The volunteer body that oversees New Canaan’s Historic District—roughly, the area around God’s Acre—last week denied an application from a local developer seeking to create an affordable housing complex within its boundaries.
Under the town’s Historic District Regulations, “No building or structure shall be erected or altered within the historic district until after an application for a ‘Certificate of Appropriateness’ as to exterior architectural features has been submitted to the Historic District Commission and approved by the Commission.”
A 103-page application filed Aug. 7 on behalf of developer Arnold Karp calls for approval of a Certificate to take about 80% of the so-called “Red Cross building” (after its longtime former owner) at 51 Main St. and move so that it’s 17.5 feet from the roadway, as opposed to the current 50 feet, according to the application. A new residential building would go in behind it, offering 20 total living units, six of which would be rented at affordable rates, as per the state’s definition.
Members of the Historic District Commission during a special meeting held Oct. 19 in Town Hall voted 5-1 to deny the application.
Commission Secretary Carl Rothbart said that “the massing, the scale, the height, the proportions of the new structure is overwhelming to the scale and massing of the existing historic structure.”
“And it’s clearly visible from the street, which is one of our main criteria, that any additions or changes should not be visible from the street,” he continued. “In every image, clearly shown on the cover rendering [of the application], it is clearly visible from Main street. It’s visible from the road that goes through Town Hall. It’s visible from Vine Cottage. It will forever change the viewshed of the entrance to the Historic District by building that structure behind the existing house.”
In addition to Rothbart, those voting for denial included Chair Tom Nissley and Commissioners Richard Rose, Janet Lindstrom and Art Berry. Vice Chair Marty Skrelunas voted against the denial. Commissioner Todd Lampert was absent.
It’s unclear what will happen to the Red Cross building now, though Tim Hollister, an attorney and partner with Hartford-based Hinckley Allen, representing the applicant, noted that the application was designed to “preserve the existing structure, the existing 1880s structure, and avoid the alternative of demolition.”
Referring to the proposed relocation of the building, Hollister told the Commission during a presentation, “Our belief is that this will make the historic structure as preserved and as restored, and more visible from the street, which is a good thing.”
He said that other buildings in the Historic District have already been relocated to their present-day sites, that the specific location the Red Cross Building on its parcel is unconnected to its Queen Anne style and that the new building would be largely blocked from view.
“Twice, apparently, the idea of a national registered district has been drawn up—first in 1990, and then earlier this year,” Hollister told the Commission. “But it appears that the property owners are in opposition, so that idea was not pursued. So overall, it appears to us that the town and the residents like what I’ll call the ‘cache’ of having a Historic District, but in reality there are many inconsistencies. And thus, what some of our opponents last year referred to as the ‘integrity’ of the District has already been compromised in documented ways.”
Under the state law known by its statute number, 8-30g, in towns where less than 10% of all housing stock qualifies as affordable (New Canaan is at 2.94%), developers who propose projects where a certain number of units are set aside to rent at affordable rates may appeal to the state after a local P&Z Commission denies their applications. New Canaan since its last moratorium lapsed in July 2021 has received three such applications, at Weed and Elm Streets (120 units), Main Street (20 units) and Hill Street (93 units). P&Z denied all of them. Those applications are now under appeal in state Superior Court.
It’s unclear whether a court decision in favor of Karp would supercede the Historic District Commission’s denial and allow him to pursue the development. It’s also unclear whether demolishing the Red Cross building would amount to a sufficiently different project so as to require an entirely new 8-30g application for P&Z.
During the meeting, Skrelunas, the sole dissenting vote, said he thought it was “quite unfortunate that we didn’t have pre-application hearings and meetings,” as provided under the District Regulations, because they have been “a very successful tool in the Historic District” in the past.
“It allows both parties to sit down and review together before anyone invests a great deal of time and money in the project,” Skrelunas said, adding, “Conversations like that would have been, I think, advantageous to everybody.”
Others at the meeting opposed the application outright.
Mimi Findlay, founder of the New Canaan Preservation Alliance, said she was “very concerned about the definition of the architecture” in the would-be relocated Red Cross building, specifically citing its windows, shingles and proximity to the road. She called for it to be “totally replicated” and called the plans “a disaster for the Historic District.” (The project’s architect, Christopher Hull, noted in response that what the applicant is proposing isn’t a “replica” at all but physically moving the existing structure.)
Rose Rothbart also addressed the Commission during a public comment session, saying she “wanted to express how important this Historic District is.”
“It’s been here since 1963,” Rose Rothbart said. “It does have variety, so everything is not precisely matching and that’s important because it shows the evolution of our town. It is the core of our town around God’s Acre. it is very important to all the citizens of New Canaan. And the honor we give it, I would like to see it given the same honor by the applicant.”
Karp himself said that with respect to the historic building, the project would be similar to one done about five years ago at 4 Main St., also in the Historic District.
Karp in addressing the Commission said that demolition is “the last option I want to consider, because that is contrary to the reason that we bought it, contrary to the reason that we are redeveloping it.”
Paul Stone, COO of Karp Associates, noted in addressing the Commission that more than half of the buildings in the Historic District are closer to the roadway that the Red Cross building currently is.
“Preservation is exactly what we’re doing,” he said. “We’re keeping the building. We’re preserving it. We’re moving it forward.”
