The repaving of Farm Road from South Avenue to Old Stamford Road will be completed by mid-November and state roads including Old Stamford Road and South Avenue will be have temporary patches removed and permanent patches installed in the next few weeks, town officials said Monday night.
South School and Saxe Middle School already have been connected to the new natural gas lines, and Eversource will have connected the natural gas lines to New Canaan High School by Wednesday, according to Cristina A. Ross, co-chair of the Town Council’s Infrastructure and Utilities Committee. East School is hopefully to be completed by year’s end, she said.
Also, Eversource has received 200 service requests from residents seeking to hook up to natural gas and the town has received over 50 applications for permits to do so, Ross said during the Committee’s regular meeting.
The utility company is planning a three-year installation period, from 2019 to 2021, she said, with roads repaved in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
The next window to tap into the gas line will be in the years 2024 and 2025, Ross said at the meeting, held at Town Hall. “There will be a moratorium” of two years following the opportunity to tap into the natural gas lines now, she said.
Here’s an updated construction timetable from Eversource:
Construction Schedule
| Street | Start | Finish |
|---|---|---|
| Harrison Avenue | Oct. 11 | Oct. 16 |
| Oak Street to Main Street | Oct. 11 | Oct. 31 |
| South Avenue—South School | Oct. 13 | Oct. 16 |
| Gower Road/Southwood Drive | Oct. 17 | Oct. 25 |
| Old Stamford Road | Oct. 29 | Nov. 13 |
| South Avenue | Nov. 14 | Nov. 20 |
Penny Young, the other co-chair of the Committee, noted how disruptive the road works that have attended the gas line installation have been and questioned why the utility company didn’t “just put a lead into every single house.”
“You know what is going to happen? You will have an owner of a house say he didn’t want to do it because he didn’t want to pay for it, and then he is going to sell his house and the new owner will want to do it so they will dig up the road,” Young said.
Ross said that perhaps a “charge-back or some sort of fee” could be assessed to those tapping into the gas line after their road has been repaved.
First Selectman Kevin Moynihan, a guest at the meeting, said he’s heard the value of a home “goes down by $10,000 if you have not hooked up to gas.”
He added that Eversource’s progress among New Canaan homeowners is on track, as the “target market” for the first phase of its natural gas installation is 650 total houses.
“They are where they want to be,” Moynihan said.