Business

P&Z Approves Weed Street Subdivision, Mixed-Use Building on Cross Street

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Town planning officials on Tuesday approved a pair of closely followed land use applications—one for a 2-lot subdivision on Weed Street that includes a conservation easement connecting two New Canaan Land Trust properties, and another for a mixed residential-and-commercial structure on Cross Street that’s designed to accommodate future New Canaan Post Office needs. What follows is a summary of each item. Both were approved by the Planning & Zoning Commission at the group’s regular meeting, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. Weed Street
P&Z on six conditions (see below) approved the 2-lot subdivision at 929 Weed St., a 9-acre property whose current structure—a Midcentury Modern—will remain, while two additional lots will be carved out. As part of the subdivision, the property’s owner is granting as a conservation easement along an approximately 425-foot strip of land that connects two parcels long ago given to the New Canaan Land Trust: One that backs up (eastward) into the woods and connects eventually to the New Canaan Nature Center, and another that includes wetlands and fronts Weed Street itself.

Government

P&Z Approves Text Changes for Cross Street Development

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Planning officials on Monday night took a first definitive step in support of a proposed mixed-use Cross Street structure that’s designed to offer a future, long-term location for the Post Office. The Planning & Zoning Commission at its special meeting assigned a Dec. 15 effective date for three text changes to New Canaan’s Zoning Regulations that the group approved 9-0—the necessary first steps in an updated plan that could see a 3-story building go in at 16 Cross St. with 12 residential units above a 7,000-square-foot commercial space. Half of that ground-floor space could house the Post Office, though a meeting with the federal agency likely requires “some approval on this concept,” Arnold Karp, a managing partner of the company that owns 16 Cross St., said during a public hearing.

Government

P&Z to Cross Street Developers: You Must Convince Us ‘of the Size and Intensity of This Proposal’

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Though New Canaan should have mixed residential-and-commercial structures on Cross and Vitti Streets, and a newly located Post Office also would be a desirable “anchor tenant” there, the architects of a plan that would accomplish both must give the town and public time to work through concerns surrounding parking, building height and density, officials said Tuesday night. Those behind the proposal at 16 Cross St. must convince the Planning & Zoning Commission “of the size and intensity of this proposal,” Chairman Laszlo Papp said during the first public hearing on the project. “That is what you have to [do in order to] convince the commission to give a favorable” decision, Papp said during the hearing, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. Several of those in attendance spoke in favor of plans for the 3.5-story structure—with 7,000 square feet for businesses on the ground floor (half intended for a Post Office) and 14 apartments above (11 two-bedroom units at 1,050 square feet and three studios at 560) with 54 parking spaces below—calling the proposal a creative way to solve multiple problems at once, such as creating housing near the village center and breathing new life into a largely neglected piece of the downtown.