Letters to the Editor

NewCanaanite.com recently received the following letter(s) to the editor. Please send letters to editor@newcanaanite.com for publication here.

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Mr. Dinan,

The town of New Canaan, its citizens and elected officials are approaching a dangerous intersection – at the corner of Weed Street and Elm Street. As such, I write this letter to voice my opposition to the proposed development at 751 Weed Street.

During the past week, my wife and I, along with our two young children, moved into our new home located at 762 Weed Street. We have lived in New Canaan for nearly six years and have viewed Weed Street as our most desired neighborhood for our “forever home.”

Shortly after signing the contract to purchase our home, we learned of the proposed development at 751 Weed Street – directly across the street from our home and in plain view from each of my children’s bedrooms and bathrooms based on the current proposed plans.

As presented in the architectural renderings submitted to P&Z, a high-density development as proposed will not only alter the appearance of this block of Weed Street and a primary first impression of New Canaan forever, but all Weed Street-facing units of this development will also have a view directly into our home and add significant sound and light pollution.

First, I ask that New Canaan’s elected officials consider this block of Weed Street (and the intersection at Elm Street) from a traffic & safety perspective. Yesterday during our first School Bus pickup at 7:50am (at the intersection of Weed Street and Woods End), we were shocked by the speed and volume of passenger vehicles, school buses, and commercial vehicles. We are talking about the safety of our children. Additionally, during my walk to work from 762 Weed Street to 220 Elm Street, crossing the Weed Street / Elm Street intersection was dangerous despite the Flashing Crosswalk – several vehicles failed to observe the flashing crosswalk and yield. Having thoroughly reviewed the Traffic Impact Assessment contained within Tab 10 of the 751 Weed Street Development Proposal, the assumptions, observations, and traffic plans must be reconsidered by the town. As a parent, a concerned citizen, and a neighbor, Pedestrian Safety is a Must.

While I know the owner and developer of 751 Weed Street is leveraging the state of Connecticut’s 8-30g statute in the interest of increasing the Affordable Housing Stock, it is extremely disappointing that Town Planning in general and our Planning & Zoning Commission are not protecting the interest of our fellow town citizens. Affordable housing laws should not give developers the right to irresponsibly build, even if they own the property. I implore our town’s elected officials to fight to protect our town and the legal rights of our homeowners. Our Planning & Zoning process is what protects the value of our properties, our neighborhoods, and our community. This represents an implicit contract between homeowners and our Town.

I also believe the health and safety concerns are significant. Town water, sewer, schools, fire, EMS should be thoughtfully researched and considered before buildings of this size can be built. Note, our home is directly across the street from the proposed development and we are not connected to the town’s sewer system. As a citizen and neighbor, we request transparency upon our Town’s independent inflow study with AECOM commissioned last fall because at that time, our Sewer System was already strained per your article dated October 19, 2021.

Finally, the potential environmental impact of the proposed project is a major concern. I invite you to our home to view the natural wildlife that calls this area home. Additionally, our property contains a beautiful natural 1 acre+ protected wetland that receives most of its water from the area of Weed Street, including 751 Weed Street (all directly uphill from our property). Our property’s wetland eventually feeds into the Noroton River. Not only would I be extremely disappointed with more water (and debris) being introduced into our wetland, this will cause major issues downstream. This week, I am hosting a wetland specialist at my home to assess the current status of our property’s wetland. Environmental Safety is a Must.

We are proponents of creating more affordable housing in New Canaan and view this as an important priority for the town. However, we believe it can be done in a more effective and responsible way that honors our historic town, our governmental processes, and ensures development is done strategically rather than opportunistically.

We appreciate the town establishing a website to host all official communications in a relevant and timely manner.  This is a step in the right direction. Further, we request further process transparency from New Canaan leadership on this time-sensitive matter.

Respectfully submitted,

Sean M. Kelley

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To Whom it May Concern,

I am writing today to express my concern over the proposed high rise that Arnold Karp has submitted for the corner of Weed Street and Elm. As a resident of Frogtown Rd, I pass this corner multiple times a day. The proposed architecture is neither in line with style or size of surrounding homes. Further, to erect a four or five story building on what should be a single family home lot is ludicrous. And by allowing Karp to bypass zoning laws, what would stop anyone from repeating this anywhere else in New Canaan?? Your neighborhood could be next. Would you want to live next to this? Would you want the traffic, noise, and eyesore in your life daily? Please protect what it precious to this town – consideration for one another. Just because it ‘can’ be built, doesn’t mean it should. I hope officials do not allow greedy builders to destroy our small town charm. I am adamantly opposed to this plan.

Thank you,

Brooke Santulli

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If you would like to know how New Canaan will soon look, imagine multiple “The Vue” condo developments being placed not just in downtown, but in 1+ acre zoning or anywhere the opportunity presents itself to a developer. That’s what the State’s Affordable Housing statute is permitting. Right now, developments have to be directly serviceable on the town main sewer line, – but it’s not too hard to imagine extensions being state mandated if towns do not move fast enough. 

The proposal to place a 5 story 110 unit complex on the 1 acre zone at the corner of Weed and Elm is the one before us. This will probably require a main sewer extension. A study will be conducted as to whether the system can handle the load. The same should apply for water and power supply. Traffic and safety are major issues for that intersection.

