As the school year winds down—New Canaan High School graduation will be held at 5 p.m. Tuesday at Dunning Field—and coyote sightings continue into June, we watched our youth baseball teams this week begin wrapping up their spring seasons (including some titles won) and the town turn attention to matters such as single-stream recycling, affordable housing, land use and capital projects. We also saw Karl Chevrolet team up with Splash Car Wash to give away a 2014 Stingray Saturday to one very surprised and excited-looking winner. Here’s the Week in Review.
Town Talker
With the Plan of Conservation and Development all but in hand, many New Canaanites are focused now on the several major guiding principles for the town’s future that it addresses: housing, traffic, parking, the downtown and open space among them.
Millport Apartments (the rebuilt section). Credit: Michael Dinan
Affordable housing has emerged as one focal point in the discussion, and in particular the way that New Canaan will address—in both the short and long terms—a potential problem in coming up short of a state guideline whereby 10 percent of the housing stock in each Connecticut municipality should qualify as “affordable.”
New Canaan is about one-quarter of the way there and some who run the town doubt it will ever get all the way to 10 percent. That potentially is a problem, since for towns that don’t meet the standard, developers seeking to get around local planning officials who turn down their applications may appeal to a state law that allows them to push a site plan through so long as in a proposed development, a certain percentage of units are designated affordable.
In the meantime, should a proposed housing expansion opposite Mill Pond go through (it’s on the Town Council’s agenda for Wednesday), New Canaan may qualify for a short-term (three-year) exemption from the law.
Town Coffers
This summer may see public works officials pursue a plan that would bring money into New Canaan’s General Fund by “screening” to a higher quality the organic material dredged from Mill and Mead Ponds (now sitting in a remote corner of Waveny).
The corn field at Waveny is where town officials are keeping the organic dredged material from Mead and Mill Ponds. Credit: Michael Dinan
It isn’t clear yet just how much of the dredged material is right for selling or whether the cost of screening will yield a viable return for New Canaan, but our DPW leaders are looking into it.
Meanwhile, parks officials say they’re pleased with the lower-than-budgeted bids coming in for a widely anticipated expansion and resurfacing at the NCHS tennis courts. The post-tensioned concrete surface is a long-term solution for tennis courts that get plenty of use and sometimes crack and bubble. A seventh court is planned and that project, approved for the next fiscal year, could be finished by the end of September.
Town resident Mariola Galavis at School of Rock New Canaan. She bough the business in May 2014, and took over operations June 1. Credit: Michael Dinan
Business profiles
We had a chance this week to catch up with two locals who own businesses nearly directly opposite each other on Grove Street.
New Canaan’s Mariola Galavis has purchased and is now running day-to-day School of Rock New Canaan—a program that, you will see, has meant a lot to Venezuela-born Galavis (in a recent former life, a management consultant internationally) and her family.
Thomas Throop, a furniture maker and designer who owns Black Creek Designs on Grove Street, here at his studio with a sculpture he’s been playing with. Credit: Michael Dinan
And we met 1982 NCHS grad Thomas Throop, a furniture maker and designer at Black Creek Designs who identified and pursued his vocation steadily after taking an undergraduate degree in economics.
Land Use
The New Canaan Garden Club is eyeing some tree replacements at Irwin Park as part of its never-ending pursuit of beautifying our town (often through our parks), while we learned of plans for new construction on opposite ends of town and watched one new house fetch $3.75 million.
Coming Up
On Thursday (5 to 7 p.m.), the School of Rock will hold its first-ever Rock Off Party at Outback. More details here.
The Pop Up Park on a recent weekend. It’s open Friday evening through Sunday evening, all summer long, on South Avenue between Morse Court and Elm Street. Who remembers the old Sweet Shoppe? Credit: Terry Dinan
The United States enters World Cup 2014 with its debut match Monday against Ghana, and this weekend, the Pop Up Park downtown will transform into World Cup central for the 6 p.m. Saturday showdown versus Portugal. Organizers for both Saturday and Sunday are setting up three large-screen TVs, will have a tent overhead in case of rain and plan to offer soccer-themed games and amenities. A screening of “Air Bud: World Pup” will follow Saturday’s match. Here’s a Q&A with some of the people behind this effort.
Public Safety
Finally, New Canaan police reported this week that four motorists recently had been fined for passing stopped school buses in town—including three at nearly the same location.
Police arrested a former Stamford cop for impersonating an officer, and also fielded complaints about IRS-related scams and vandalism (a man’s propane gas line for the grill was cut).