News

With Success, Pop-Up Park Reaches Crossroads; Organizers Ask: Where Do We Go from Here?

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Launched on a test basis in the summer of 2012 and evolving each year since into a more regular fixture downtown, the Pop-Up Park at South and Elm—host to activities year-round including World Cup Weekend, family gatherings, outdoor concerts and showcases for local eateries—has garnered positive feedback from residents, businesses and town officials. On Wednesday night, the architects and volunteers who organize the popular park—noting that the labor required to set up and break down each summer weekend is not feasible long-term—turned to town planning officials for direction on whether the Pop-Up Park should become a summer-only, more frequent or even permanent feature of downtown New Canaan. “The original concept was, ‘Let’s try it and see if it works,’ ” Pop-Up Park Committee member Arnold Karp said at a special meeting of the Plan Implementation Committee, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department. “I think we’ve had three seasons to really test it out. It does work, so where do we take it from here?

Government

Antique Gates OK’d for Entrance to Former Huguette Clark Property

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A set of antique, wrought iron gates may soon grace the entrance to the famed former Huguette Clark estate in New Canaan. Saying the uniquely large size of the 52-acre lot and fact that the gates themselves are to be set back a good 75 feet from the road at 104 Dan’s Highway (well out of the front yard building setback), planning officials on Monday night approved an application for a Special Permit allowing the gates, which otherwise would be too high, under New Canaan’s Zoning Regulations. Local landscape architect Keith Simpson, in presenting to the Planning & Zoning Commission, said part of the work going on at the property—which includes a 1937 mansion undergoing a complete interior renovation—is restoring that main house and part is to “enhance the property in a responsible way” with “a request that we replace the current gates which are certainly failing and replace with some gates that owner have found.”

The gates are nearly nine feet tall and are translucent, so they do not obstruct a view of the property from the road, Simpson said. The gates are “simpler” than some on the west side of town that Simpson cited, saying at the hearing, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center, that he was “hoping the commission may consider the scale of the property and the sort of simple-ness and attractiveness of gates may be something suitable for a Special Permit.”

It isn’t clear whether the gates actually will be added to the property, since the owner of the estate—it was sold in April for $14.3 million and the new owners quickly moved to dissolve an approved 10-lot subdivision of the lot—has not yet purchased them, Simpson said. “The owner would like to buy them before someone else does,” he told P&Z.

News

Town Approves Two-Lot Subdivision of 4.76-Acre, Wooded Parcel on Hill Street

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On conditions that one of the two homes planned for a thickly wooded property near Route 123 shift away from neighbors and that vegetation now screening those neighbors remains as a buffer, town planning officials last week approved the two-lot subdivision of a sloping 4.76-acre parcel on Hill Street. Early-stage plans call for two homes on “Lot 72” of Hill Street, a windy road of 10 modest houses and condos that runs just above and roughly parallel to Route 123 for about 500 feet. It dumps into Brushy Ridge Road. The short segment of Hill Street that gives access to the oversized parcel known as “Lot 72” is wedged between numbers 11 and 37 and includes wetlands almost immediately off the street. Officials this summer approved a driveway across those wetlands, though representatives for neighbors objected to the overall plan, saying new construction would exacerbate runoff, lower property values and do little for the area’s aesthetics.

Government

New Canaan Y Expansion Approved on Conditions of BOE Vote, Membership Reports

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Saying school officials must formally vote on whether or not to lend a strip of Saxe property for large vehicles accessing a proposed construction site behind the New Canaan YMCA, the Planning and Zoning Commission on Tuesday approved the Y’s application for a special permit to expand. Forcing the Board of Education to take a definitive stance is one of 33 conditions that P&Z imposed on the closely monitored expansion project. “I have a lot of good friends on the Board of Education, but quite frankly they took the easy way out by narrowly defining what their mission is in this town,” P&Z member John Goodwin said at Tuesday’s meeting, held before about 40 people gathered in the Sturgess Room of the New Canaan Nature Center’s Visitors Center. “The YMCA provides a good number of educational programs, just like education system does. It’s been very clearly stated that, effectively, the YMCA is an extension of the school system—at a minimum, because they provide a venue for our swim meets.