Government

Ridgefield Co., Property Owner Cited for Wetlands Violations at North Wilton Road

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A Ridgefield-based landscaping company and North Wilton Road property owner each are facing a $1,000 fine following citations for violations of New Canaan’s wetlands regulations. Town officials this month issued a cease-and-desist order for unpermitted activities taking place at 749 North Wilton Road and instructed the homeowner to contact Planning & Zoning to review the height of a new stone wall and deer fence installed on the 4.02-acre property, according to documents obtained by NewCanaanite.com. Acting on a tip about possible regulated activities there, staff in the New Canaan Inland Wetlands Department “viewed a significant amount of earth disturbing activities around and over wetlands,” according to a Jan. 12 citation letter. They included removal of vegetation from flagged wetlands and upland areas, creation of a stone wall in and adjacent to wetlands and watercourse, disturbance of soils because of that work and dismantling of an existing stone wall from an upland review area, the citation letter said.

Government

Country Club of New Canaan Cited for Wetlands Violations

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The Country Club of New Canaan has been cited for violations of regulations that are designed to protect some of the town’s most sensitive environmental habitat. According to a citation issued Jan. 6 by the Inland Wetlands and Watercourses department staff, the Country Club without a required permit has conducted “a significant amount of earth disturbing activities around and over wetlands.”

Those activities include removing trees and vegetation from known wetlands and adjacent areas and creating silted water by disturbing a utility road with tree equipment trucks. “These activities have disturbed the wetlands and watercourse that are protected under the regulations,” according to a citation notice obtained by NewCanaanite.com following a formal request. “Minimal soil and erosion controls were installed.”

Town officials learned of the violations from a third-party observer and inspected the site on Jan.

Government

White Oak Shade Homeowner Cited for Multiple Wetlands Violations, Fined $1,000

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Citing multiple violations of regulations designed to protect some of New Canaan’s most fragile natural resources, town officials have levied a $1,000 fine against a White Oak Shade Road homeowner. According to a citation that is scheduled for discussion at Monday’s meeting of the Inland Wetlands Commission, municipal workers visiting the 1-acre property at 139 White Oak Shade Road last month “viewed a significant amount of earth disturbing activities in and over wetlands and in the onsite pond that is currently dry without standing water.”

Specifically, a wetlands area of about 3,000 square feet was stripped of its vegetation, with underlying soils disturbed by filling, raking and grading, and seed and mulch mix deposited into it, according to the citation and Notice of Violation, issued Oct. 18 by staffers in the Inland Wetlands Department. Additionally, an upland review area of about 3,200 square feet was altered “by seeding and maintaining a lawn,” the citation said. “These activities have disturbed the underlying wetlands and watercourse that are protected under the Regulations,” it said.

Government

‘I Am Sort of Puzzled’: After Neighbor’s Apparent Misdirection Is Exposed, Officials OK Bridge Repair on Weed Street Property

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Though he apparently had been informed otherwise, a Weed Street man told the town that a plan to repair a stone bridge—a span that forms part of an original, disused route to a neighbor’s 15-acre property—required his own approval, officials said this week. Yet several days prior to making that claim at a May meeting of the Inland Wetlands Commission, Craig Kingsley of 592 Weed St. had been told by a land surveyor that his own property in fact did not touch the dilapidated 110-year-old bridge in question and so the project did not need his sign-off, according to a local landscape architect who addressed the commission Monday night on behalf of the applicant. In fact, the bridge is owned “by nobody other than” Austin Furst of 590 Weed St., Keith Simpson of Simpson Associates said during the commission’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall. “But because the neighbor [Kingsley] was rather insistent that he did, we carried the meeting forward and then found out from the surveyors that, in fact, he had been informed a week before by them that he did not own any portion of the bridge, so I am sort of puzzled that he would tell the commission that he still thought he did,” Simpson said.