Business

‘Carpet Trends’ Seeks P&Z Approval Ahead of Spring Opening on Main Street

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A family-owned business moving into a long-vacant commercial space in downtown New Canaan is seeking formal permission from the Planning & Zoning Commission to provide its residential and commercial flooring and related services. Carpet Trends is planning to open a satellite showroom at 97 Main St. next month. The former Garelick & Herbs space has been vacant for about eight years. Under the New Canaan Zoning Regulations, P&Z site plan approval is required for retail businesses with a gross first-floor area of less than 5,000 square feet operating in the Retail A Zone (page 77).

Amy Zabetakis

Proposed Brookwood Subdivision: Property Owner Presents Improvements to P&Z

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The owners of an approximately 32-acre property across the street from the Country Club of New Canaan, in seeking a nine-lot subdivision, plan to protect more open space than what’s required by local regulations, their attorney says. The owners of 82 Brookwood Lane—a limited liability company whose representatives, Jim Hoffman and Adam Sherer of property developer SPB Homes, attended the Jan. 28 Planning & Zoning Commission meeting—also have decreased the arc of a driveway coming off of Brookwood following feedback from the New Canaan fire marshal, are in discussion about helping firefighters by creating a “dry hydrant” using a pond on the property, and are looking for ways to improve the existing wetlands, according to their attorney, Amy Zabetakis of Rucci Law Group. “My clients and the team have spent months carefully designing this project to adhere to all of the zoning regulations, environmental standards, and meet the requirements of the subdivision regulations as well as the [Inland] Wetlands Commission’s,” Zabetakis told P&Z during the appointed body’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. She continued: “We first started discussing the project with the town in August of last year before my clients completed the purchase of the property.

Government

Main Street Building Owner Seeks To Create Residences on Second Floor

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The owners of a long-vacant commercial building on Main Street are planning to convert its second floor from offices to apartments, according to a new application on file with the town. The “bank” building at 87 Main St. — a prominent 1911-built brick structure that used to house the Indian restaurant Thali — would see its cathedral ceiling filled in order to convert the second floor into four one-bedroom apartments, according to a letter to the Planning & Zoning Commission dated Sept. 12. “The project will also include adding an elevator within the existing footprint that will access both floors including a new street level access door located at the southeast corner of the building,” according to the letter from architect James Schettino.

Bruce MacLear

Private ‘Finch Club’ Proposed for Historic Park Street House

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The New Canaanite 2024 Summer Internship Program is sponsored by Karp Associates. A group of local residents are seeking to build a private club in the historic ‘Maxwell Perkins House’ on Park Street. The three-floor house—long owned by the late architect Richard Bergmann—would be called ‘The Finch Club’ under a plan that was presented recently to the Planning & Zoning Commission. The Greek Revival-style house at 63 Park St. once was occupied by Maxwell Perkins, the great Scribner’s editor of Ernest Hemingway, F.Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe.

Government

Amid Lawsuit, P&Z To Consider Proposed Settlement in Tennis Court Denial

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Town officials will consider a settlement offer made on behalf of a Rilling Ridge woman who sued the Planning & Zoning Commission last year after the appointed body denied her application to build a tennis court. Under a proposal filed by Amy Tucci’s lawyer, Joel Green of Bridgeport-based Law Offices of Green and Gross, P.C., the tennis court would move two feet closer to an existing swimming pool than originally proposed, would include more robust landscape screening and would have a four-millimeter-thick pad “applied to the entire surface of the court” to “significantly reduce the noise level associated” with its use. The proposed settlement also calls for no lighting, use from 6 a.m. to sundown and no commercial use (Tucci originally had filed an application to operate a boutique commercial gym at home, later withdrawn). P&Z denied the application one year ago. At the time, Tucci applied to P&Z for a Special Permit that would allow a tennis court to be located within a 150 feet of the street (see page 55 here), and for a second permit allowing for soil disturbance of more than 10,000 square feet of area in order to (page 149).