Government

‘It Seems Like It’s Overkill’: P&Z Denies Application for Tall Pillars and Gate Proposed for Jonathan Road Driveway

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Calling the taller-than-allowed pillars and gate proposed for a second entrance to a home in northern New Canaan excessive, planning officials on Tuesday night rejected a homeowner’s application to install them. The Planning & Zoning Commission voted 7-2 to deny an application to allow 6-foot-high pillars and a slightly smaller gate at 76 Jonathan Road. That property had been purchased (the ranch-style home there razed) and combined earlier this year with 65 Barnegat Road, now a 9.2-acre parcel whose main driveway already has a similar set-up. Making the two entrances match is a major reason for the property owners’ application, according to the attorney who represented them at P&Z’s regularly monthly meeting, held in Town Hall. Yet there’s “no reason for it,” commissioner John Flinn said by way of making a motion to deny the application (P&Z members Dick Ward and Claire Tiscornia cast dissenting votes).

Government

‘I’m Just Worried About the Scale’: P&Z Raises Concerns About Proposed Mixed-Use Building on Park Street

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Though a proposed new mixed-use building on Park Street meets New Canaan’s development guidelines generally in terms of planning for housing and streetscapes, it could dramatically alter an important vista downtown if it’s located too close to the road, officials say. Replacing the small 1.5-story house at 121 Park St. with a two-story retail-and-residential structure that sits just five feet off of the sidewalk may not work “if you look at any context of the elevation looking down that street,” according to Planning & Zoning Commissioner Dan Radman, an architect. “All of us drive down that street multiple times a day—you are going to have a 2.5-story structure right at the corner of that transformer, looming over Park Street,” Radman said during the group’s regular monthly meeting, held March 29 at Town Hall. “That creates a condition going southbound on Park Street which has a very will create a very large impression on the street, in particular because you have a got a new structure existing past [Mrs. Green’s] by about eight or 10 feet.

Government

‘There Will Be Considerably Greater Loom’: Oak Street Neighbor Raises Concerns About Rebuilding Plan

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Town officials postponed a decision on an Oak Street property owner’s application to rebuild a two-story home after next-door neighbors raised concerns about how the proposed new structure would loom over their house. Though a proposed two-family home at 50-52 Oak St. would be only “marginally taller than what is already there, it will be far closer to our property and therefore, there will be considerably greater loom,” Paul Crowley of 64 Oak St.—a Colonial that originally dates back to 1934, what scores of New Canaanites had come to know as Archie Stewart’s house at the corner of Green Avenue—told members of the Planning & Zoning Commission at their most recent regular meeting. “The people in this residence will have stadium seats, looking into my backyard and it will also block out late afternoon light,” Crowley said at the meeting, held March 29 at Town Hall. A proposal calls for special permit to create what would be a more conforming structure on the .29-acre parcel at 50-52 Oak St.

Business

Officials ‘OK’ White—Not Red—Verizon Sign on Elm Street

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Calling the Verizon ‘checkmark’ a logo and saying a proposed sign with a red background would be incongruous with the rest of the street, town officials recently approved a new sign for the company’s location at 139 Elm St. The Planning and Zoning Commission is asking Verizon to remove a second, similar-looking sign that now stands in the window of the downtown business and to create a white sign with red lettering rather than the inverse. Verizon has already lowered its awning to make room for a mounted sign and the proposed would sign would blend in better with the row of businesses there, “rather than a 12-foot wide swath of red background,” P&Z Commissioner Dan Radman said at the group’s Aug. 25 meeting. “It will be a little more in keeping with street elevation right there,” Radman said at the meeting, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center.

Government

Hopeful Post Office Developer Acquires More Land for Parking

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Weeks after putting in for permits that would allow them to create a new building on Locust Avenue that would house New Canaan’s new Post Office, the property’s owners said Tuesday night that they’ve acquired an abutting parcel of land to be used for additional parking. The acquisition of a portion of the .43-acre lot at 56 Forest St.—a 3,000-square-foot sliver that is, in fact, zoned for commercial use—will allow the hopeful Post Office developers to create an additional eight or nine parking spaces behind 18-26 Locust Ave. and “make the site work much better,” attorney Michael Sweeney of Stamford-based Carmody Torrance Sandak & Hennessey LLP told the Planning & Zoning Commission at its regular meeting. “The good news, and kind of rare news, is that we have had excellent pre-application discussions with the Parking Commission,” Sweeney told P&Z at the meeting, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. “They have given us suggestions along the way, and the latest feedback we have had with them is with the additional parking, they are very pleased with way layout seems to be coming to the fore.”

Plans call for a two-story brick, cupola-topped, Federal-style structure with a total of 8,220 square feet and office space on the second floor.