Arnold Karp

Affordable Housing: Commission Denies Application for ‘Certificate of Appropriateness’ at Red Cross Building

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The volunteer body that oversees New Canaan’s Historic District—roughly, the area around God’s Acre—last week denied an application from a local developer seeking to create an affordable housing complex within its boundaries. Under the town’s Historic District Regulations, “No building or structure shall be erected or altered within the historic district until after an application for a ‘Certificate of Appropriateness’ as to exterior architectural features has been submitted to the Historic District Commission and approved by the Commission.”

A 103-page application filed Aug. 7 on behalf of developer Arnold Karp calls for approval of a Certificate to take about 80% of the so-called “Red Cross building” (after its longtime former owner) at 51 Main St. and move so that it’s 17.5 feet from the roadway, as opposed to the current 50 feet, according to the application. A new residential building would go in behind it, offering 20 total living units, six of which would be rented at affordable rates, as per the state’s definition.

Affordable Housing Committee

Affordable Housing: Developer Pushes for Historic District Commission Hearing on Main Street Application 

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The owners of a structure in New Canaan’s Historic District where an affordable housing redevelopment is planned are calling for an appointed town body to schedule a hearing on an application or face legal action. An attorney representing the owners of 51 Main St.—known locally as “the Red Cross building” for its former use—on Tuesday noted in a letter to the Historic District Commission that it has 65 days from the date of his client’s application for a “Certificate of Appropriateness” (Aug. 7) to issue a decision. That would put the hearing date, at the latest, at Oct. 11, according to the letter from attorney Tim Hollister, a partner at Hartford-based Hinckley Allen who represents local developer Arnold Karp’s ownership limited liability company. 

“We have had no response setting a date or an explanation about the delay,” Hollister said.

Government

State Housing Department: No One Told Moynihan Moratorium Application Would Be Approved

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State officials deny that New Canaan had been “led to believe” its application for four years of relief from a widely discussed affordable housing law would be approved, as First Selectman Kevin Moynihan recently asserted. Moynihan had said during the Oct. 4 Board of Selectmen meeting that “we expect to get our moratorium on November 1st.” 

He added, “We’ve been told by—led to believe, I would say—by the Housing Department that we are going to get our moratorium. If that does not occur then that will be ‘all bets off’ in terms of where we are.”

The Connecticut Department of Housing denied the application about two weeks later. Yet while the matter had been pending, the land use attorney representing a local developer in applying for an affordable housing project at Weed and Elm Streets, Tim Hollister, asked the DOH to explain Moynihan’s comments.  

“I recognize that the Department has no obligation to respond to such a request, but given the alleged circumstance – the First Selectman of a municipality with a pending moratorium application asserting that ‘the Department’ in a private conversation led him and Town to believe that the application will be approved, over the objections filed – is simply contrary to how this public process should proceed,” Hollister said in an Oct. 18 email obtained by NewCanaanite.com. “If the First Selectman is misstating what he was told, then the Department should explain that.

Board of Finance

Lawsuit: Town’s Denial of Sewer Application ‘Illegal’

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A lawyer representing the owner of a property at Weed and Elm Streets, site of a planned 102-unit multifamily redevelopment, is appealing a municipal body’s decision last month to deny a proposed relocated sewer connection. The Board of Finance, in its role as New Canaan’s Water Pollution Control Authority, violated state law in its “illegal” denial, which was “an abuse of discretion and/or not supported by substantial evidence in the records” for several reasons, according to a complaint filed in state Superior Court by attorney Tim Hollister of Hartford-based Hinckley Allen. The property at 751 Weed St. is already connected to the town’s sewer system, “ample sewer capacity exists for the proposed use” and “no system extension is proposed,” Hollister said in the complaint, received Monday by the Town Clerk’s office. “[T]here are no engineering impediments to connecting,” the complaint said, the sewer extension will be privately funded and “the applicants have a right to approval and the WPCA has a non-discretionary / ministerial obligation to grant the application.” 

“In denying the application, the WPCA illegally used sewer system access to control or regulate land use, which is beyond its statutory authority,” Hollister said in the complaint, and the denial was also “pre-textual in the sense that the record shows that its stated denial reasons were not the actual factors that resulted in the decision.”

“The record contains no factual or legal basis for detail of the application,” the complaint said.

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Attorney: Moynihan Made ‘Several Inaccurate Comments’ During Affordable Housing Discussion

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An attorney for a developer seeking to build at least two multifamily projects in New Canaan under the state’s affordable housing law is calling out the town’s highest elected official for inaccurate statements made during a recent public meeting. First Selectman Kevin Moynihan told members of New Canaan’s legislative body last month that “it came as a great surprise” in May that “the rules had changed” with respect to how the state counts affordable units in towns that are seeking to apply for relief from a law widely known by its statute number, 8-30g. Yet “[t]he -30g moratorium rules with regard to deductions of points for units that have been demolished (a requirement overlooked in the Town’s recent application) did not ‘change recently,’ ” attorney Tim Hollister noted in a July 6 letter sent to Moynihan via an email to town employee Tucker Murphy, as well as to the full Town Council. 

“The rules were adopted by the General Assembly in 2000, in Public Act 00- 206,” Hollister noted. “The rules have not changed since then. The Department of Housing enforced these rules in 2019 with respect to Westport’s moratorium application, but DOH did not change the rules.”

The letter, obtained by NewCanaanite.com which made a public records request for it, was sent to town officials in response to several representations that Moynihan made before the Town Council during its June 15 meeting.