Belimo? It's About the Road

Tom Lefebvre has lived on Turner Road for 11 years. His children are 12, 11 and 5 years old.

Michelle Kliewer has lived on the road for seven years and she has three children. Her youngest is 17.

Ben Caiola has two children, ages 10 and 8 years. He's lived there for nine years.

Harold Moroknek has three children, and he moved onto the road in 1995 when the houses were just being built and the roads were dirt.

All the people who live on Turner Road live in Ridgefield. It's a spur road that comes straight off Saw Mill Road, and it looks like a dike over large wetlands on both sides of the road. The whole road is a cul de sac. The 70 houses are in two clusters on the south side of the road, the Ridgefield side of the road.

The parcel Belimo is considering and its proposed factory that Danbury is pushing through boards and commissions is on the Danbury side of the road, the right side of the road.

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Belimo, which employs about 250 people on Old Ridgebury Road in Danbury, announced plans in April to buy an abandoned factory on Turner Road, demolish it, double its size and over seven years double its workforce.

The neighbors say that just won't work. The houses and the factory are all served by Turner Road, which sits in the middle of wetlands. There don't appear to be many alternative routes to reach the homes or factory. There are none. The road itself measures 22 feet wide (21 feet 10 inches in one spot, 22 feet two inches in another.)

"I understand they've looked at a number of sites in the Danbury, Bethel, Brookfield area, but this is a round peg in a square hole. I don't think they really looked at that road," said Moroknek.

Moroknek, Lefebvre, Caiola and Kliewer all said school buses pick up dozens of kids on several trips through the neighborhood in the morning and afternoon, and there simply isn't enough room for a school bus and a semi-tractor trailer truck on Turner Road at the same time. 

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said on Thursday he wants to hear from the Ridgefield residents with concerns about the Belimo project. He said the city will listen to their concerns, and see what it can do to help them with their issues.

Moroknek said he also doubts anyone thinking about this plan saw all the kids walking on the street or on the side walk or riding bikes on the street or sidewalk.

"I can't imagine that Belimo really understands the liability issues here," Moroknek said. "A kid gets hit by a truck, their brand is shot."

Add the employees, plus the trucks plus the school buses, and fit that on a road two residents said was 22 feet wide.

"It's not a fit," Kliewer said.

All four people, Kliewer, Lefebvre, Moroknek and Caiola said they knew when they bought their homes they would have a business neighbor some day.

"A factory is the worst possible outcome. I figured it would be an office, not industrial, not trucks," Caiola said.

The residents will meet with Danbury Attorney Chris Donohue of Thursday and with a representative from to talk about this issue. Donohue was out of the office, and could not be reached Wednesday for comment.