‘Waveny House Committee’ Appointed To Help Determine Future Use of Cherished Public Building

Faced with numerous and expensive baseline repairs that are needed to get Waveny House running as an ADA-compliant public building, town officials on Tuesday appointed a committee that will help determine just how the cherished New Canaan structure should be used. The “Waveny House Committee” is expected to recommend whether the 1912-built home continues to house the Recreation Department, operate more extensively as a paid special events venue, serve as a storage space or perform other functions—a wide range of possibilities that could shape the scope of New Canaan’s capital investment in the facility (more on that below). The committee will consist of Bill Holmes, Suzanne Jonker, Steve Parrett and Penny Young, members of the Board of Selectmen said during their regular meeting, with Recreation Director Steve Benko, Parks & Recreation Commission Chairman Sally Campbell and DPW Buildings Superintendent Bill Oestmann to join at some point. First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said: “There is an attempt to identify some dollars that we can go to the public with over the next two or three years to do an improvement on Waveny House, and we all thought it was important that we just don’t take what is there and redo it, but we should have input as to what the usage should be of that house, how it functions, what the parameters are for the usage of that house.”

The committee is not a “building committee” (which is formed to study, recommend and oversee a specific capital project) and is different from the nonprofit Waveny Park Conservancy, a private group that’s focused on Waveny’s grounds, specifically in the southwest quadrant of the park. Selectman Beth Jones said it was “great to have” Holmes on the committee—he’s a member of the Conservancy, too, as a representative from the New Canaan Preservation Alliance.

‘A Freak Accident’: Glass Pane Shatters on Staircase at Town Hall Over Weekend

A large pane of glass became dislodged from a Town Hall staircase last weekend, shattering in the newly renovated and expanded building for reasons that officials are still trying to determine. The contractor for Town Hall came immediately after First Selectman Rob Mallozzi came upon the disconcerting scene of shattered glass early Monday, and has since replaced the glass—set between the banister and staircase itself, near the second floor—with a fitted piece of plywood. “Until it happened we didn’t know we had a problem,” Mallozzi said. “We had a contractor in that day [Monday] to make the staircase as safe as could be” and a licensed professional set the boards that are now in place, Mallozzi said, adding that the fire marshal inspected the scene and determined the stairwell to be safe. The glass pane itself is under warranty, said Bill Oestmann, superintendent of buildings with the Department of Public Works.

Following Feces Incident, Ongoing Problems, Town Seeks To Install New Security Cameras At Train Station

Following the discovery that at least one individual associated with a local taxi service had been living out of the New Canaan train station, complaints that cab drivers often nap on the benches inside and some rather disgusting vandalism in its bathroom that turned up over the holidays, town officials are seeking state approval to install additional video cameras both inside and outside the facility. The approximately $10,000 camera installation (the MTA already keeps its own cameras on the platform side)—to be paid for out of a fund generated by the $5 parking fees immediately adjacent to the station itself—also would help save time investigating accidents such as when CT Transit buses strike the platform canopies, according to Bill Oestmann, superintendent of buildings with the New Canaan Department of Pubilc Works. “Overall, it is a hard building to manage with so many people in and out, and we need to tighten it up—as we know, with everything going on in the world, security is not a bad thing, and for police to get real-time data from the cameras is good.”

Oestmann said that some time between Christmas and the New Year, a bathroom in the station was vandalized by feces strewn all about it. In other incidents, a friend of a cabbie had been found to be living at the station, and more recently, officials discovered personal belongings stuck into the electrical cabinets on the platform, Oestmann said. Local officials do not have access to the MTA’s cameras on the platform side, and under a new security system—which will include updating locks on the doors—New Canaan police and Oestmann will be able to monitor the goings-on at the station far better, he said.

‘What Do We Want That Building To Be?’: Future Use of Waveny House an Open Question

Waveny House needs so much work to get up to code and operate as a public building that—after baseline repairs are made, such as to its leaky roof—residents must decide just what role the cherished building should play in town, officials say. The Board of Selectmen should establish a committee that looks at Waveny House and answers this basic question, the town’s highest official said Tuesday: “What do we want that building to be?”

“Do we want it to be the offices of [the Recreation Department] and to store stuff?” First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said at the board’s regular monthly meeting, held at Town Hall. “Do we want it to have 150 weddings a year and be a revenue generator?”

The comments came as the selectmen voted 3-0 to approve a $37,500 contract with a White Plains, N.Y.-based architectural firm to prepare for the first phase of capital work at Waveny. The architectural services from KSQ Architects will be based on a 2010 capital facilities plan that encompassed 16 structures in New Canaan (see page 35 of the Executive Summary and page 503 for detailed line items). That plan calls for roof replacement as well as ADA ramps and toilets at Waveny House, a kitchen rebuild and new boiler and piping, among other projects.

‘A Lot of Hooey’: Selectman Pans Those Claiming Town Hall Project Went Over Budget

Though there are whispers around New Canaan that the Town Hall renovation and expansion project went over budget, that’s “a lot of hooey,” Selectman Nick Williams said this week. The $13 million construction project—$18 million with “soft costs” including placement of municipal employees in temporary space—is wrapping up now and nearly all municipal employees with offices there are expected to be moved back in by summer’s end. During Tuesday’s special meeting of the Board of Selectmen, Williams said he’s had some people come up to him asking whether the project stayed on budget, and it is “so I think we just need to make sure we get that out there.”

“People say, ‘Why do you need a new Town Hall? Because it was broken,” Williams said at the meeting, held in the Training Room of the New Canaan Police Department. “And it was a disaster.