Kara Rochelle

Good news for economic redevelopment and affordable housing this week in the 104th District!

In Derby, the Trolley Pointe development under construction on Main Street will receive a $2.625 million loan from Build For CT, a program of the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA). Trolley Pointe is a 105-unit apartment building at the site of the former Lifetouch property downtown, and 21 of the units fall under the state’s affordable designation — meaning households that earn between 60 to 80 percent of the area’s median income.

The project had originally been described as market rate when it was reviewed and approved by the Derby Planning and Zoning Commission.

Governor Ned Lamont approved a series of state grants totaling $20 million that will be used to support the remediation and redevelopment of 21 blighted properties consisting of 150 acres of contaminated land in 18 municipalities across Connecticut, including Ansonia.

Ansonia will receive a $200,000 grant for environmental, hazardous building materials, and structural assessments that will facilitate the development of cost estimates and options to repurpose the former Ansonia Opera House at 100 Main Street.

For more information on Connecticut’s Brownfield Remediation and Development Program, visit ctbrownfields.gov.

The improvements in the State Employees’ Retirement System (SERS) and Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS) are detailed in reports released this week. Our latest independent valuations found both systems to be at their highest funding levels in decades.

The majority of our debt as a state came from decades of underfunding our retirement programs for teachers and state employees. With 13 straight years of the legislature making full payments into these systems, as well as policies we adopted in 2017 that use surpluses to pay down debt, we’ve managed to pay off $8.6 billion of debt early, which saves taxpayers $730 million annually. Connecticut residents are directly benefiting from this sound fiscal management.