Government

Officials: Activities at Grace Farms May Be Inconsistent with Town-Issued Permit

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Through its diverse activities, Grace Farms may be running afoul of the specific terms and conditions that accompanied its hard-won approval from the town three years ago, officials said this week. Back in 2013, when the Planning & Zoning Commission approved an amended special permit for Grace Farms, town officials required additional plantings on the site due to discussion about “activities occurring at the site,” according to Town Planner Steve Kleppin. “We knew that Grace’s vision of the property was evolving,” Kleppin said Monday during a special meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals, held at Town Hall. “We knew the kinds of things they wanted to do. While they’re all great, they may not necessarily be consistent with the terms and conditions of the special permit, and also with what the commission though they were approving back in 2013.”

The comments came as the ZBA took up a separate though related matter: A neighbor filed an appeal to Grace Farms’ Certificate of Occupancy, saying one condition tied to the organization’s zoning permit had not been met.

Government

Botched Public Notice Prompts Delay in Saxe Vote

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Town officials say a print newspaper’s failure to distribute a public notice has prompted them to push back by about two weeks a final vote on funding the proposed $18.6 million Saxe Middle School building project. The Town Council had planned to take up the widely anticipated vote during a special meeting Thursday, but as per Section C4-10 of the Town Charter, the funding body could not approve that appropriation without publishing a notice in a print newspaper “once a week for two successive weeks.”

Because the notice did not appear in the Nov. 12 edition of the weekly New Canaan Advertiser—two days after the Board of Finance voted unanimously to fund the project—the town attorney recommended putting off the planned Nov. 19 vote, according to First Selectman Rob Mallozzi. “It appears that because of some issues with the publication of the required notice in the local paper for two consecutive weeks, that because of a timing issue on the first publication notice, a strict reading of the law and a cautionary reading of the requirements would provide counsel that the town should delay the vote scheduled for the 19th to a later date, when we can be sure that everyone has had plenty of notice of the meeting if they wanted to attend or opine on the vote,” Mallozzi said when asked about the matter.

Government

Lawsuit: Town Denies Silver Hill’s Claims That P&Z Mishandled Hospital’s Applications

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The town is denying Silver Hill Hospital’s claims that it acted “arbitrarily” and “illegally” in turning down the psychiatric facility’s applications, filed in 2013, to use a private home contiguous to its campus for a residential program. Silver Hill the prior year had purchased the 1998-built Colonial at 225 Valley Road for $2.5 million, tax records show, and applied to the Planning & Zoning Commission for site plan and special permit approval in order to renovate and use it as a residential medical treatment facility. Following well-attended public hearings at which several neighbors spoke out against the project, P&Z in November 2013 denied the application by a 6-3 vote. Three weeks later, the hospital filed a lawsuit claiming P&Z bent to the will of a biased commissioner, failed to stay neutral and “considered evidence submitted by opponents to the application after the close of the public hearing.”

“The nature of the process and conduct of the hearing by those Commission members voting for denial of the Application constituted a patently unfair proceeding in violation of the Plaintiff’s due process rights,” according to Silver Hill’s complaint (reproduced in full as a PDF at the bottom of this article). The town in a terse answer filed April 8 denied Silver Hill’s allegations.

Government

Town Attorney’s Advice on Medical Marijuana Dispensaries’ Plans: Wait and See

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Though local planning officials may want to position New Canaan so that the town can control whether a medical marijuana dispensary can set up shop here can do so, the best strategy for now may be to deal with an application if and when it arrives, the town attorney has said. Connecticut has licenses six dispensaries in the state so far—including one in Fairfield County (Bethel)—and in each case the municipality where they’re located readily agreed to the new business’s arrival, Town Attorney Ira Bloom said at the Oct. 28 meeting of the Planning & Zoning Commission. Though there is no indication that the state will grant more licenses any time soon, “that could happen at any point in time,” Bloom said at the meeting, held in the Sturgess Room of the New Canaan Nature Center. “So I think so some degree we are in a wait-and-see period in the state of Connecticut, in trying to assess what is going to happen, whether more licenses are granted or there is a change to the law or whatever,” Bloom said.

Government

Lawyer: Post Office Commitment to Cross Street Hinges on Site Plan Approval

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[acx_slideshow name=”16 Cross Street Proposed Mixed Use Structure”]

The Post Office won’t agree to move to a proposed new space at 16 Cross Street until the town green-lights the larger project proposed for the site, correspondence shows, a combination of new uses and a site plan whose approval process will kickstart with Tuesday’s meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission. In an email sent Oct. 20 to Town Attorney Ira Bloom, a lawyer representing property owner 3M Capital Trust LLC said “the project is a mixed use development and it is the goal to have part of the first floor used as the new home for the New Canaan Post Office.”

“The USPS apparently does not want to enter into detailed negotiations or an agreement until the project is approved,” Stephen Finn of Stamford-based Wofsey, Rosen, Kweskin and Kuriansky said in the email, on file at P&Z. “The project will most likely require at least a couple of meetings before the [P&Z] Commission but for obvious reasons we are hoping to proceed as expeditiously as possible.”

That’s because, or at least partly because, the current Post Office spot at 90 Main St.—though timely, in that it provided a New Canaan location at all, after the Post Office watched its lease at Pine and Park expire with no apparent plan for the future—has been problematic (traffic, parking, hassle). Plans filed Oct.