Conn. Decision to Build Park Stings

WATERFORD, Conn. — When the state last fall scuttled a deal to sell the former Seaside property in Waterford for private housing, the losers in the transaction went beyond the developer, who is now considering a lawsuit, and the tax coffers of Waterford.

The proceeds of the $8 million sale would have gone into a fund to build houses at other locations for people with intellectual disabilities.The fund was set up for just this type of opportunity. Since the neglected, hauntingly beautiful buildings on the 32-acre Seaside Regional Center campus last served children and adults with developmental disabilities before closing in 1997, the money would go to benefit that community in a narrowly defined way: no state jobs, no agency operating costs, just buying sites and building or rehabbing structures.