I have heard lots of excuses over the many years since New London and the state destroyed the neighborhood at Fort Trumbull why nothing has been built to replace it.

But I heard an entirely new one Thursday from New London Mayor Michael Passero in a meeting with The Day's Editorial Board, one I've never heard in the nearly two decades I have been reading and writing about Fort Trumbull.

It turns out, Passero explained, the limit on development of housing units on the peninsula is not based on some arbitrary number in the development plan but rather on the limited emergency vehicle access, because roads in and out are subject to flooding.

It's the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection administrators, he said, who recently shot down plans for an assisted living retirement center, he said, because the project would have put the developments there beyond the magic 100-unit limit on housing.

Not only does the DEEP-enforced ceiling apply to housing, new apartments or senior living, but hotel rooms, too, the mayor said.

So for all these years, while we have been told of plans for housing AND a hotel on the peninsula, that would not have been allowed by DEEP, the mayor now says.

I would direct the mayor to the voluminous archives of The Day's reporting on Fort Trumbull and challenge him to find one single instance in which city or redevelopment agency officials disclosed the flood-based reason for limited development. If it's there, I sure missed it.

Could it be the city and redevelopment agency haven't known it all this time?

The mayor said they have begun exploring a solution in which they would create an emergency grade crossing over Amtrak tracks for fire trucks and ambulances on the northern end of the peninsula, near Capt. Scott's Lobster Dock. That would raise the 100-unit limit, he said.

That would require Amtrak approval, and, not to be a total pessimist, I think that the enormous bureaucratic hurdle might turn out to be as difficult as the attempts made to turn back Benedict Arnold's invading forces at Fort Trumbull during the Revolutionary War.

This may not be the last word on the topic, or by any means a final no, but I did find this in a federal DOT manual on crossings: "Generally, new grade crossings, particularly on mainline tracks, should not be permitted unless no other viable alternatives exist and, even in those instances, consideration should be given to closing one or more existing crossings."

The other reason DEEP's cap on housing is so limiting, the mayor explained, is because most developers would consider a 100-unit project too small.

This is a point at which I would remind everyone that it is virtually the same agency, with a new name, with some of the same people in place, that has never been able to develop anything on the peninsula in all the years since people's homes were demolished there.

Indeed, the same person who helped preside over the demise of the last proposed development, as a volunteer officer of the redevelopment agency, now works as the agency's lawyer, profiting off the fateful decisions he helped make. Another former agency officer now is trying to develop agency property, personally profiting.

How would you feel about that if your house had been taken?

Mayor Passero's predecessor promised to eliminate the agency and take title to the land but failed in that over four years. Passero has instead breathed new life into the agency and its failed track record, assigning new responsibility and committing more city resources.

How about something new? The same old is not working.

Instead of trying to lure big developers who only want to build suburban-style projects, why not restore the neighborhood?

Carve the property into house lots. Have a lottery. Give them away. The price of admission is a promise to build a house, live in it for a while and pay city taxes.

Spend your allotted 100 units wisely, encouraging home ownership in a city that desperately needs more of it. You would instantly create one of the nicest neighborhoods in southeastern Connecticut, walkable to downtown, the river on one side and a spectacular state park on the other.

Throw some commercial property into the mix. Maybe Metro North would consider a Fort Trumbull stop on its Shoreline East line, making the new neighborhood within a mass transit commute to dozens of towns.

Best of all, an urban homesteading program at Fort Trumbull would generate a lot of positive publicity for the city.

Creating a new urban neighborhood also might help erase some of the stain of shame created by destroying one in the first place. I could almost promise it would be a national news story, a final happy ending to Kelo v. New London.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com