New Canaan landscape architect Keith Simpson can remember his very first appearance before the newly formed New Canaan Inland Wetlands Commission in 1988—for a subdivision on Seminary Street known at the time as the “Bryant-Kellogg subdivision.”
Selectman Beth Jones and Dr. Sven Englund at a ceremony honoring the latter for his nearly three decades of service on the Inland Wetlands Commission, Dec. 15, 2014. Credit: Michael Dinan
It required blasting out about 30 or 40 feet of rock to get through into what we know today as Scofield Lane—and in the 26 years since, Simpson and scores of fellow architects as well as residents, lawyers, soil experts and other professionals as they’ve sought approvals for sensitive projects have depended, among others, on one consistent figure on the commission: Dr. Sven Englund.
“He’s a brilliant engineer and we all benefitted from his knowledge and understanding of engineering and science—he was a tremendous help to other commissioners,” Simpson said Monday night from the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center, where nearly 40 locals gathered to honor Dr. Sven Englund for his decades of service on the commission.
“I think he and other commissioners have been very good about striking a balance between making sure the wetlands are protected and allowing property owners to have a reasonable exercise of their rights as property owners, but doing the job which state statutes really require, which is to protect the wetlands,” Simpson said. “There are sometimes when you have to come close to wetlands and sometimes you have to cross them and if you do it in a responsible way then it’s fair and things don’t get damaged long-term.”
About 30 people attended a party and ceremony where state and local honors were bestowed on Dr. Sven Englund for his nearly three decades of service on the Inland Wetlands Commission, Dec. 15, 2014. Credit: Michael Dinan
During a celebration of the 93-year-old’s work—which in truth goes back to the early-1970s, as a member of the then-Environmental Commission, family members say, a predecessor to Inland Wetlands—current commission Chairman Daniel Stepanek presented Dr. Sven Englund with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Connecticut Association of Conservation and Inland Wetlands Commissions, First Selectman Rob Mallozzi and Selectman Beth Jones read a proclamation declaring Dec. 15 ‘Dr. Sven Englund Day in New Canaan,’ and Stepanek, Simpson, Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Director Kathleen Holland, son Sven Englund and others offered words of gratitude to a man that Mallozzi called “a town treasure.”
A retired chemical engineer and father of two, prominent member of the United Methodist Church and choir who also has belonged for years to the New Canaan Senior Men’s Club, Dr. Sven Englund announced in October that he was stepping down from the commission. He described his time on the commission—and in town, since 1958—as “a lot of fun.”
Dr. Sven Englund and Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Director Kathy Holland at a ceremony honoring the former for his nearly three decades of service on the Inland Wetlands Commission, Dec. 15, 2014. Credit: Michael Dinan
“There is always something to do in town and as far as I’m concerned, at this point in my life there is Waveny to walk the trails,” he told the appreciative crowd, who enjoyed sandwiches, cakes and other refreshments during the 45-minute celebration, followed straightaway by the commission’s regular meeting. “I try to get in a half a mile every day, but in the cold weather here I am slowing down a little on that, because I sure don’t want to go out when it’s cloudy or rainy. But if the sun is out, it’s a whole different story. Somehow with the sun, you feel a lot warmer than it really is.”
He added that during his tenure on the commission, which included nine years as chairman, from 1992 to 2001, the Wetlands Regulations have been carefully updated a handful of times.
Though perhaps not one of the most widely known or prominent municipal bodies in town, the Inland Wetlands Commission’s work not only directly affects the landscape and quality of life in New Canaan, given its critical charge, but the group often is the first in line to vet major applications during public hearings—a task overseen with a high degree of accountability and responsibility under Dr. Sven Englund’s careful chairmanship and tenure, those present said.
“As chairman, he conducted meetings with a keen sense of fairness and sought participation from all commission members,” Stepanek said.
Mallozzi called him “quiet-spoken like his son Sven, diligent, hard-working” and said Dr. Sven Englund had a gift for listening “unbelievably well.”
The younger Sven Englund—known to many as a Town Council member and, since 1978, a volunteer firefighter (who helped oversee this year’s Christmas decorations at the firehouse), himself a 1971 New Canaan High School graduate (the last year that NCHS was located at the site of present-day Saxe Middle School)—credited his parents with instilling in him a sense of community involvement.
“I was as surprised as anyone else when I came home from college and my dad sat there and said, ‘Well, I’m on the Environmental Commission,’ ” Sven Englund recalled with a smile. At the time, his dad’s professional work had involved going beyond chemical engineering to doing environmental engineering, such as pollution abatement, he recalled.
“He’s always enjoyed it,” Sven Englund said of his dad. More recently, his father “just sat there and said, ‘I just cant do site walks anymore and if I cannot do the site walks, then I cannot serve on the commission.’ ”
Simpson was among those who addressed the room in thanking a beaming Dr. Sven Englund after he’d received the proclamation from New Canaan’s highest elected official.
“Thank you for so many wonderful years,” Simpson said. “You really distinguished yourself by letting other people be heard, and at the end of it all, in the whole process they felt they were fairly heard and then they felt far more comfortable about the [commission’s] decision.”
“A lot of early anxiety that the neighbors might have had got air on the environmental commission before it went on to another commission, so your patience and appreciation for other people’s views contributed enormously to the commission not only avoiding a lot of litigation against the town, but in the end coming up with decisions which were fairly accepted by everyone involved.”