Around Town

‘An Enormous Addition to the Town’: New Canaan Museum & Historical Society Unveils Plan for ‘Special Collections Museum’ with Reassembled Millar Studio

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Representatives of the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society last week unveiled plans for a striking new barn-like structure at their Oenoke Ridge campus. The glass-enclosed “Special Collections Museum” will have attached at its rear one of the last–if not the very last—original art studio of a founding member of the Silvermine art colony, according to Nancy Geary, executive director of the NCM&HS. 

Addison Millar’s lean-to-like painting studio—which remains in place on Mill Road more than a century after the artist himself, and his wife, were killed in a railcar accident (1913)—has been generously donated to NCM&HS by the Borglum family, Geary told members of the Planning & Zoning Commission during their March 28 regular meeting. “It is a very rustic building,” Geary said during an approximately 30-minute pre-application presentation to P&Z during its meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “It uses the bark from the mills at the turn of the century when it was built. And we have a plan to disassemble it and rebuild it, and it will be partly enclosed and partly attached to this new building. It will give us space also to have permanently on display rotating paintings by the Silvermine artists.

Business

New Business Tenant Planned for Vitti Street Building

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The owner of a commercial building on Vitti Street is seeking permission from the Planning & Zoning Commission to allow retail on the first floor. A dry cleaners, State of the Art Cleaners & Tailors, used to occupy the first floor at 43 Vitti St. (The second floor of the 6,300-square-foot building is occupied by the .46-acre property’s ownership organization, Columbus Center of New Canaan Inc.)

“The current proposal is to convert the first floor dry cleaner space back to its retail and office use,” New Canaan attorney David Rucci of Lampert Toohey & Rucci LLC told P&Z in an application. Under the New Canaan Zoning Regulations (see page 80 here), site plan approval from P&Z is required in the Business B zone for “specialty sales and services which would be in keeping with the service business nature and stated purpose of the zone.” P&Z is scheduled to take up the application at its regular meeting Tuesday night. Rucci said in a site plan narrative that forms part of the application, “The applicant meets the standards set within that section .

Government

Former St. A’s Pastor to P&Z: The Church-Owned House on Maple Street Should Be Demolished

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Saint Aloysius Church had explored the possibility of refurbishing the house at 30 Maple St. for many years after the structure began to show signs of wear due to heavy use, according to the church’s former, longtime pastor. The church’s leadership asked engineers and architects about how to renovate the building “so that we could continue to use it for teaching and meeting space,” the Rev. Msgr. William Scheyd said in a Dec. 29 to Planning & Zoning Commission Chair Dan Radman.

Dan Radman

P&Z Elects Dan Radman as Chair

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The Planning & Zoning Commission on Tuesday unanimously elected Dan Radman as chair, succeeding John Goodwin in the highly visible volunteer role. An architect by profession who has served as an insightful and articulate commissioner, Radman was appointed to P&Z in December 2011 by First Selectman Rob Mallozzi and Selectmen Beth Jones and Nick Williams. The same Board of Selectmen appointed Radman as a regular member of P&Z in April 2014, replacing Roger Rothballer. Those voting in favor of his election during an organizational meeting overseen by First Selectman Kevin Moynihan included outgoing Chair John Goodwin, Secretary Krista Neilson and commissioners Kent Turner, Dick Ward, John Kriz, Claire Tiscornia, Arthur Casavant and John Engel. 

Neilson also was unanimously elected secretary during the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. Moynihan thanked P&Z, calling the appointed body “our hardest-working commission.”

To Goodwin he said, “On a personal basis, it’s been great working with you as chairman and I really appreciate all your service.”

Goodwin had mentioned his intention to step down from the role of chair in very brief remarks last month. During Tuesday’s meeting, he spoke at greater length, as follows: 
“Unlike land use lawyers, I will be brief and non-repetitive.

Around Town

Preservation Group Sues P&Z Over Library Approvals

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A local nonprofit organization last week filed its third lawsuit against the New Canaan Planning & Zoning Commission following the appointed body’s approval of a widely anticipated rebuilding project downtown. The New Canaan Preservation Alliance had filed administrative appeals in August 2021 when P&Z approved New Canaan Library’s project, and then again in January 2022 after the Commission approved the library’s plan to preserve much of what remains of an original 1913 building by moving it to the organization’s western property line. On Dec. 7, the Town Clerk’s office received notice of another complaint from the NCPA, this one saying that P&Z’s Nov. 15 approvals of a text change to the zoning regulations and site plan for the library to move and enclose an approximately 65-by-20-foot piece of the legacy building about five feet from the property line that the library shares with the Gulf station.