Government

‘It’s Awesome’: Parks Officials Support Waveny Park Conservancy’s Plan for a New Trail

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Parks officials on Wednesday night voted unanimously in favor of a private group’s plan to create a new trail in Waveny Park where walkers, joggers and others now are forced into the roadway for lack of one. As it is, the trail that snakes alongside the Waveny Road from the South Avenue entrance ends at a traffic triangle where the Carriage Barn driveway comes into it. Under a proposal from the Waveny Park Conservancy, a new trail would climb the hill up toward the main parking lots in front of Waveny House, according to Keith Simpson, a local landscape architect who sits on the nonprofit organization’s board. “I am showing some additional trees because we want to do some additional trees, and if the budget allows, we would like to put some trees in and cut down some brush so that there is no doubt about it, people can see the trail from the road,” Simpson told members of the Park & Recreation Commission during their regular monthly meeting, held at Lapham Community Center. “Because we want them incentivized to get up and then that would presumably strengthen our hand and the police department’s hand to say we really, really want strollers and people with dogs off the road because we have created an 8-foot-wide trail for you.”

The commission voted 8-0 in favor of constructing the new trail (it needs selectmen, finance board and Town Council approval, and will be paid for entirely by the conservancy) as presented.

Government

‘Waveny House Committee’ Appointed To Help Determine Future Use of Cherished Public Building

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Faced with numerous and expensive baseline repairs that are needed to get Waveny House running as an ADA-compliant public building, town officials on Tuesday appointed a committee that will help determine just how the cherished New Canaan structure should be used. The “Waveny House Committee” is expected to recommend whether the 1912-built home continues to house the Recreation Department, operate more extensively as a paid special events venue, serve as a storage space or perform other functions—a wide range of possibilities that could shape the scope of New Canaan’s capital investment in the facility (more on that below). The committee will consist of Bill Holmes, Suzanne Jonker, Steve Parrett and Penny Young, members of the Board of Selectmen said during their regular meeting, with Recreation Director Steve Benko, Parks & Recreation Commission Chairman Sally Campbell and DPW Buildings Superintendent Bill Oestmann to join at some point. First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said: “There is an attempt to identify some dollars that we can go to the public with over the next two or three years to do an improvement on Waveny House, and we all thought it was important that we just don’t take what is there and redo it, but we should have input as to what the usage should be of that house, how it functions, what the parameters are for the usage of that house.”

The committee is not a “building committee” (which is formed to study, recommend and oversee a specific capital project) and is different from the nonprofit Waveny Park Conservancy, a private group that’s focused on Waveny’s grounds, specifically in the southwest quadrant of the park. Selectman Beth Jones said it was “great to have” Holmes on the committee—he’s a member of the Conservancy, too, as a representative from the New Canaan Preservation Alliance.

Government

‘This Is Really Exciting’: Conservancy Unveils Plan for Waveny Pond

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Members of the private nonprofit group that formed to recommend, fund and oversee improvements to a portion of the grounds at Waveny on Wednesday night unveiled a dramatic plan to create a more visible, functional and attractive pond at the foot of the sledding hill. The Waveny Park Conservancy is calling for new trails, stream system, fishing dock, bridges and wildlife lookout area as well as a full dredge, re-routing of a conspicuous utility line overhead, installation of underwater bubblers to prevent hypoxia, improved spillway and extensive landscaping around the pond, such as the removal of several trees in order to restore the area to the Lapham family’s original vision and create better sightlines toward the main house, according to Keith Simpson, New Canaan-based landscaped architect and member of the group. “A project such as this is a major construction project, no question about it,” Simpson told members of the Park & Recreation Commission during their regular meeting, held in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center. “We will be cordoning off a significant area, and we will be putting in erosion controls. All these things have to be done and they are costly.

Government

‘This Is Really Dangerous’: New Trail Proposed To Get Pedestrians Off Main Road through Waveny

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Officials say they’re planning to extend a trail in Waveny that starts near the South Avenue entrance and follows the park’s main road up toward Waveny House, so that pedestrians aren’t forced into the roadway. As it is now, those who walk or run on the trail are forced when it ends at the Carriage Barn access road to vie with passing cars, members of the Park & Recreation Commission said at their meeting Wednesday night. “This is really dangerous,” Sally Campbell, the commission’s chairman, said during the group’s regular meeting, held in the Douglas Room at Lapham Community Center. What’s been proposed is a zigzagging “switchback” trail that would allow people to climb a wooded hill there, bringing them out at the far side of a parking area that’s far less dangerous for pedestrians, commissioners said. The trail extension has been recommended by the Waveny Park Conservancy and Tiger Mann, assistant director of the Department of Public Works, has mapped out a way to get it done and would put the project in his own capital budget, according to Campbell.

Government

Naming Rights, Donor Plaques on Waveny Structures Part of Conservancy’s Draft Agreement with Town

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While members of the group appear now to be focused on landscaping, the Waveny Park Conservancy under a draft agreement with the town would be poised, with approvals, to name buildings and affix plaques to structures at the popular park in recognition of those who fund projects there. The “Park Preservation and Improvement Agreement” notes that the Town Council must approve “the naming of any building, structure or improvement after any donor, individual, foundation or group.”

“The Conservancy may affix donor recognition plaques in connection with completed Improvement Projects subject to Town approval in each instance as to size, design and location,” one section of the 2-page document reads. “The Conservancy shall not cause or permit any sign or advertisement to be placed in the Park or affixed to any building, structure or improvement except in compliance with the Town Code, ordinances and regulations.”

The document, which the Park & Recreation Commission supported 8-0 during its regular meeting Wednesday by way of recommending the agreement to the Board of Selectmen for further review, may offer a glimpse into one way that the Conservancy intends to raise money as it seeks to fund, propose and help oversee capital projects across a wide swath of Waveny’s grounds. Much of the Conservancy’s “bullet point” presentation to the Park & Recreation Commission dealt with the more immediate work that would be done at and near Waveny Pond as well as in the area in the southwest part of the park known as “the cornfields” (no longer a dumping area for dredged material). In particular, Conservancy member Bill Holmes said, the group is seeking to pay for a consultant to conduct a “forest management plan” which would include identifying invasive species at Waveny and would focus on the area south of the main road through the park.