Government

‘A Lane To a Beautiful Nature Park’: Finance Officials Hear Land Trust Request for Funds To Acquire Fowler Property

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Saying it would preserve unique natural habitat and expand an important open space greenway, members of a nonprofit organization dedicated to land conservation in New Canaan on Tuesday night urged town officials to help their group with the timely purchase of a 6.35-acre property. The would-be “Silvermine Fowler” preserve—a private property long owned by award-winning zoologist Jim Fowler and available to the New Canaan Land Trust right now in a $1.3 million deal—is accessible from Silvermine Road just below the intersection with Route 106. An east-west oriented parcel that climbs a wooded hill toward a natural pond, the property is contiguous to a 41-acre sanctuary that the Land Trust already owns (see map below). Among privately raised funds, pledges and grants, the New Canaan Land Trust and Trust for Public Land—a national nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco—already have secured all but $365,000 needed to acquire the property. At this time, the organization has first right of refusal, though the offer is to expire in the first quarter of 2017, according to Land Trust officials.

Around Town

Boy Scout Eagle Project Places Hiking Trail on Land Trust Parcel

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A recently completed Boy Scout Eagle Project by John Peiser added a trail and natural bench on the New Canaan Land Trust’s Hicks Meadows – Henry Kelley Uplands Audubon parcel off Cedar Lane in the Silvermine District. The project includes blazing a three-tenths mile hiking trail loop and a natural bench for members of the New Canaan community to enjoy. The Hicks Meadows – Henry Kelley Uplands Audubon parcel consists of 40.7 acres and is located near the intersection of Cedar Lane and Braeburn Drive in the Silvermine section of New Canaan. The parcel grew as a series of donations starting in 1952 with Mr. and Mrs. Clarence King donating 21 acres in the memory of Henry Kelley to the Bird Protective Society of New Canaan, the forerunner to the New Canaan Audubon Society. In 1970, Ira and Margaret Hicks donated 12.75 acres to the Land Trust.

News

State Approves Controversial Aquarion Land Sale Under Draft Decision; Final Decision Expected Wednesday

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Over the objections of the town’s elected officials, open space advocates, conservation experts and a group of neighbors, the state agency that oversees utilities in Connecticut has said it supports the water company’s plan to sell off a large piece of untouched land in southwestern New Canaan, including to developers, under a draft decision issued this month. The non-binding decision from the Connecticut Pubilc Utilities Regulatory Authority, or ‘PURA,’ is expected to be made final on Wednesday (visit this page after 9 a.m. to listen to the agency’s hearing live). According to PURA, Aquarion’s approximately 18.7-acre parcel—it’s tucked behind Weed Street and Frogtown Road west of Thurton Drive dead-ends—“has never been used for water utility purposes.”

“It has always remained in its natural state since it was acquired by Noroton Water Company in 1907,” according to PURA’s findings. “The land is considered to be excess land and is not located within an aquifer protection area or any public water supply watershed. In September 2015, the Company received Class III land verification from the Department of Public Health confirming that the property is located outside watershed or aquifer protection areas.”

Plans call for the property—assessed at $167,720 in 2014 (fair market value of $239,600) after New Canaan in 2002 had agreed to designate it as “forest land”—to be divided into three separate pieces.

News

Historic Ferris Hill Home To Be Rented, Back on Market in ‘Several Years’

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Now that the property has been safely transferred, volunteers spent several hours Tuesday afternoon cleaning up a historic farmhouse on Ferris Hill Road in order to make it rentable in the next couple of months. Tom Nissley, who holds title to the property with his wife, Emily, said his long-term goal is to sell the 1735-built house at 8 Ferris Hill Road, though it could be “several years” before it’s ready to go on the market again. “Somebody who loves history is going to have to buy the house,” Nissley said. “My theory is that everything sells. There is always a buyer for things, and there are a lot of people who are interested in history.”

That’s a major reason why the historic farmhouse still stands.

News

No Idling: NCHS Friends of the Earth Club Works for Cleaner Air and a Better New Canaan

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Idling cars are a major pet peeve for New Canaan High School sophomore Will Santora. The 15-year-old is aware that it’s illegal in Connecticut to idle a motor vehicle for more than three minutes, yet he estimates that up to 80 percent of the cars that back up at the NCHS lot when school lets out are idling. “You waste gas, you waste money, you are polluting—and all for no reason,” Santora said from Room 115 at the high school on a recent afternoon, surrounded by a half-dozen likeminded sophomores and juniors. “You don’t need to leave your car running at all. And people sometimes just forget to turn off their car or they don’t realize it’s going, so that is a big issue because it does pollute a lot and if you idle for more than 10 seconds, you are already starting to waste gas.”

In the next month or so, Santora and this group of high school teens—together they are the Friends of the Earth Club, an extracurricular group—will purchase and install a “no idling” sign on school grounds.