News

Letters to the Editor

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NewCanaanite.com recently received the following letters to the editor. ***

Editor, New Canaanite:

When I sit down at the small memorial plaza in Mead Park, I am surrounded by beautiful flower beds along the memorial walk. While enjoying them, I also think of the more than two hundred (200) hanging flower baskets along Elm Street and the big planters at the entrance to Town Hall. Then I remember seeing the ladies in the yellow shirts weeding and planting at thirty-three (33) triangles at intersections. 

Who are those dedicated hard workers who never tell us who they are? The display window of the Chamber of Commerce next to the movie theater identifies them as the more than two hundred (200!) devoted volunteers of the New Canaan Beautification League.

Around Town

‘We Feel Really Good’: Officials Cut Ribbon on Rebuilt ‘Canaan Parish’ Housing Complex [PHOTOS]

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Officials on Tuesday held a ceremony to mark the opening of the rebuilt housing complex at Route 123 and Lakeview Avenue, part of a larger project that also will see a new structure on the site. Residents of the 60 units at the rebuilt complex started moving into the new building Monday, following issuance of a temporary Certificate of Occupancy, according to New Canaan Housing Authority Chair Scott Hobbs. “We feel really good about the outcome,” Hobbs said Tuesday prior to a formal ribbon-cutting at the new building. Despite COVID- and budget-related holdups, “we are relatively on schedule from where we started,” Hobbs said. “We are extremely happy about the finished product and believe that we have created an exceptional structure for our client/tenant occupants,” he said.

Brian Platz

Committee Seeks To Double ‘Demolition Delay’ Period from 90 to 180 Days

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The volunteer municipal body responsible for studying historical buildings in New Canaan wants to double the amount of time it may delay the demolition of such structures. The Historical Review Committee voted 5-0 last week to recommend upping the demolition delay period from 90 to 180 days. It currently “is not an adequate incentive for an applicant to seriously consider alternative solutions to demolition,” Committee member Laszlo Papp said during the appointed group’s Sept. 13 meeting, held at the New Canaan Historical Society. “And 180 days possibly will provide more incentive to keep, repurpose or maintain the historical property,” he said.

Dick Ward

P&Z’s Ward Recuses Himself as Commission Nears Decision on Glass House Application

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Saying he would have voiced the very same concerns regarding a recent application to the Planning & Zoning Commission even if he didn’t live near the site in question, a member of the appointed group on Tuesday night nevertheless recused himself from further discussion or voting on the matter. P&Z Commissioner Dick Ward cited an editorial published this week “basically asking me to recuse myself with respect to the Glass House application,” and said he was “willing to do so,” though he also noted that his Winfield Lane home does not fall within the formal 100-foot notification area as required under the New Canaan Zoning Regulations. 

“I did receive a letter from the Glass House several months ago simply mentioning that they were holding a meeting for some neighbors, and I think it said that I was invited to attend, which I did not,” Ward said during the Commission’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall. “I don’t want the mere fact that you may live in the mere area of the applicant to somehow become a precedent that, whether you are a neighbor or not, just because you may live in the area, you have to recuse yourself,” Ward added by way of making his own recusal. “I think it’s a choice that should be made by the individual commissioner. Clearly, if you are a member of some club and there is an application from the club or something like that, you have an obvious conflict of interest.

Government

Town Imposes 90-Day Demolition Delay on New Canaan Country School Barn

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Town officials on Tuesday imposed a 90-day stay of demolition for an antique barn on New Canaan Country School property. In planning to raze the structure as well as a row of smaller sheds that originally had been used as chicken coops to make way for a new outdoor pool and pool house, the Frogtown Road private school appears not to have considered using the original barn in some way, according to members of the Historical Review Committee. Committee member Marty Skrelunas said he was disappointed that the project’s architect appeared not to looked at the “adaptive reuse” of the barn. “Given the structure, the style of construction, it would be a very easy building to redesign,” Skrelunas said during the Committee’s meeting, held in the Janet Lindstrom Room of the New Canaan Historical Society. “It is not like a brick building where the spaces are defined by the structure.