Government

‘This Is Not a Penal Colony’: P&Z Turns Down Clapboard Hill Road Man’s Bid For Higher Fence To Keep Kids In

By |

Calling a Clapboard Hill Road man’s reasoning faulty, planning officials on Tuesday denied his bid to erect a 6-foot-high driveway gate and adjoining fence. Roy Savelli of 100 Clapboard Hill Road told members of the Planning & Zoning Commission that the higher-than-allowed gate and fencing would prevent his three young daughters from climbing over and toward the road at a blind curve. Commissioner Laszlo Papp told Savelli that he had a beautiful family “and I certainly appreciate that you are trying to protect them as much as you can.”

“On the other hand, I am somewhat puzzled by your reasoning,” Papp said at the meeting, held at Town Hall. “I have lived here for 60-something years and many generations grow up with no fencing at all. This fencing is a new phenomenon in New Canaan.

Business

‘It Is Absurd’: Planning Officials Call For Re-Worked Sign Proposal on Main Street

By |

Saying a proposed sign for a pharmacy moving into a vacant Main Street space is too big and loud, planning officials on Tuesday called for a new design. A rendering of the proposal for the front of the Greenwich Pharmacy at 118 Main St. showed a plain red-lettered sign that would “read as a huge billboard,” Planning & Zoning Commission member Kent Turner said at the group’s regular meeting, held in the Town Meeting Room. “This sign really goes from one side of the building to another,” Turner said of the proposal. “This sign is 38 feet long.

News

‘That’s Unfortunate’: P&Z Implores Valley Road Hospital, Neighbor To End Land Use Dispute

By |

Though two major sides in a land use and legal battle dating back two-plus years have worked hard to reach an agreement, a neighbor whose home directly abuts the Valley Road property at the center of the dispute—who also sits on the Planning & Zoning Commission—appears not to be satisfied, following comments made at a public meeting this week. It’s been three years since Silver Hill Hospital purchased the 1998-built Colonial at 225 Valley Road for $2.5 million, tax records show. Months later, the psychiatric hospital applied to P&Z for site plan and special permit approval in order to renovate and use it as a residential medical treatment facility. P&Z in November 2013 denied the application by a 6-3 vote. Three weeks later, the hospital filed a lawsuit claiming P&Z acted “arbitrarily” and “illegally” in doing so.

Business

‘It Looks Like It Could Be a Dumpster’: Planning Officials Object to Pine Street Restaurant’s Outdoor Seating ‘Bunker’

By |

 

Calling a Pine Street restaurant’s makeshift outdoor seating area a ‘bunker’ that could be mistaken for a dumpster, planning officials on Tuesday night called for the eatery to build what was approved or forego the seasonal addition altogether. South End had been approved for an “open, very light and airy” enclosure that extends into would-be parking spaces for temporary outdoor seating, with features that include vertically defined posts, Planning & Zoning Commission member Kent Turner said at the group’s regular monthly meeting. “As you can see, it was very open,” Turner said of the original and approved plans at the meeting, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. “The as-built condition looks like a mechanical equipment louver that completely encloses the space. The fact that it is painted white and the original lower portion of the fence or screen is dark gray is very puzzling, and it appears to be an enclosed structure and I just don’t see how this was even close to what was originally proposed, nor should it be allowed, based on our zoning guidelines and what you see throughout New Canaan as far as outdoor seating.”

Chairman John Goodwin said P&Z had extended an invitation to South End to attend the meeting and speak on the matter, though no representatives from the restaurant were in attendance.

Business

‘A Village Feel’: P&Z Approves Site Plan for Pine Street Market

By |

With its curbside plaza finished in brick paving, its open-air space and a flexible parking plan that’s designed to allow for additional outdoor seating, as needed, the artisanal foods marketplace planned for 75 Pine St. is expected to transform the street’s “auto-centric” feel into something more pedestrian-friendly, the project’s architects say. According to L. Wesley Stout, principal at New Canaan’s Wesley Stout Associates, a landscape architecture firm, an eating option of some kind drives retail business today—coffee, prepared and take-out foods, “dine-ins”—a differentiator for retailers competing against Internet shopping. “What is remaking ‘Main Streets’ is food,” Stout said Tuesday during a public hearing before the Planning & Zoning Commission. “So places like this will be a huge success, to bring people into these places rather than just maybe stopping into your shop if you’re lucky,” Stout said during the hearing, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center.