Canaan Parish

Officials Cut Ribbon on New Building at Canaan Parish

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The NewCanaanite.com Summer Internship Program is sponsored by Carriage Barn Arts Center. Town and state officials on Tuesday cut the ribbon on a newly constructed affordable housing building at Route 123 and Lakeview Avenue. The 40-unit Canaan Parish apartment complex—a joint effort of the town (which owns the land), New Canaan Neighborhoods, Inc. (which owns the building) and developer Heritage Housing, Inc.—represents “phase 2” of a lengthy $46 million remodeling at the town-owned property, the first half of which was completed in 2021. 

New Canaan Housing Authority Chair Scott Hobbs told the 50-plus attendees at the ribbon-cutting ceremony that he’d hoped in the past the new building would help address some of the affordable housing issues the town has faced in recent years. However, during his address, Hobbs said that was no longer the case. “I do feel compelled to discuss what I consider to be an injustice,” he said.

News

Resident Raises Traffic Safety Concerns on Hoyt, Main and Cherry Streets

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A prominent local resident this month raised traffic safety concerns to members of New Canaan’s local on-street parking authority. Though parking currently is allowed on both sides of Hoyt Street, the vehicles on both sides of the road could make it difficult for a large emergency response vehicle to get to residents in need, according to longtime New Canaanite Christine Hussey. “People are parking on both sides, and if you are having a heart attack or a stroke or if you’re having a baby, and you need the ambulance—God forbid you need a firetruck—there is no way that vehicle is going to be able to pass,” Hussey told the Police Commission at its Nov. 16 meeting, held at New Canaan Police Department headquarters and via videoconference. “And I’m saying I think it would be very wise and prudent of us to allow parking on one side, maybe as you are going up to Main, on the right side, because if they park on the left side, they park right on the curb, and that makes it difficult if you are coming from East Avenue and it’s a big car and you’re not in a big car, you come around there’s someone coming right at you,” she said.

Around Town

‘We Feel Really Good’: Officials Cut Ribbon on Rebuilt ‘Canaan Parish’ Housing Complex [PHOTOS]

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Officials on Tuesday held a ceremony to mark the opening of the rebuilt housing complex at Route 123 and Lakeview Avenue, part of a larger project that also will see a new structure on the site. Residents of the 60 units at the rebuilt complex started moving into the new building Monday, following issuance of a temporary Certificate of Occupancy, according to New Canaan Housing Authority Chair Scott Hobbs. “We feel really good about the outcome,” Hobbs said Tuesday prior to a formal ribbon-cutting at the new building. Despite COVID- and budget-related holdups, “we are relatively on schedule from where we started,” Hobbs said. “We are extremely happy about the finished product and believe that we have created an exceptional structure for our client/tenant occupants,” he said.

News

‘I Do Not Understand’: Citing Coach’s Drug Arrest, Resident Seeks Info from Board of Ed on Allowing Police K-9 Dog in NCHS

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Citing the recent arrest of a New Canaan High School coach after authorities found him to be in possession of 20 bags of heroin, a prominent resident on Monday night urged district officials to rethink their policy on K-9 sweeps at the Farm Road building. Chris Hussey told members of the Board of Education at their regular meeting (see video above at 2:30) that she learned about one year ago that in order for the New Canaan Police Department’s K-9 dog to come to the school, “they had to give the school notification.”

“I said I didn’t understand that,” Hussey said at the school board meeting, held in the Wagner Room at NCHS. “The idea, I would think, is surprise. He [Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi] was going to speak to the chief and get back to me. We never got together.

Government

‘Like It’s Indianapolis’: On Forest, a Call to Change On-Street Parking for Safety’s Sake

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Saying motorists take Forest Street “like it’s Indianapolis,” a New Canaan resident is calling on town officials to re-jigger parking so that cars pulling out of driveways there can safely enter the roadway. On-street parking on Forest currently is allowed to about number 54—the last residence on the west side of the street before the vacant Bank of America building, as zipping motorists travel south, Chris Hussey told the Police Commission at the group’s most recent meeting. When those parked cars are SUVs, “if you are coming out of that driveway—and there are two driveways, three buildings with four families in them—you cannot see,” Hussey said at the group’s May 20 meeting, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department. “It is a blind spot, and you are coming out and you are the driver and they are they are coming down Forest Street like it’s Indianapolis, and by time you get out, they are there on top of you. And what I had suggested and hoped they would do at some point was to push the parking back, maybe not even not quite to Hillside Avenue—because there’s a condo complex there on the right, Forest Knoll—but maybe to that driveway, just so you have an opportunity to come out and see who is there.