The New Canaan Police Commission is discussing a plan to remove about 12 parking spaces on Main Street in order to accommodate a state regulation that requires on-street parking spaces to be distanced by 25 feet from crosswalks on state highways.
First Selectman Kevin Moynihan—in a brief update during Thursday’s Parking Commission meeting—said he will meet with the Police Commission again next week, along with Town Counsel Ira Bloom and Town Planner Lynn Brooks Avni, to come up with a plan.
Moynihan said the state is “putting pressure” on the town to get the project done quickly.
“They said if we don’t do it, they will do it,” he said during the meeting, held at Town Hall.
Last year, New Canaan lost 13 parking spaces on Elm Street after the town attorney advised that local ordinance cannot supersede the same 1949 state law. A local man had formally notified the town about the statute after the road had been repaved but before new striping went in outlining parking spaces.
More recently, a resident filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice that the town was deficient terms of the number of disabled parking spaces it offered downtown, resulting in the Police Commission re-designating 12 parking spaces in metered lots downtown for disabled motorists.
In addition, a resident filed a complaint with the Connecticut Department of Transportation, alerting the agency that the town was also violating the 25-foot regulation on a stretch of Main Street that doubles as state Route 106.
Moynihan noted that it’s a state road.
“This is a Police Commission issue only, in terms of working with the state,” Moynihan said. “And there’s not a lot of flexibility… Our only other option is to remove crosswalks.”