Government

Two Tennis Courts at Mead Getting New Lights

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Town officials this month approved an approximately $30,000 contract with a Canaan-based company to remove existing lights at two Mead Park tennis courts and replace them with a new system. The company, Musco Sports Lighting, “did a fantastic job on the lights at Dunning [Field],” Public Works Director Tiger Mann told the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting, held Nov. 15 at Town Hall and via videoconference. “I don’t know if you’ve been able to see a game. See the new lights.

Berchem Moses PC

Moynihan Pushes Back on the Board of Selectmen Approving Permanent Part-Time Hires for the Town

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New Canaan’s highest-elected official is pushing back on an effort from fellow Board of Selectmen members to have the three-person body approve permanent part-time hires with the town. According to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan, “there really is no provision for [the Board] approving part-time employees” in the Town Charter. “Generally full-time employees are added through the budget process, so if we want to talk about a revised policy or a new policy consistent with the Town Charter, we can do that, but as I said, you know, we have 200, 300 part-time employees in the course of the year and it really is impractical to have the Board of Selectmen review who the lifeguards are at the pool and the election workers and Town Clerk [workers],” Moynihan said during the selectmen’s Nov. 15 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “I really don’t see the point.

Government

Town Officials Push for Studies, Survey Prior to Decisions on West School Cell Tower

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The town is preparing to hire consultants to provide two studies to help municipal officials determine whether to move forward with a widely discussed plan to erect a cell tower behind West School. Following recommendations that the Planning & Zoning Commission made during an Oct. 24 special meeting, the town is to get “independent” studies to establish cell phone needs in the area and the degree of health risk that a tower 900 feet behind West School (and 600 feet from its playing fields) will have to children there. It’s unclear which consulting firms will be hired to carry out the assessments. 

Regarding the coverage study, Selectman Williams last week tried to pin down First Selectman Kevin Moynihan about whether the Town Council or Board of Selectmen would make the decision, but Moynihan said only that he planned to ask a firm hired in the past—Centerline—“to update their report.”

When Williams suggested a firm other than Centerline do the independent study, Moyinhan said, “Centerline is independent” and that he has “no reason to think they’re not independent,” though if the Town Council feels otherwise, “we can take a different direction.”

Though several members of P&Z voiced opposition to locating a cell tower on school grounds, they narrowed the scope of their referral on Oct. 24 to whether or not the proposed infrastructure is consistent with a continuously updated document that guides planning in New Canaan—the Plan of Conservation and Development—and found that it does.

Government

Corbet, Williams: Full Board of Selectmen Should Be Approving Part-Time Hires

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Saying the town should be consistent, Selectman Kathleen Corbet this week called for the Board of Selectmen to approve the hiring of part-time employees just as it does for full-timers. During Tuesday’s selectmen meeting, Corbet noted that First Selectman Kevin Moynihan mentioned the hiring of a part-time “wedding coordinator” at Waveny during a recent Town Council meeting. This exchange followed:
Moynihan: We don’t bring part-time employees to the Board of Selectmen. Corbet: We have in the past. Have you changed the process?

Board of Selectmen

Moynihan: Town ‘Led To Believe’ State Will Grant Affordable Housing Moratorium

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First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said this week that state officials have led the town to believe it will receive four years of relief from a widely discussed affordable housing law. After saying in June that New Canaan did not qualify for a moratorium, Moynihan said in late July that the town had, in fact, filed its application for four years of relief from state statute 8-30g, kickstarting a 90-day statutory review period. 

Under the statute, in towns where less than 10% of all housing stock qualifies as “affordable,” by the state’s definition, developers can skirt local planning decisions in projects that set aside a certain percentage of units at below-market rates. The town had qualified for one such moratorium in 2017, with the denser redevelopment of New Canaan Housing Authority-owned apartments Millport Avenue, and hoped to qualify for another through the redevelopment of the Canaan Parish complex at Lakeview Avenue and Route 123, which was partially completed last October. 

During Tuesday’s Board of Selectmen meeting, Moynihan said, “We expect to get our moratorium on November first. I think that that is the end of the 90-day period.”

“We’ve been told by—led to believe, I would say—by the Housing Department that we are going to get our moratorium,” Moynihan added at the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “If that does not occur then that will be ‘all bets off’ in terms of where we are.”

The comments came during a portion of the meeting set aside for general matters before the town.