Six months after suing the town Planning & Zoning Commission for approving New Canaan Library’s widely anticipated rebuilding project, local preservationists last week filed another appeal in state Superior Court. The New Canaan Preservation Alliance said in its new complaint that P&Z’s approval last month of the library’s plan to preserve much of what remains of an original 1913 building by moving it to the organization’s western property line was “illegal, unlawful, capricious and/or an abuse of the power and authority vested in the Commission” by state law. The approval is contrary to a document that guides development in New Canaan, the lawsuit said, and violates the Zoning Regulations and state statute, according to the complaint, filed by by attorneys Patricia Sullivan and Philip Pires of Bridgeport-based Cohen and Wolf, P.C.
P&Z approval “relocated part of the 1913 library, which is not ‘in situ’ preservation,” the complaint said. “The relocation of the 1913 library is not consistent with any understanding or definition of ‘historic preservation’ pursuant to the National Historic Preservation Act, the New Canaan Plan of Conservation and Development, the New Canaan Zoning Regulations, or the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation,” it said. “The Commission did not make required findings of fact or identify sufficient or adequate reasons for its actions” under the zoning regulations or state law, it said.
