A frequently visited pond at the New Canaan Nature Center is in serious need of dredging, and the town is planning to partner with the nonprofit organization on the project. The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday approved a $14,600 contract with a local company to survey an approximately 26-acre parcel at the Nature Center in preparation for the dredge, with the organization providing half of the funding.
“The pond is getting to the point where Mill and Mead were at, where eventually we are going to have a change in designation from a pond to a wetland,” Public Works Director Tiger Mann told the selectmen at their regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “So we need to continue to act and the move forward.”
First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams voted 3-0 in favor of the contract with New Canaan-based RKW Land Surveying. The firm held its price from last year, Mann said. The Nature Center is looking to do additional work in the area, including to its boardwalks, Mann said.
Explore diverse habitats in southern Connecticut and learn to identify plants and the birds that depend on them. Through classroom discussion and field application, we will address ways to attract wildlife by creating aesthetically pleasing landscapes with ecological value. The fall session concentrates on berry-producing shrubs and trees and on seed-producing perennials and annuals.
More than one year after demolition plans entered the public realm, a dilapidated ca.-1900 greenhouse at the New Canaan Nature Center has been razed, town officials said Monday. The contaminant-laden town-owned structure “is down,” Public Works Director Tiger Mann said during a regular meeting of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure. “We had some residents coming and asking for materials even after we told them that they couldn’t,” Mann said during the meeting, held via videoconference. “We had exhausted all possibilities as to re-using any of the materials themselves. But it’s down.
New Canaan’s highest elected official on Tuesday said he was surprised that a local resident posted a Craigslist ad offering a contaminant-laden town-owned structure up for free pickup. Calling the ca. 1900 greenhouse at the New Canaan Nature Center “a valuable antique” that’s in “good shape,” the ad was posted to the online marketplace March 17, following the publication of a news article about the Board of Selectmen the prior week approving a contract for its demolition. The ad is titled “FREE Lord & Burnham Greenhouse” and claims that “[a]ccording to Lord & Burnham Representative,” the structure is sound. “[T]his business owner worked on it in the 1980s and grew up near it’s [sic] location,” the ad said.
The Board of Selectmen at its most recent meeting approved a contract to raze a ca.-1900 greenhouse that one year ago was at the center of a debate regarding public notice of its future demolition. Located on town-owned New Canaan Nature Center property, the greenhouse is located behind the director’s house and the organization “has plans to repurpose the stone foundation of the greenhouse to expand their community garden,” according to Department of Public Works Senior Engineer Joe Zagarenski. “The greenhouse has been vacant many years and is no longer safe to occupy,” he said at the selectmen’s March 9 meeting, held via videoconference. “Evergreen Environmental performed a pre-renovation inspection and identified asbestos-containing materials such as glazing compound and caulking. And the structure has lead paint.
