Officials soon will plant four sugar maple trees on Farm Road alongside the new addition to Saxe Middle School, an effort to create the feel of a tree-lined neighborhood street.
New trees will be planted between the addition at Saxe and sidewalk, partly to screen equipment on the roof. Credit: Michael Dinan
The 4-inch caliper sugar maples will replace some of the trees that came down on Farm to make way for the new construction at Saxe, according to Tree Warden Bob Horan.
Horan told members of the Board of Selectmen at their most recent meeting that he met with Saxe Building Committee Chairman Penny Rashin and Vice Chairman Jim Beall, and that the trees “will hide the building to some extent especially the equipment up on the roof.”
“And I think it will look nice,” Horan said at the selectmen meeting, held at Town Hall. “It’s a continued effort to make some of these streets look nice.”
Funds for the plantings will come from the Board of Education, Horan said. (The school board signs off on the work though funds come from the town-approved Saxe Building Committee budget, officials said.)
Selectman Nick Williams asked whether the sugar maples are expected to create a “tree screen” on Farm Road.
Horan said: “Yes, they will be planted between the sidewalk and the building and again [they are] nice shade trees, maples [are a] native species.”
No formal vote from the selectmen was needed for the item.
The discussion came after First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Williams voted 3-0 to approve a separate contract with New Canaan-based Mill River Tree Service for various tree pruning and removal jobs around town. (Horan said he is about halfway through the approximately $400,000 budget for that work in the current fiscal year.)
In that other work, Horan said, a sugar maple tree will be planted on the traffic triangle at Canoe Hill and Brushy Ridge Roads. An existing old tree that is decaying will come down and the sugar maple will be planted in the center of the grassy traffic triangle, he said.
Asked by Williams whether the new planting required Police Commission approval as a matter of traffic safety, Horan said he takes sight lines into consideration when planning for such intersections.