A day after Tuesday’s collapse of the controversial Haddam land swap, the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection published on its website the appraisal documents that led to the deal’s unraveling. Click here to get to the DEEP website that contains links to the two appraisal reports, which state officials obtained late last year
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Opponents of a land swap deal in Haddam made the trip to New London on Monday, confronting the head of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection during a “Commissioner in Your Corner” event. Read more here: Haddam Land Swap Foes Confront Esty at Event – East Hampton-Portland, CT Patch.

For 3 years in a row, Senator Eileen Daily has initiated a conveyance of 17 acres of open space land overlooking the Connecticut River to private developers and has inserted it into the annual conveyance bill.

Land swap opponents believe a trade of these 17 acres will set a very dangerous precedent and make all State of Connecticut open space vulnerable to developers.

Calling the Haddam land swap the “worst piece of legislative chicanery” they’ve seen in years, opponents of the plan urged local residents Thursday to lobby their elected leaders to force the repeal of the state law that approved the swap.

Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Dan Esty faced opponents of the Haddam “land swap” deal yesterday in what the Hartford Courant described as a “sometimes heated question-and-answer session.” Jonathan Pelto and Erik Hesselberg report.

The so-called Haddam land swap, an iteration of the age-old battle between conservation and development, was not a good way to do business. The deal, in the works for three years, allows a private developer to acquire 17 acres near the Connecticut River in Haddam that had been set aside for conservation. In exchange, the
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The Connecticut legislature has typically been a good friend of the environment. Each year sees a number of important bills which keep our state healthy and help maintain our quality of life, so important to our economic prosperity.

This year’s Senate Bill 1196 is a rare and unfortunate exception. It should not have passed as proposed. Section 8, known as the Haddam land swap, orders a transfer of parcels between the state and a private developer.

Many residents are up in arms over a recent proposal for a land swap involving the town and the Madison Beach Hotel. Click on this environmental headline for more information on this story.

Deputy Secretary of the State James Spallone has written as a private citizen to Gov. Dannel Malloy, urging him to veto the bill containing the so-called “Haddam land swap,” which now is on the governor’s desk for his signature. As reported in Wednesday’s Courant, the governor has until Friday, July 15 to decide whether to sign it.

A 17-acre state parcel behind the Riverhouse at Goodspeed in Haddam overlooking the Connecticut River is to be traded for an 87-acre parcel of woodlands adjacent to Cockaponset State Forest in the Higganum section of town.

State Sen. Eileen M. Daily writes in The Hartford Courant: A land conveyance in Haddam approved by the General Assembly June 8, in which 87 acres of privately owned property would be exchanged for a 17-acre parcel of state-owned land, is worthy of the considerable press coverage received. Thorough scrutiny of government and its transactions has always been part of the Connecticut landscape.

“I cannot dodge this much longer,” Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s new appointee as environmental commissioner, Daniel C. Esty, wrote in an uneasy-sounding e-mail to a subordinate on April 1, The Hartford Courant reports. Esty was referring to a news article that the subordinate had sent him about environmental groups’ growing opposition to a controversial legislative bill calling for a land swap in Haddam, which would allow private developers to acquire 17 acres of state-owned conservation land overlooking the Connecticut River.

Citing his past service as a Planning & Zoning Commissioner in Cheshire, Esty said that, in general, state officials should defer on land use decisions to the wishes of local officials, especially in a case where from an environmental perspective the right answer on the land deal was unclear.

These 87 acres of forest land in Higganum have been central to the debate of the land conveyance bill that includes, as one item on the bill, the swap of this property with that of 17.4 acres in the Tylerville section of Haddam along the Connecticut River.

A former senior administrator with the state Department of Environmental Protection told a crowd more than 100 Thursday that it is his understanding that the department strongly opposes a proposal to swap conservation land near the Connecticut River with a developer. Read more here: Haddam: Large Crowd Voices Opposition To Proposed Land Swap – Courant.com.