Government

Parks Officials To Vote on Shifting Oversight of ‘Bristow Bird Sanctuary’ to Town’s Conservation Commission

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Municipal officials are expected Wednesday to recommend transferring responsibility of a wooded town-owned parcel adjoining Mead Park to the Conservation Commission. Enjoyed by neighborhood residents, nature-lovers and leashed-dog walkers, the “Bristow Bird Sanctuary” off of Old Stamford Road long has been under the purview of the New Canaan Parks & Recreation Commission. 

Yet the town’s Conservation Commission “has forestry professionals on the board and they know more about how to handle and manage a sanctuary than we do,” Parks & Rec Commissioner Francesca Segalas said at the group’s most recent meeting. “Plus we haven’t been able to get funds approved for various things we have asked for so we are hoping that in another entity’s hands that it will get the good care and love that it deserves,” Segalas said at the meeting, held Sept. 11 at Lapham Community Center. 

The Commission is scheduled to take up a vote during its regular meeting, to be held at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 10, to transfer responsibility of the park.

News

Op-Ed: Celebrating Bristow Bird Sanctuary and Wildwood Preserve

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My wife Joan and I have lived in this extraordinary town of New Canaan for 50 years. I am, like my father before me, a dedicated birder. I guess you could say I was born a birder, since my very earliest memory was my dad entering the bedroom I shared with my older brother, whispering in my ear at 5:15 a.m. on a lovely spring morning saying, “Come on Philly, wake up, the day’s a wasting, and you and I are going birding.” Off we would go, me perched high up on his shoulders, into the woods that surrounded our neighborhood. 

The instructions were always the same and quite simple—no whining, we are going to have fun today, no noise, just look and listen as I point out all the magnificent birds of the forest. All the songbirds and yes, their predators too, the hawks and owls and other birds of prey. He would suddenly stop—pull on my right leg and and whisper, “Listen up: that’s a Rose Breasted Grosbeak and over there is a Veery.” Then a pull on the left leg as he excitedly exclaimed, “Oh, there’s a Wood Thrush and look at that Pileated Woodpecker!”

From these earliest experiences you can see that I became hooked on birding.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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The Planning & Zoning Commission on Tuesday night unanimously approved a special permit application that Silver Hill Hospital filed more than two years ago in order to use a home at 225 Valley Road as a residential medical treatment facility. The approval follows months of discussion between the psychiatric hospital and neighbors, as well as a legal dispute with the town, and comes with a set of five conditions agreed upon by Silver Hill and a neighborhood group, and seven additional conditions between the institution and one contiguous neighbor. ***

An out-of-state property preservation and maintenance company appears to have winterized the long-vacant, antique home at 4 Main St. Historic District officials have expressed concern that the 1870-built Greek Revival-style house on God’s Acre could be a case of “demolition by neglect” and invoked the prospect of a blight citation there. In July, a civil court issued a judgment of foreclosure by sale on the property, according to records on file with the Connecticut Judicial Branch.

Government

Attorney: No Legal Problem with Dogs at Bristow

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Bristow Bird Sanctuary is a public park and there’s nothing in its original deed to say dogs aren’t allowed on the property, according to an attorney whose legal opinion on the matter had been sought by town officials. Leashed dogs have been walked in the park since at least 1999 and a legal review of several documents—deeds, studies, annual reports, announcements—yields “insufficient documentation to reach a conclusion regarding the intent of the Grantor and whether the covenants were intended to restrict dogs,” according to Gail Kelly of Westport-based Berchem, Moses & Devlin. “There is nothing in the 1934 Deed to suggest that dogs are not allowed with the Bird Sanctuary,” Kelly said in a memo (embedded below as a PDF) addressed to Town Council Vice Chair Steve Karl, head of the group’s Bylaws & Ordinances Subcommittee. The Town Council had sought the legal opinion following a public hearing on the matter, which saw residents on both sides of the issue make impassioned pleas to the legislative body. The 17-acre Bristow Bird Sanctuary is located off of adjoins Mead Park.

Government

Banning Dogs from Bristow: Town Council To Seek Legal Opinion on 1934 Deed

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Faced with a renewed effort to ban dogs from a wooded 17-acre property that adjoins Mead Park, officials said Wednesday night that they will seek a legal opinion to help interpret an 81-year-old deed that restricts its use. Town Council members said during a special meeting that more investigation is needed to determine whether, taken together, two restrictions in the deed for the 17-acre parcel known as ‘Bristow Bird Sanctuary’ amount to a ban even on leashed dogs. While the deed says that Bristow “shall be forever maintained as a Bird Sanctuary and Wildwood Preserve, and used for no other purpose whatsoever,” it also specifies “that the public shall enjoy the free use of the property consistent with the purpose described in these conditions.”

“I am not sure dog-walking is not consistent with a ‘free use of the property,’ ” Councilman Kevin Moynihan, a lawyer, said during the meeting, held in the Community Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. Town Council Chairman Bill Walbert agreed, saying of the condition cited by Moynihan: “That statement creates more gray than just the initial look at the deed.”

“As a layman reads the deed, it’s hard not to say, ‘No dogs.’ And it’s hard as a legislative body to ignore the rules. But we are layman reading this deed.