Government

DPW: One-Way Traffic on Elm Street Between Park and Grove Starting Monday

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Town officials are calling for understanding from New Canaan residents and downtown visitors as the long-discussed replacement of a water main on Elm Street gets underway. The installation on Elm between Park and Grove Streets will start Monday, with work from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. for about two weeks, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. “There will then be a time for pressurizing and testing the line as well as chlorinating and disinfecting the line,” Mann said in an email. “After that period of testing and disinfecting, there will be another two weeks of construction where the individual service lines are connected to the new main line.”

The affected segment of Elm Street will accommodate one-way traffic during the project, he said. Motorists traveling eastbound—approaching downtown New Canaan from the Weed Street side—will be detoured down Grove Street and onto Pine Street, Mann said.

Around Town

‘It Looks Beautiful’: New Pickleball Courts at Mead Park Near Completion 

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The widely anticipated pickleball courts at Mead Park are nearing completion and a new patio is planned for an area next to them, officials say. The courts have been painted and fencing has been installed, Public Works Director Tiger Mann told members of the Parks & Recreation Commission during their regular meeting, held July 14 via videoconference. Gates into and between the courts still need to be installed, as does a practice tennis wall at the southern end of the new courts, officials said. Located on the western end of Mead, above the pond and colonnade, the area around the courts also will get landscaping, an expanded parking lot and a patio, Mann said. “It’s shaping up really nicely,” he told Parks & Rec during an update.

Government

Downtown Disruption: Water Main, Natural Gas Work To Start This Week on Main and Elm

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The utility company has about one week left in its work at Forest Street and Locust Avenue downtown, feeding natural gas lines to a new development there, according to the town’s public works director. Once Eversource is done there, the water company will commence work on a water main downtown, Tiger Mann said Monday during a regular meeting of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure. Aquarion will work on two fronts, finishing its work at Church and Main Streets on Tuesday night, “and then they are going to be putting in a new main on Elm Street from Park to Grove [Streets],” Mann said during the meeting, held via videoconference. “And then the main will come down Cherry and take a left onto Main Street and run on Main Street to Locust Avenue. That work will be all at night.

Government

Town Adds Pesticide Use Disclosure to Municipal Website

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Eight months after parks officials voted in support of the move as part of a larger recommendation, the town on Tuesday added a section to the municipal website disclosing its use of pesticides on several athletic fields. Though state law prohibits the use of pesticides on school grounds through grade 8, New Canaan uses the chemicals in treating athletic grounds at Waveny, Conner Field and baseball fields at Mead Park. 

Selectman Kathleen Corbet last summer questioned why pesticides are still applied to some public fields used by young kids, and in September developed a set of recommendations for the town. Her findings included that “not very many people know about the use of pesticides in our Town,” and she said in her report that “[a]t a minimum, unless a pesticide free policy is adopted for all athletic fields, public disclosure about the use of pesticides on the natural grass athletic fields is recommended.”

During this week’s regular Board of Selectmen meeting, Corbet noted that a draft disclosure still hadn’t been posted to the town’s website. “Did we forget to do that?” Corbet asked during the meeting, held via videoconference. Public Works Director Tiger Mann responded that the town did not forget.

Caroline Garrity

Tree Warden, Garden Club at Odds Over Waveny Landscaping Plan

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The town official charged by state statute with caring for New Canaan’s public trees is at odds with a local volunteer group that’s eager to remove several Japanese maples from a walkway near Waveny House. The town’s tree warden thinks the maples planted along one side of the path that runs between the gazebo and fountain at the top of the sledding hill “are absolutely beautiful,” Public Works Director Tiger Mann said during the June 9 Parks & Recreation Commission meeting. Referring to a New Canaan Garden Club proposal to replace those trees with a long bed of peonies and flowering plants, Mann added, “He understands your desire to have that, but he also feels that he answers to the other 20,000 residents in the town and he doesn’t see any good reason why they should be removed at present.”

The comments followed a presentation by representatives of the Garden Club and Waveny Park Conservancy, as well as their landscape designer. Removing the Japanese maples would open up a nice view of the hill and pond below, would create more symmetry with the peonies already on the west side of the footpath and would be a better photo opportunity for people getting married at Waveny, according to Conservancy Chair Caroline Garrity and Kathryn Herman of New Canaan-based Kathryn Herman Design, LLC. “It would be very stunning to have this incredibly long walk that was unified on both sides of the walk with this really beautiful display,” Herman said during the meeting, held via videoconference.