Government

Town Ups Contract with Provider After Rise in Bench Donations

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Town officials say that New Canaan is seeing an unusually high number of requests from residents who purchase honorific or memorial benches dedicated to loved ones. Typically, the Department of Public Works receives donations from locals who purchase benches and then the town itself assembles and places them in a location that makes sense—for example, in a park. This year, “we’ve actually had more than we normally have,” according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. The benches in public places—which are consistent throughout New Canaan, following a Parks & Recreation Commission initiative in 2018—cost about $1,700 each and are purchased through a Gaithersburg, Md.-based company called Country Casual Teak, Mann told members of the Board of Selectmen at their April 15 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. Normally, the town’s highest elected official, First Selectman Dionna Carlson, approves the purchases herself because the total comes to less than $10,000.

Around Town

‘A Perfect Tribute’: Community Dedicates ‘Linda Andros Day’ at New Canaan Nature Center

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During her many years on the New Canaan Nature Center Board of Trustees—eight in all, including five as president—Linda Andros puzzled over what to do with the abandoned “Audubon House” structure near the Visitors Center. An original building on the well-loved Oenoke Ridge property, the Audubon House was demolished one week ago, thanks to the New Canaan Department of Public Works—something that Andros would have appreciated, according to Nature Center Executive Director Bill Flynn. “Our idea to rejuvenate this area, it being the Audubon House, was to make this a celebration to birds and bird-watching and make it a native pollinator sanctuary,” Flynn told 50 people gathered Tuesday afternoon at the Nature Center on a clear, sunny day. “And that was something we had an idea before the building was coming down.”

Next to Flynn stood a young Winter Hawthorn tree donated by Copia Home & Garden and planted in honor and memory of Andros, a lover of nature, plants and animals. She died Dec.

Amy Murphy Carroll

Pedestrian Railing Coming to Front of Playhouse To Help with Tripping Issue

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Because visitors to The Playhouse have had problems tripping off of the small concrete platform right out front, the town is planning to install a railing at the platform’s edge. The hope is that the railing will serve as a visual demarcation between the concrete and brick sidewalk below, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. The railing itself also will be required by code with a new pedestrian ramp that’s going in on the right-hand side of the building, Mann said. “We’re still having issues with some residents not navigating from the platform down to the brick sidewalk,” Mann told members of the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting, held Tuesday at Town Hall and via videoconference. “They’re not able to understand from the concrete to the brick.

Government

Town To Charge for Parking on Elm While Making ‘Park Street Lot’ Free

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Reversing a decades-old system, town officials are planning to charge for parking in the heart of downtown New Canaan while creating free spaces just off of the main drag. Making good on a proposal she made public nearly one year ago, First Selectman Dionna Carlson said the town is planning to create 75 paid parking spaces on the one-way stretch of Elm Street while offering the 100 spaces in Park Street for free. “ It’s a more economic way to do parking,” Carlson told NewCanaanite.com in an interview. “We currently—and I’ve said this multiple times, we currently charge for our least valuable parking, and we give away our most valuable parking for free. And we are creating congestion on Elm Street that people have written to me about, with people circling for free parking.”

The Board of Finance on Tuesday voted unanimously in favor of a bond issuance including $91,000 “for the acquisition of parking pay machines for Elm Street and South Avenue.”

Those funds will be used to purchase nine solar-powered parking machines similar to those already in paid lots such as Morse Court and Playhouse Lot.

Government

Affordable Housing: New Judge on Hill Street Appeal

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The state Superior Court judge assigned to the closely followed affordable housing appeal at Weed and Elm Streets recently was assigned a criminal case that has pushed back the New Canaan decision a further month, officials say. The parties in the case—the town and developer Arnold Karp—had been expecting to get a decision this week from Judge Edward O’Hanlan on the proposed 120-unit development at 751 Weed St. but “it has now been delayed till May 7th,” according to First Selectman Dionna Carlson. “The judge on this case was assigned a criminal case, and so he’s even more backlogged,” Carlson told members of the Board of Finance during their regular meeting Tuesday night. In fact, Carlson said, O’Hanlan got so backed up that the state assigned another affordable housing appeal—a 93-unit development proposed for Hill Street—to a different judge, Carlson said.