Yet doing that “destroys its relationship to the site and the street,” Carl Rothbart said.
“This is the gateway to the Historic District and making this change to it would forever change the appearance of our Historic District,” he said.
Opposition to this proposed development is such that some would rather risk the loss of the historic structure to the alternative of demolition.
This is a timely comment regarding insight on how developers operate (i.e. give us what we want or we will demolish what is there and logically I would presume rezone using 830g to 30-50 units per acre density) as the town considers its new POCD. I encourage residents to attend the next POCD sessions (one took place last Thursday which was sparsely attended in my view) https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/7bc989d70f804b06855301e53f1cbd17.
Yet property owners can demolish the buildings that they own as-of-right, Giacomo. There’s a town committee that can delay them, which can be costly, but ultimately the people who buy inanimate things like buildings have the right to replace or get rid of them if they want. Is that a right that should be tampered with? It’s true that some property owners pursue demolition without a permit and ask for forgiveness later, but with the exception of the Maples Inn many years ago, it’s your regular private homeowners and not professional developers who apply for after-the-fact demo permits. At least from what I’ve seen.
Here is the difference – you demolish your house and put up another or you demolish your house and put up 30-50 units. We appear to be moving toward the latter.
But demolition permits are not tied to what comes next. There’s no field on a demolition permit application form for future plans. Sometimes a long-neglected and deteriorating structure like the Red Cross building is demolished and the lot sits vacant for years. Sometimes newly vacant lots are sold on to a new owner. The ordinance, like other laws, doles out equal treatment to property owners, whether it’s an oversized parcel near the downtown, such as at Weed and Elm, or an undersized corner lot in the B Residential Zone. Again, residents can propose changes to an ordinance or to the Zoning Regulations, and you can update the POCD, but my guess is you’d have a lot of people objecting to a loss of property owner’s rights. Look at the absurd situation at New Canaan Library, where P&Z imposed a preservation requirement on a private property owner who could’ve demolished the 1913 building as-of-right before ever applying for Special Permits for the rebuilding project. My sense is that the preservation of that structure has left a very bad taste in people’s mouths—never mind laughable comparisons between the 1913 building and Gulf Station garage, now that they’re back-to-back—and a desire to fully screen it from the green.
We offered to save the historic building—just need to move it forward on the property. Sort of like the neighboring Vine Cottage. The contention that it will change the Historic District is a fools argument as many historical building were and still are located close to the street. It was in our application and discussed that working with us was certainly an option. However, the committee after saying it was “an important structure” has given us no flexibility. The committee’s view is that they would rather loose a “historical asset” rather than allow 20 units of housing (30 percent affordable units and 70 percent market rate units) is certainly regretable.
Why don’t the developers match the architectural style of the Red Cross building? Or propose a design beyond the modern farmhouse / McUrbanist style represented in the proposed plans? This style will age like Brutalism (not well).
Thank you for your comment —Our architect previously presented a plan with a building that was in a style similar to the existing Red Cross building — an we were told by the opposition third party preservation architects during hearings not to follow the original building. Need to apply some common sense
Why can’t the Red Cross building be restored to its previous beauty and become part of the Town Hall campus along with the Vine Cottage. Just because there Vine Cottage doesn’t have an elevator doesn’t make it an obvious choice to put up for sale by the town. Restore the buildings and keep them as part of the Town Hall campus without marring the facade of the Historic District. Perhaps Mr Karp could work in conjunction with the Historical Society to be part of this process instead of threatening to demolish it.
Hi Jennifer. The Vine Cottage is not in the Historic District. How that happened idk but the Red Cross building is the south-easternmost property included in it. Here’s a map of the Historic District. Also, after this meeting and knowing some of the back story on certain preservationists in town, I can’t see any sort of collaboration between them and Arnold Karp. (That’s what Commissioner Marty Skrelunas was calling for—didn’t happen.) With some very specific exceptions—such as the town’s purchase of 220 Elm St. for the Board of Ed offices, the Grove Street house that abuts the oversized Lumberyard Lot and conversion of the former teen center as both home to the Department of Human Services and rental space to private businesses—the town’s approach to ownership of buildings is that the government shouldn’t be in the landlord business. So any building that isn’t home to a municipal department could be offloaded. They get very expensive with maintenance, and of course they’re off the tax rolls so long as the town owns them. (A selectmen-appointed committee in 2017 issued a massive report that studied, evaluated and recommended uses for all town-owned buildings, and that was the gist.) Although the Health Department has been operating out of Vine Cottage for some years now—and that space served the agency well during COVID, where space itself was at a premium—the building itself has never been laid out for municipal use. Where the Health Department goes instead of Vine Cottage I don’t know. To my knowledge it’s a staff of four full-time people plus at least one or two part-timers. During the pandemic there were additional part-timers and volunteers helping to run clinics. In any case, to your idea of combining the properties, it’s too late since they have different and opposing owners now. Maybe that dynamic will change following the election—in many areas, the sitting first selectman’s version of talks/negotiations/events would seem consistently different from that of other parties. As Selectman Williams has noted in recent weeks, any purchase-and-sale agreement would include covenants in place to preserve the Vine Cottage’s unique architecture.