Government

Second Violation on West Road: Pond’s Vegetation Cleared without Permissions

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Town officials say they need a more detailed landscaping plan for a West Road property after discovering recently that vegetation around a pond had been removed without permissions—the second time that Inland Wetlands violations had been found on the 5.57-acre parcel. Michael Platt, assistant manager of the property at 559 West Road, told the Inland Wetlands Commission at its meeting on Monday night that he thought it was OK to remove what he called small forsythia and other bushes from around the pond that had dried out and died. Platt said his plan had been to replant the area and he realized after speaking to municipal workers that he “should not have done that.”

“So I do apologize,” Platt said during a public hearing, held in the Town Hall Meeting Room. “It was kind of a new ambition in the new job to try and remove the dead plants and foliage and put in new stuff.”

He added that he thought because the pond was manmade, it may be exempt from the regulations—it is not, as bodies of water “natural or artificial” are defined as watercourses under the Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Regulations (see page 7 here). Commissioners raised the prospect of fining the property’s owners—a suggestion that the staff members who make such decisions said they would take under advisement.

Government

Report Questions Proposed 15,000-S.F. Manmade Pond on Weed; Public Hearing Set for April 27

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A peer review of a dramatic plan to landscape extensively a Weed Street property is raising questions about a proposed 15,000-square-foot manmade pond. The review, from Riverside-based D’Andrea Surveying & Engineering, focuses on site development and drainage management plans at 384 and 386 Weed St., a combined 7-acre parcel. “What is the purpose of the pond and the justification for having to significantly alter over 50,000 square feet of wooded, moderate to steep slopes in order to create the 15,000-square-foot artificial pond?” Leonard D’Andrea writes in the peer review. “There is very little design information provided for the proper construction of an artificial pond with an area of moderate slopes and below an area of steep slopes. The pond would contain about 5 feet of water.

Government

‘A True Town Treasure’: New Canaan Pays Tribute to Dr. Sven Englund, 93, for Contributions on Inland Wetlands Commission

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New Canaan landscape architect Keith Simpson can remember his very first appearance before the newly formed New Canaan Inland Wetlands Commission in 1988—for a subdivision on Seminary Street known at the time as the “Bryant-Kellogg subdivision.”

It required blasting out about 30 or 40 feet of rock to get through into what we know today as Scofield Lane—and in the 26 years since, Simpson and scores of fellow architects as well as residents, lawyers, soil experts and other professionals as they’ve sought approvals for sensitive projects have depended, among others, on one consistent figure on the commission: Dr. Sven Englund. “He’s a brilliant engineer and we all benefitted from his knowledge and understanding of engineering and science—he was a tremendous help to other commissioners,” Simpson said Monday night from the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center, where nearly 40 locals gathered to honor Dr. Sven Englund for his decades of service on the commission. “I think he and other commissioners have been very good about striking a balance between making sure the wetlands are protected and allowing property owners to have a reasonable exercise of their rights as property owners, but doing the job which state statutes really require, which is to protect the wetlands,” Simpson said. “There are sometimes when you have to come close to wetlands and sometimes you have to cross them and if you do it in a responsible way then it’s fair and things don’t get damaged long-term.”

During a celebration of the 93-year-old’s work—which in truth goes back to the early-1970s, as a member of the then-Environmental Commission, family members say, a predecessor to Inland Wetlands—current commission Chairman Daniel Stepanek presented Dr. Sven Englund with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Connecticut Association of Conservation and Inland Wetlands Commissions, First Selectman Rob Mallozzi and Selectman Beth Jones read a proclamation declaring Dec. 15 ‘Dr. Sven Englund Day in New Canaan,’ and Stepanek, Simpson, Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Director Kathleen Holland, son Sven Englund and others offered words of gratitude to a man that Mallozzi called “a town treasure.”

A retired chemical engineer and father of two, prominent member of the United Methodist Church and choir who also has belonged for years to the New Canaan Senior Men’s Club, Dr. Sven Englund announced in October that he was stepping down from the commission.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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Dr. Sven Englund, 93, received a standing ovation at the October 20 meeting of the Inland Wetlands Commission after it was announced by Chairman Daniel Stepanek that the longtime commissioner and former chair would step down from the post after more than 30 years. “From the bottom of our hearts, I want to thank you very much and everyone else does too,” Stepanek said during impromptu remarks following roll call. Englund described his time on the commission as “in many ways very rewarding, very exciting, very interesting.”

“And unfortunately I’m getting a little older than I used to be,” he told more than a dozen attendees, most of them on hand for the Weed Street subdivision/driveway item. “I’m 93 years old, I move a little slower and I think it’s time to begin back away from some of the commissions that I am a member of, so I will say it’s been a very interesting time, I’ve met a lot of interesting people, the members of the commission have always been interesting, thoughtful and when they joined they’ve been neophytes but they learned their lessons rather quickly and everybody has done a wonderful job.”

Stepanek said celebrations marking Englund’s tenure and contributions are planned for December. ***

Clients of the New Canaan Food Pantry are doubly fortunate this growing season for the generosity of Lexi Gazy and the Farmers Market for the produce they’re donating to the pantry: Word is that groundhogs this summer got into the wonderful Gospel Garden right there at St.