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P&Z To Prioritize Affordable Housing in New Canaan

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Faced with the prospect of new state laws designed to increase the amount of affordable housing in towns such as New Canaan, the Planning & Zoning Commission should proactively focus now on boosting the number of units available to low-income families here, including through updates to its regulations, the appointed body’s chair said last week. Though New Canaan already actively supports the creation of more affordable units—such as through a long-established fund that collects fees from building permit applicants and redevelopment projects that add dozens of new apartments here—P&Z should consider doing even more, especially as some in the General Assembly seek to have the state take over certain zoning powers to redress what they describe as “segregation” in affordable housing, according to the Commission’s chair, John Goodwin. “I think we do need as a Commission—and this is just me as one commissioner talking right now—I think we do need to take a more immediate focus on increasing affordable housing in New Canaan,” Goodwin said during P&Z’s regular meeting, held Jan. 26 via videoconference. Updates to the regulations—such as requiring developers with projects of 10-plus units to designate a certain percentage of them as “affordable,” under the state’s definition of the term—would create more housing for low-income families as well as seniors and working people who otherwise couldn’t afford to live in New Canaan, Goodwin said.

Government

Divided P&Z Approves October Wedding at The Glass House

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Despite concerns voiced by a Planning & Zoning Commission member who lives near The Glass House, the appointed body last week voted 4-2 to allow the organization to host a wedding this fall on its Ponus Ridge campus. Dick Ward, a P&Z commissioner who lives on Winfield Lane, .3 miles from the National Trust for Historic Preservation site, said approval of the Oct. 4 wedding “would, in my opinion, create perhaps an unnecessary and perhaps dangerous precedent, on two levels.”

“One is it’s been our longtime practice that financial considerations are not a criteria to support a Special Permit or an amendment to a Special Permit,” Ward said during P&Z’s regular meeting, held Aug. 25 via videoconference. “And it’s pretty clear that the request is based on a financial concern and I don’t think we want to open that door.

Dick Ward

P&Z Grants ‘The Glass House’ More Flexibility Amid COVID-19 Restrictions

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Saying it’s a reasonable request given the COVID-19 virus-related restrictions, the Planning & Zoning Commission last week agreed to make special allowances for The Glass House to operate this summer. Allowing a limited number of visitors to drive directly to the Ponus Ridge site and for others to park at West School (pending approval by the Board of Education) will help the National Trust for Historic Preservation site during a challenging time and will not have a negative impact on the neighborhood, P&Z members said during their May 26 meeting. Just the opposite, according to Chair John Goodwin. “I think quite frankly this will help the property values of the neighbors because we are not in the money business, but these guys need to make money and if they are not, and that property falls into disrepair it’s going to negatively impact the values of the properties of those neighbors,” Goodwin said at the meeting, held via videoconference. 

Under rules that will be in effect through August with an option to renew them depending on guidance from the state, The Glass House will sell tickets online only for a “grounds pass” that provides access to the 49-acre site’s upper 13 acres and no building access. Other conditions proposed by Glass House Executive Director Greg Sages include that grounds passes will be limited to a maximum of 25 visitors at a time, with no group larger than five, and that on-site parking will be limited to 10 cars.

Government

Neighbors, Attorneys Criticize Waveny’s Proposed Senior Housing Complex at P&Z Hearing [CORRECTION]

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[Editor’s Note: This article has been corrected to show that the site in question is in the half-acre zone, not the two-acre zone as originally reported. The date of the P&Z hearing also has been corrected to Nov. 19, not Nov. 20.]

The proposed senior housing complex on Oenoke Ridge is inconsistent with New Canaan’s regulations and violates some precepts of the town’s guiding document with respect to planning, according to representatives of one neighboring organization. Waveny LifeCare Network’s application for a 70-unit residential retirement building also requires approval of changes to the New Canaan Zoning Regulation that amount to “spot zoning,” attorney Steve Finn, representing St.

Dan Radman

P&Z Chairman: Town Will Hold Public Meeting Nov. 20 on Proposed Cell Tower in Northeastern New Canaan

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The town will hold a public meeting next month to gather input on an application for a proposed cell tower on private property in northeastern New Canaan, officials said Tuesday night. A joint public meeting is to be held at 7 p.m. on Nov. 20 regarding the application for an 85-foot-high “monopine” tower at 183 Soundview Lane, according to Planning & Zoning Commission Chairman John Goodwin. The meeting will be run jointly by P&Z and the Board of Selectmen, and will include representatives from wireless infrastructure consulting firm Homeland Towers, which put together an application with AT&T that is to be filed with the state agency that oversees telecommunications, Goodwin said during the Commission’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall. It will mark the first time P&Z holds such a meeting since adopting regulations last year whereby those submitting applications to the state Siting Council “are strongly encouraged” to meet with P&Z to review the need for the facility, alternate sites and the location of schools “and places of public assembly” nearby (see page 166 here).