Government

Long Involved in Bitter Dispute with Frogtown Road Nursery, Neighbors Now Point Fingers at the Town

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Three contiguous homeowners on Frogtown Road, involved for months in a bitter land use dispute with the commercial nursery next door, now are saying in a formal letter to the town that municipal officials have failed to address adequately their several concerns. The owners of 313, 321 and 323 Frogtown Road say in an Aug. 11 letter that “New Canaan has failed to take action on Twin Ponds Nursery (also known as The Frogtown Nurseries and formerly known as Kimberley Farm Nurseries) located at 259 Frogtown Road.”

Specifically, the homeowners say, town officials have found no resolution to their complaints about the “nonconforming use” of their residential properties, lodged since last fall. The neighbors complaints include claims that: the nursery had been storing harmful chemicals including some containing hydrochloric acid; there’s no building permit of Certificate of Occupancy on file anywhere for some structures on nursery premises; no permit exists for a dumpster on the commercial property; there are potential wetlands violations; an irrigation system and deer fence encroach on their residential properties and represent nonconforming uses. The formal letter is the latest in a dispute involving neighbors whose properties ring the western end of the nursery.

Around Town

‘Hot-In-Place Asphalt Recycling’: Eco-Friendly Re-Paving of Carter, Silvermine [VIDEO]

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asphalt recycling carter street 7 8 16
Uploaded by Michael Dinan on 2016-07-11. Using a new, energy- and cost-saving technology, workers hired by the town last week re-paved all of Silvermine Road and Carter Street. The method (see video above)—called ‘hot-in-place asphalt recycling’—sees heavy equipment traverse an existing road, heating it up, milling it, scraping it up and pulling the material into a “pug mill,” then adding a rejuvenating agent and paving the very same asphalt out the backside of the large vehicle, according to Tiger Mann, assistant director of the New Canaan Department of Public Works. “It takes out cracks and anomalies but you don’t have to mill and take it away and bring it back, so it is very much environmentally friendly in that regard and there’s a very large cost-savings,” Mann said. Performed by Brewster, N.Y.-based Highway Rehab Corp., the work cost about $400,000 for the two roads—paid out of the approximately $2.5 million that New Canaan allocates each year to road maintenance.