Dan Radman

‘These Are Our Pets’: Applicant for Proposed Sanctuary Barn Makes Case to P&Z; Another Neighbor Objects

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After hearing from an Oenoke Ridge Road man that a neighbor’s plan to install a barn and pens for rescued pigs, goats and sheep was insufficient and potentially a health hazard, town officials on Tuesday night called for more time and an expert’s perspective on the proposal. The Planning & Zoning Commission continued the application filed on behalf of Laura Holson Boswerger of 1770 Oenoke Ridge Road. 

A Wilton native who met her husband at a wildlife sanctuary in Africa and has volunteered at the Animal Care Centers of New York City and Woodstock Farm Sanctuary in High Falls, N.Y., Boswerger purchased her four-acre property in northern New Canaan in October after researching its ordinances on keeping farm animals, she told the Commission during its regular meeting. After consulting with an expert from the Woodstock sanctuary, Boswerger put together a plan to rescue four slaughterhouse-bound pigs, goats and sheep and to build an approximately 2,000-square-foot barn where the 12 animals could live, creating separate paddocks that would run out of the structure. Under New Canaan’s Zoning Regulations, such an accessory structure larger than 1,000 square feet requires a Special Permit from P&Z, and Boswerger applied for that permit through her attorney—David Rucci of New Canaan’s Lampert, Toohey & Rucci LLC. 

One neighbor lodged objections to the plan with the Commission that Boswerger addressed during the hearing (more on that below), and another resident of the area—Joseph Gerardi of 1745 Oenoke Ridge Road, which is across the street and one property over—told P&Z that what’s proposed would not be “safe, sanitary, aesthetic and comfortable” for the animals. “These animals, they need pasture areas that rotate because of parasites—animals get sick and if you don’t rotate the let-out areas, it is not healthy for them,” Gerardi told P&Z during the public hearing, held in the Town Meeting Room at Town Hall.

Government

Neighbor Objects To Proposed Barn on Oenoke Ridge Road

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Saying they’re worried about property values, smells, insects and wildlife, the owners of an Oenoke Ridge Road home are objecting to a neighbor’s application to build an approximately 2,000-square-foot, single story barn that would house rescued pigs, sheep and goats. The barn at 1770 Oenoke Ridge Road and its “let-out pens”—an apparent reference to an area out front of the barn that would be enclosed by pasture fencing—would be a “substantial detriment to the neighborhood,” according to a letter submitted to the Planning & Zoning Commission by David and Rosie Albright of 1752 Oenoke Ridge Road. “We believe that this proposed variance would have serious negative implications to property values, potentially negatively affect he well water/drinking water systems, and have detrimental impacts on the overall living environment of the immediate neighborhood,” the Albrights wrote. “Regarding the overall living environment, we are specifically concerned about the impacts on air quality due to odors from the animals themselves, manure and manure dumpster, insect control, as well as the let-out pens being constructed in the front yard, in very close proximity to our property. Further, we strongly believe that the aesthetics of let-out pens for such animals positioned in their front yard and visible from Oenoke Ridge will have a negative impact on the surrounding properties.”

Under the New Canaan Zoning Regulations, a homeowner may apply for a special permit to allow accessory buildings that cover more than 1,000 feet.

Dan Radman

P&Z Commissioner: Merritt Village Retaining Walls Should Be ‘Stained’

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Saying a more robust landscaping plan will only hide the widely discussed retaining walls built along Park Street for part of the year, one member of the Planning & Zoning Commission is urging town officials to have the developer “stain” the stamped-concrete walls so they’re more aesthetically pleasing year-round. Though the developers of a new condo-and-apartment complex that includes the retaining walls are offering to put in English ivy designed to help hide them, that plant “will take many years to grow to a mature enough state to be effective,” according to P&Z Commissioner Dan Radman. “The majority of the remaining plantings that are proposed—trees and low ornamental plantings in the ‘planting zone’ between the lower concrete wall and upper concrete wall—are deciduous and will be barren between October and April, 6-7 months out of the year,” Radman said in a Feb. 28 letter to Town Planner Lynn Brooks Avni. “This will leave the uniform grey stamped-concrete faux-stone wall exposed and will have the majority of mass of these huge retaining walls fully visible half of the year.”

The letter came in two days after P&Z said it had made progress with the builders of Merritt Village on fuller landscaping as well as a plan to develop moss on the walls themselves.

Around Town

P&Z Votes 7-1 To Approve Downtown Pocket Park as Site of Summer Theatre of New Canaan 2019 Season

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Saying they understood it was a risk in some ways and imposing several conditions to help mitigate them, members of the Planning & Zoning Commission on Tuesday night voted 7-1 to approve the Summer Theatre of New Canaan’s application to set up for its 2019 season in a pocket park downtown. Summer Theatre, or ‘STONC,’ will set up its 60-by-90-foot amphitheater-style tent on a .19-acre parcel known as “Christine’s Garden” on the corner of South Avenue and Maple Street, owned by New Canaan Library. 

P&Z Chairman John Goodwin said he recognized that STONC’s plan, which includes locating the 200-person tent as well as trailers, port-o-potties, and a covered box office on and around the library property, with parking to be located in the Center School lot, was “aggressive.”

“And I would also argue that we allow certain other activities in certain other places in town where we are giving them a fair amount of latitude,” Goodwin said during the public hearing, held at Town Hall. “This is not the first time. But I also feel that this is potentially a big positive to the town by moving it downtown. If it logistically works, I think it’s way better than it is out in Waveny.

Arnold Karp

P&Z, Merritt Village Developer Reach Accord on More Robust Landscaping To Hide Retaining Walls

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The developer of a widely discussed 110-unit condo-and-apartment complex to go up on the edge of downtown New Canaan is earning praise from town officials after agreeing to pursue a more robust landscaping plan that will effectively hide a series of retaining walls that some have criticized as unattractive. The retaining walls fronting Park Street will see a combination of plants that will hang down over a lower wall—itself to receive a treatment that will develop moss and so break up its monochromatic appearance—and ivies that will grow up other walls, as well as junipers and other trees, according to Arnold Karp of Karp Associates, developer of Merritt Village. “What we are going to look at it is things that cascade down over the wall that is against the sidewalk and things that will grow up on what is the second wall,” Karp said Tuesday night during a regular meeting of the Planning & Zoning Commission, held at Town Hall. 

“There has been some confusion about those walls. Those walls have always been in the design. The only change was that after the hearing was closed, one of the 65 conditions was that we put in a sidewalk, but it was always considered that we would leave space, so there was always a question about the height on those walls.