” Tong said. “Please,” Cheeseman interrupted, “don’t input feelings or opinions of anything else to anyone here, Attorney General. We are here to hear from all parties.”