Government

Coming Saturday, April 25: Community Meeting on Future of Cross and Vitti Streets

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Planning officials are seeking public input on the potential development of the Cross and Vitti Streets area—a section of town that’s been called “ripe for change.”

Led by consultants including Peter Flinker of Ashfield, Mass.-based Dodson & Flinker, the open community meeting—or “public design charette,” as it’s being called—will welcome participants between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday, April 25, in the lower level of New Canaan Library. Residents, business owners and other New Canaanites are invited to attend. “The idea is to really guide the long-term outlook for that area,” said Town Planner Steve Kleppin, who will join the consultants and members of the Plan of Conservation and Development Implememtation Committee at the meeting. “If change happens—and in my opinion it will, we’ve already started to see it—how will it develop in the future? The Planning & Zoning Commission last fall approved one new mixed-use building that’s expected to anchor a streetscape that could see more retail-and-residential structures worked into the Cross-Vitti band, historically home to New Canaan’s “service core,” Kleppin said.

Business

Post Office Narrows Permanent Location in New Canaan to Park Street, Locust Avenue

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The U.S. Postal Service is looking at 18 Locust Ave. and 121 Park St. (see map below) as possibilities for its new, long-term home in New Canaan, officials say. The Park Street location is just south of its former spot on the corner at Pine/Cherry, currently Mrs. Green’s. The Locust Avenue location is roughly opposite Joe’s Pizza, just east of the public parking lot.

Business

P&Z Approves Weed Street Subdivision, Mixed-Use Building on Cross Street

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Town planning officials on Tuesday approved a pair of closely followed land use applications—one for a 2-lot subdivision on Weed Street that includes a conservation easement connecting two New Canaan Land Trust properties, and another for a mixed residential-and-commercial structure on Cross Street that’s designed to accommodate future New Canaan Post Office needs. What follows is a summary of each item. Both were approved by the Planning & Zoning Commission at the group’s regular meeting, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. Weed Street
P&Z on six conditions (see below) approved the 2-lot subdivision at 929 Weed St., a 9-acre property whose current structure—a Midcentury Modern—will remain, while two additional lots will be carved out. As part of the subdivision, the property’s owner is granting as a conservation easement along an approximately 425-foot strip of land that connects two parcels long ago given to the New Canaan Land Trust: One that backs up (eastward) into the woods and connects eventually to the New Canaan Nature Center, and another that includes wetlands and fronts Weed Street itself.

Government

P&Z Approves Text Changes for Cross Street Development

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Planning officials on Monday night took a first definitive step in support of a proposed mixed-use Cross Street structure that’s designed to offer a future, long-term location for the Post Office. The Planning & Zoning Commission at its special meeting assigned a Dec. 15 effective date for three text changes to New Canaan’s Zoning Regulations that the group approved 9-0—the necessary first steps in an updated plan that could see a 3-story building go in at 16 Cross St. with 12 residential units above a 7,000-square-foot commercial space. Half of that ground-floor space could house the Post Office, though a meeting with the federal agency likely requires “some approval on this concept,” Arnold Karp, a managing partner of the company that owns 16 Cross St., said during a public hearing.

Government

Officials Flag Parking Space-Reduction Piece of Cross Street Proposal

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Saying they’re concerned about any permanent reduction of parking spaces that Zoning Regulations require in the downtown, members of the municipal body in charge of off-street public lots on Thursday night voiced opposition to one piece of the closely followed residential-and-retail building proposed for Cross Street. The Parking Commission has no formal jurisdiction over the private development proposed for 16 Cross St., which would include retail space on the ground floor—possibly for the Post Office—three levels of apartments above and 54 parking spaces below. Developers say a text change to New Canaan’s Zoning Regulations is needed so that the mixed-use building can reduce beyond five the number of parking spaces normally required for such a structure (a calculation that considers total dwelling units as well as commercial square footage). Parking Commission Chairman Keith Richey said he is “against any change in the rules regarding the number of spaces that commercial establishments—which in my mind is the Post Office—need to provide.”

“Particularly the Post Office, where you have people coming in and out all the time,” Richey said at the meeting, held in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center. “They should be the last ones allowed to provide a below-code number of spaces.”

Technically, what the developers want to do on Cross Street is expand a regulation already on the books.