Business

Disused Shopping Carts at Mrs. Green’s Remain a Visible Eyesore, P&Z Says

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Though parking at Pine and Park Streets appears to be just fine despite worries about an influx of customers at Mrs. Green’s, the store’s makeshift corral for disused shopping carts isn’t satisfying town planning officials. Since opening in mid-April, Mrs. Green’s has been lining up the carts along the eastern side of the building (facing Park). That wasn’t part of the original site plan, and the Planning and Zoning Commission last month instructed Mrs. Green’s to create a shrubbery-enclosed corral so that the carts wouldn’t be visible from the street. Commissioner Dan Radman during Tuesday’s regular P&Z meeting called what’s been created there a “lame attempt.”

“What power do we have to make them screen properly?” Radman said during the meeting, held in the Sturgess Room of the New Canaan Nature Center’s Visitors Center. “They still haven’t satisfied what we approved them for, because they did something that wasn’t approved in the first place,” he added.

Business

Mrs. Green’s Asked to Keep Hiring Signs Inside

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Saying it would set a bad precedent to allow all kinds of ‘Help Wanted’-type notices in storefront windows downtown, planning officials have asked Mrs. Green’s to remove such signs from its Pine Street-facing windows. At the most recent regular meeting of the Planning & Zoning Commission—which focused on shopping carts at Mrs. Green’s, among other matters— officials weighed whether the market’s ‘Now Hiring’ sign (see photo at right) should be conspicuous to passersby by and, if so, what size would be reasonable. “As a precedent, we’re not aware of any stores in the downtown that area that have ‘Help Wanted’ signs out, at all,” P&Z Secretary Jean Grzelecki said at the May 27 meeting, held in the Sturgess Room of the New Canaan Nature Center’s Visitors Center. Commissioner David Scannell said he felt that a “Now Hiring” sign might be a “happy sign” insofar as it represents a job opportunity. Grzelecki said: “We have to consider the worst-case scenario which would be multiply that by every store in this downtown.

Business

P&Z to Mrs. Green’s: Do Better with the Shopping Carts

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Planning officials are calling for Mrs. Green’s to do a better job of corralling disused shopping carts and to create a plan for less conspicuous cart storage. Officials from the market on Pine and Park Streets at Tuesday’s Planning and Zoning Commission meeting proposed installing a designated, outdoor “cart storage” area along the eastern edge of the store (along Park, just opposite the St. A’s parking lot). The area would be largely enclosed by shrubbery and would sit on pavers on a pervious sand or peat-gravel bed, architect David Ball said. It would be “a small area surrounded by shrubbery so that they’re not really visible from the street, and only as you’re entering the building would you be able to see the carts,” Ball said at the P&Z meeting, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center’s Visitors Center.

Government

Town Weighs 30-Minute Designation for Former Post Office Parking on Pine

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Though two groups have recommended far longer designations, the volunteer body that oversees on-street parking in New Canaan is weighing a 30-minute time limit for the spaces just outside Mrs. Green’s on Pine Street. The Police Commission at its May 20 meeting took no formal action regarding the approximately seven spots along that last stretch of Pine. Those spaces remain 15-minute designations from when the Post Office was located there, replaced since by the market. Two groups—the Traffic-Calming Work Group and Parking Commission—have recommended two-hour and 90-minute spots, respectively, for the top of Pine. Members of the Police Commission, which has the final say, said at their meeting that that’s far too long.

Government

Coming to Pine Street Parking Lot: 90-Minute Spaces at $1 per Hour

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The volunteer group that oversees off-street parking in New Canaan wants the 15 non-handicapped spaces in the Pine Street parking lot for downtown commercial—as opposed to commuter—use, and designated at 90 minutes for each space at a rate of $1 per hour. The Parking Commission additionally will recommend to those in charge of on-street that the seven parking space up alongside Mrs. Green’s on Pine Street switch from 15 minutes—a relic from the post office days—to 90 minutes. Business and town leaders attending the commission’s meeting Thursday night at Lapham Community Center urged the group to designate the spaces in the Pine Street lot—that’s the one on the northeast corner at Park and Pine, where you can exit by driving past the postal mail drop-off boxes—for commercial rather than commuter use. “I understand that at one point it was a commuter lot,” Tucker Murphy, executive director of the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce and a guest at the meeting, said when asked for her view. “I think you have been hearing a lot of need to keep it as an open lot.