Around Town

New Canaan YMCA Eyes Waveny for April 2017 Gala; Parks Officials Flag Impact on Lawn

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The town’s decision regarding the New Canaan YMCA’s bid to host a gala at Waveny House next spring will depend, largely, on minimizing the number of days that large canopy tents are standing on the lawn out back, officials said last week. A local organization held a big party there in 2001 and the seven tents needed for check-in, cocktails, dining and food service stayed up for about one week, “so we ended up with seven big yellow squares on the lawn at Waveny,” according to Recreation Director Steve Benko. “It’s feasible,” Benko said at the Park & Recreation Commission’s regular meeting Wednesday, held at Lapham Community Center. “It can work.”

Led by Y member and gala co-chair Kelly DeFrancesco, the South Avenue organization told Park & Rec that the event would mark the end of its five-year capital campaign and renovation and expansion project. Calling Waveny the “perfect” venue for the late-April 2017 gala, DeFrancesco said the evening would include 350 to 400 guests and feature a cocktail hour on the terrace, weather-permitting, a seated dinner, live auction and DJ and dancing.

Government

Neighbor of New Canaan Nature Center Raises Concerns About Condition of Grounds

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A longtime next-door neighbor of the New Canaan Nature Center told officials at a public meeting last week that the organization is failing to care properly for its grounds and that he plans to share steps with the town to correct existing problems and ensure they do not re-emerge. John Busch of Oenoke Ridge Road told members of the Park & Recreation Commission that he’s lived just north of the Nature Center for nearly 20 years “and I walk the trails all the time.”

“And I daresay I know a lot about how the land has been cared for and, in my opinion, not cared for,” Busch told the commission at its regular meeting, held Wednesday night in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center. “I would like to share some thoughts not only about the condition currently but actions that I think this commission could take to improve the condition of the land not just now but in the future.”

Chairman Sally Campbell said the commission would form a subcommittee to establish whether it has oversight of the property and, if so, walk the grounds with Busch and report back to the full group at its meeting in February. Asked by commissioner Matt Konspore for a quick summary of what exactly is wrong, Busch answered: “The Nature Center’s land is something not been cared for. There is a lot of debris.

Government

‘Just a Disaster’: Officials Eye Repaving of Parking Lot at Kiwanis

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Saying the main lot at Kiwanis Park hasn’t been repaved in about 30 years, officials are putting in for funds to get that project done and bring the area in line with others at the Old Norwalk Road facility. Though the access road at Kiwanis has been repaved and the parking lot at the rear is done, “the parking lot there is just a disaster,” according to Sally Campbell, chairman of the Park & Recreation Commission. “The stretch that you really see when you’re in the park is just falling apart, so [DPW Assistant Tiger Mann] is putting that in his capital budget, to get the funds to pave that,” Campbell said at the group’s regular meeting, held Nov. 11in the Douglas Room at Lapham Community Center. The discussion arose during a rundown on projects that Mann has planned for New Canaan’s public parks, including a new trail at Waveny that’s designed to get pedestrians off of the main road through it.

Government

Parks Officials to NC Baseball: At Season’s End, Take Down the Outfield Windscreens at Mead

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Parks officials last week approved a private group’s request to hang a windscreen on the outfield fence of the large baseball field at Mead Park, but are insisting that this time around the opaque netting come down at season’s end. That didn’t happen in the case of the little league fields at Mead that got the screens last spring, despite New Canaan Baseball’s agreeing to do so, Park & Recreation Commission Chairman Sally Campbell said during the group’s regular monthly meeting. The commission had received feedback that residents didn’t want to see the netting in the winter months, Campbell said during the meeting, held Wednesday in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center. “New Canaan Baseball said they would put them up and take them down last year, and they never came back to take them down last year,” she said. “So this windscreen, too, it needs to put up by [New Canaan] Baseball and taken down by X day by [New Canaan] Baseball and we should not have to go back to you all to say to take it down.

News

Condo Sales Surge in New Canaan

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New Canaan in 2014 saw what experts are calling a record number of condominiums and cooperatives sold, and those that came in at above-asking price increased ninefold over the prior year. In 2014, New Canaan saw 79 condos sold (the figure includes 10 non-MLS sales)—a 25 percent increase from the prior year, according to a local Realtor who’s been tracking MLS and non-MLS sales data since 1989. And among those 79 units, nine were sold above asking price, compared to just one in 2013, said Jeanne Rozel of Halstead Property, a New Canaan resident for 40 years. They’re statistics that Rozel said “shocked” her when she compiled the data. “I can’t figure this out,” Rozel said.