42°
“This is not a final report; we are not done yet,” said First Selectman Michael Tetreau at a public meeting last week. “This project is a lot more complicated than we thought back in January.”
Of the three options presented by engineer Jose Miguel Albine, two required that the building be lifted to the new Federal Emergency Management Agency guidelines of 13 feet. This would ensure that the building was inline with new regulations and that it would be less likely for a similar amount of damage to occur again.
“We will recommend, at the end of the day, if you decide to rebuild the pavilion, to raise the pavilion,” Albine said.
The three options he presented are:
- Simply repair the building where it is and don’t lift it.
- Repair the building where it is but lift it to match FEMA regulations.
- Repair and lift the building, but move it 80 feet back into the parking lot.
“We’re going to loose some parking spaces, and we’re going to try and gain them by parking under the building,” Albine said.
As for how much this will cost, the town is holding back saying that the town engineers and the insurance company can't seem to come to an agreement regarding the amount of damages.
"At this juncture, we are dealing with what we call the 50 percent rule," Albine said. That essentially means that if the estimate comes in under 50 percent of the buildings value, the insurance company will only have to pay for the renovations to the existing building and not raising it to FEMA regulations. If the estimate comes in more than 50 percent, the insurance company will be obligated to pay for the upgrades to the building.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Fairfield and receive free news updates.
