Of about 120 non-New Canaan families that held passes to the Steve Benko Pool last year, 92 have said they want to come back for this season, parks officials say.
Thrown into a lottery with hundreds of other non-resident families in years past, the town this year is offering “right of first refusal” to out-of-towners who want to return to the popular facility in Waveny.
“We did give the option for out-of-town members to re-sign up so that they wouldn’t have to go into the lottery, so that if they make friends they’d be able to still come, and we had 92 families that wanted to come back,” according to Parks & Recreation Director John Howe.
The town has always capped the number of nonresident families allowed to purchase the passes, which are far more expensive (up to $1,450 per season this year) than for New Canaanites ($455 as of 2020).
While the town can accommodate the 92 returning out-of-town families, it can’t take “the other 300 families” from surrounding towns such as Darien who want to use the Steve Benko Pool, Howe told members of the Parks & Rec Commission at their most recent meeting.
“That would be too much,” he said at the March 11 meeting, held at Lapham Center and via videoconference.. “We don’t want to make it a pool where it’s always so packed you can’t move. We’ve never had problems with the pool being overloaded, crowded. But it wouldn’t take much to get to that, that perfect weekend day. We don’t want to be limiting people at the gate.”
The comments came during Howe’s monthly update to the appointed body.
Howe had signaled last fall that he was looking to change the lottery system in a way that made more sense for nonresident families.
Each year, the town issues about 125 to 140 total nonresident family passes to the pool. The remainder of passes available this season will be awarded via a lottery in May (registration is open through April 30).