Government

Report Questions Proposed 15,000-S.F. Manmade Pond on Weed; Public Hearing Set for April 27

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A peer review of a dramatic plan to landscape extensively a Weed Street property is raising questions about a proposed 15,000-square-foot manmade pond. The review, from Riverside-based D’Andrea Surveying & Engineering, focuses on site development and drainage management plans at 384 and 386 Weed St., a combined 7-acre parcel. “What is the purpose of the pond and the justification for having to significantly alter over 50,000 square feet of wooded, moderate to steep slopes in order to create the 15,000-square-foot artificial pond?” Leonard D’Andrea writes in the peer review. “There is very little design information provided for the proper construction of an artificial pond with an area of moderate slopes and below an area of steep slopes. The pond would contain about 5 feet of water.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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The all-volunteer Youth Sports Committee—a Board of Selectmen-appointed group formed to help with the important work of overseeing the private organizations that run youth sports in New Canaan—is getting better at filing meeting minutes. A look at records at the Town Clerk’s office shows that minutes from the Sept. 15 meeting were received on Oct. 3—though that’s not within the legally required seven days, it’s a significant improvement for the committee, which filed its Feb. 6 meeting minutes on Aug.

Government

Use of Planned New Space a Major Concern for New Canaan Field Club’s Neighbors

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Though the New Canaan Field Club has followed town officials’ instructions in supplying more details about noise and screening, Glen Drive and Smith Ridge Road neighbors remain concerned about the impact of a proposed building expansion. Many of those concerns, raised at Wednesday night’s Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, centered on what neighbors anticipate will be new, more frequent, visible and potentially loud uses of a planned additional floor and attendant outdoor deck of the pool pavilion. Kelly Hennigan of Glen Drive during a public hearing on the Field Club’s application described as “unsettling” the figure 298—that’s how many people would be allowed by fire code to occupy the proposed new floor and deck combined (229 inside and 69 outside). “We believe it is a change in the intensity of use of the facility and that it will negatively impact property values on Glen Drive,” said Hennigan, one of more than a dozen Field Club neighbors attending the meeting, held in the Douglas Room at Lapham Community Center. “We are very much concerned with the additional floor and adjoining deck and based on the capacity of being able to host 300 people,” she continued.

News

Country Club Road Homeowners Seek to Preserve Ca. 1835 Barn as Guesthouse

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The owners of a Country Club Road home on Monday night took an important first step toward winning town approval for an effort to re-designate as a guesthouse a barn on their 3.8-acre property that dates to the early 19th Century. David and Shelley Simone at number 340—the first driveway on the right as you come off of Oenoke Ridge—are planning to put their home on the market, New Canaan-based attorney David Rucci, representing the couple, said during a public hearing before the Zoning Board of Appeals. Most of those who have seen the property—it includes a 7,000-square-foot home built in 2003, as well as a pool and spa—have asked whether the ca. 1835 two-story barn that sits right on the road is a guesthouse, Rucci said. “It’s basically being used as a guesthouse, but it’s not legally a guesthouse—and that’s OK, because right now it doesn’t have a kitchen, and that’s the barometer for determining whether it’s a guesthouse or not—so right now they don’t have it legally, but they want a legal residence,” Rucci said during the hearing, held in the Douglas Room at Lapham Community Center.

News

Local Architect on Huguette Clark Property Plans: ‘It’s Going To Look Terrific’

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Though they own multiple restored properties around the world, the couple that three months ago bought the former Huguette Clark estate on Dan’s Highway plans to settle into the famed New Canaan mansion—becoming its first occupants in decades, officials said Tuesday. Asked by the Planning and Zoning Commission whether he could identify the purchasers, New Canaan-based attorney David Rucci—while applying on the new owners’ behalf to dissolve a 10-lot subdivision of the 52-acre property—said they’ve renovated historic properties in the past. “They just happen to be very preservation-minded people,” Rucci said during the commission’s regular meeting, held in the Douglas Room at Lapham Community Center. “They are out of the city. They have properties in other parts of the world that they have done the exact same thing with.