Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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New Canaan on Thursday put a lien on the Forest Street property cited for violating the town’s blight ordinance. Signed by Blight Officer Brian Platz, the town’s chief building official, the 1829-built multi-family home at 74 Forest St. is deteriorating and its .3-acre property is unkempt. The “Blight Lien and Certification of Continuing Lien” notice in the Town Clerk’s office says that $9,800 was owed as of May 22 and $100 per day additional is to be assessed as of that date (bringing the total to $11,500 as of Monday, June 8). ***

More than 40 residents attended NewCanaanite.com’s inaugural Community Coffee on Friday, and the sole topic of discussion for the hour-long talk was the Pop Up Park downtown, suspended by the committee that created and managed it after some merchants raised concerns about traffic and the makeshift plaza’s effect on business.

Government

Forest Street Homeowner Cited for Blight, Faces $10,000 in Fines

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A New Canaan homeowner is facing $10,000 in fines after building officials found Friday that his 1829-built home on Forest Street has run afoul of the town’s blight ordinance. The multi-family home at 74 Forest St.’s roof is deteriorating and no longer performing its function, garbage and debris can be seen inside a garage when its door is open, paint is peeling from the porch and other areas of the home’s exterior and overgrown shrubbery and an unkempt yard are visible—all from either the public way or adjoining properties, Chief Building Official Brian Platz said during a citation hearing on the matter. “The blight complaints that I have received have been over the course of three-and-a-half years and from several of the neighbors, so this has been ongoing for quite some time,” Platz said during the hearing, held in the conference room of the building department’s offices in Irwin Park. “In my opinion, it absolutely meets several definitions of blight.”

Hearing officer David Hunt of New Canaan reviewed each piece of evidence presented by Platz, agreed with the building official’s assessment and approved a fine of $100 per day backdated to Feb. 13 ($9,800 total, as of Friday), when a Citation of Violation had been sent via certified mail to the homeowner.

Business

Citing Misrepresentations, Building Officials Issue Stop-Work Order on Beval Saddlery Renovation

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New Canaan building officials have issued a stop-work order on interior renovations to a Pine Street business after the property’s owner told them the project hadn’t been authorized and that misrepresentations had been made on a permit application for the work. It isn’t clear how far along Beval Saddlery is with an estimated $150,000 renovation at its 50 Pine St. location. Work must now stop, following a letter sent last week from Chief Building Official Brian Platz of the New Canaan Building Department to Mark Walter, owner of Beval Saddlery. “At the owner’s request I will reinstate and validate the now void permit with or without modifications, or I will order the building restored to its condition prior to the issuance of this permit,” Platz said in the letter, dated Oct.

News

South School Windows Project On Time, Budget

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The first phase of the closely watched $2.75 million windows project at South School—removing part of the original 1955 glass block, long porous and out-of-code, with caulk that has PCBs—has been completed on time and budget, district officials say. The work wrapped up Aug. 8, leaving the gym, “café-torium” and some inner courtyard spaces such as the library for the second phase (to be completed next summer), according to Nancy Harris, interim secretary of the South School Building Committee and interim director of finance and operations for New Canaan Public Schools. “At this point in time, I have to tell you that from a personal perspective, as you look at where the glass block was, it’s covered in plywood, covered by Tyvek, covered by a rubber membrane and boards so that it’s weather-tight, it actually looks neater and less jarring than the original glass block, and now you can see the comparison between the gymnasium and the Tyvek covered space so it was really a success,” Harris said at Monday’s Board of Education meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. The glass block system and original windows at the school need to be replaced, and building expansion joints and caulking and trim in the windows repaired, Shelton-based engineering and environmental consulting firm Tighe & Bond and SLAM Construction Services of Glastonbury have found.