We have developed quality affordable housing and need to do more. Town management has been too slow in developing plans and in trying to correct the overreach of state government. Individual action is urgently required. We need to wake up before New Canaan becomes unrecognizable from the town we love.

Michael Field

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Our 5 properties directly abut the proposed development at 751 Weed Street.  Our 5 families live in single-family homes on one-acre zoned property, the same zoning as the single-family home currently on the property at 751 Weed Street. 

We are aware that the town has had discussions with the owner of 751 Weed since at least 2018 about the development of this property.

We are all also aware of the following:

1. 8-30g Statute:  The 8-30g statute has been in place since 1989, and any application of this statute should not be a surprise to those in town leadership, especially considering it is unlikely that the Town of New Canaan has ever met the 10% threshold (nor have most towns in Connecticut).  We further understand that developers have used this law, or the threat of it, to get projects approved through local P&Z that might not have been approved otherwise.  We need to keep in mind that 8-30g is there to ensure towns move forward with a range of housing options (a goal we all support); it is not there to allow developers unchecked power to completely transform towns at their sole discretion and for their personal financial gain. New Canaan should take pride in the progress it has made toward the goal of adding affordable housing units, and understand that more can be done. 
2. Expiration of the previous moratorium: We are surprised that the town appeared unprepared for the expiration of the previous 4-year moratorium in June of 2021, and are baffled by the continued delay in filing for a new moratorium.  

We understand that 2 meetings took place between our State Representative and Senator and officials in Hartford during Q2 2021 requesting an extension of the previous moratorium.

We are not aware of the Town of New Canaan pursuing avenues beyond this to extend the previous moratorium.  

We understand that some of the delay in requesting a new 4-year moratorium was related to the issuance of the Temporary Certificate of Occupancy (“TCO”) at Canaan Parish.  Such delays would have been known well in advance of the moratorium expiration.  We understand the TCO for Canaan Parish was issued at the end of October 2021, but that the town only started to prepare documents for a second moratorium after that date, and hired an external consultant to assist with that work in December 2021.  Remarkably, it appears that the town did not do any preparation work between the time of the expiration of the previous moratorium (June 2021) and the time the TCO was issued (October 2021).  We are unsure if the Town intentionally left the community exposed to the use of 8-30g by not filing for a moratorium extension, and why more priority and effort was not put into lobbying State officials in Hartford beyond the 2 meetings we are aware of.  

Despite numerous requests, we have still not received any feedback from town officials about why this delay occurred, who within Town Government was responsible for this delay, and if it was intentional, a strategic decision, or due to a lack of individual job performance and management oversight.

We also note that the owner of 751 Weed sits (or sat) on the Canaan Parish Redevelopment Board, the project where much of the town’s present affordable housing plans are focused. Delay in redeveloping Canaan Parish resulted in the expiration of the town’s 8-30g moratorium. That moratorium expiration created the window for the owner of 751 Weed to propose this project, a project from which he will benefit financially.

We are unsure if the owner of 751 Weed truly intends to build the structure that has been proposed, or if the owner would prefer to build a different type of structure there and is looking to use the threat of such a proposed construction to extract concessions from the town or local planning and zoning.  We are also aware that the owner of 751 Weed is involved with multiple properties in New Canaan that are being considered for large-scale development. It is possible that those proposed developments could be packaged into a larger negotiation with the town.  As such, we are unsure where 751 Weed falls with regards to priority and overall strategy that developer has for his assets in New Canaan, or if the Town of New Canaan is presently negotiating in some manner with the owner of 751 Weed.  For our planning, we assume that the owner of 751 Weed plans to develop as proposed.

For the record, and as the neighboring homeowners, we want to express our collective views on the proposed development:

1. We vehemently oppose such a change to zoning of this location. Zoning is there for a reason, and New Canaan historically has benefitted tremendously by having a coherent town zoning plan.  The parcel of land at 751 Weed is clearly a single-acre zoned property, and the neighborhood does not include any housing of the scale or density of the proposed project. 
2. There are ample legal arguments to deny such a proposed development, and some of those arguments will be sent separately by legal counsel.

In the event the town somehow approves this property to be developed as proposed or at a smaller scale, we fully expect that our properties will be simultaneously and equally rezoned to allow the same density of development (“nothing more and nothing less”).  There is no town planning reason to have large-scale development next to our properties, and to force our properties to remain as 1-acre single-family zoned.  Doing that would simply enrich the owner of 751 Weed while greatly damaging the value of our properties (if developed as proposed, instead of having one home next to ours, we would have 102 homes and more than 150 cars parked).  Such a structure, even if reduced in scope, would completely and permanently change the neighborhood, and our zoning should then change similarly.  All infrastructure that is created (sewer, water, storm pipes, and transportation infrastructure etc.) to cater to a redeveloped 751 Weed must be engineered and installed for similar density on our properties, allowing easy connections when we choose to develop and to ensure we do not disturb the new structure next to us.

Giacomo Landi and Elizabeth Fabian, 313 Elm Street
Greg and Liz Moore, 315 Elm Street
Christina and Trevor Bradley, 317 Elm Street
Andrew and Maria Livesay, 339 Elm Street
Irene Barrack, 781 Weed Street