Business

Trash Talking: Town Officials Target Conspicuous, Misused Garbage Receptacles Downtown

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Saying loose garbage bags, conspicuous dumpsters and misused trash receptacles diminish downtown New Canaan’s appearance and charm—if not its sanitation—town officials are searching for ways to help boxed-in businesses dispose of their waste more responsibly. Off-hours visitors to downtown—and Mead Park, for that matter—misuse public garbage bins and commercial dumpsters by throwing their household trash in them, exacerbating the problem in a town that’s seen a steep rise, in recent years, in the number restaurants and attendant waste that requires hauling, officials say. The town must “get a handle of the garbage can view as you arrive from the railroad station—that is the first thing to present itself in New Canaan,” Planning & Zoning Commissioner Laszlo Papp said at a special meeting of the Plan Implementation Committee on Jan. 7. “That entire sidewalk and garden and everything else by Starbucks is incredibly unsightly,” he said at the meeting, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department.

News

With Success, Pop-Up Park Reaches Crossroads; Organizers Ask: Where Do We Go from Here?

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Launched on a test basis in the summer of 2012 and evolving each year since into a more regular fixture downtown, the Pop-Up Park at South and Elm—host to activities year-round including World Cup Weekend, family gatherings, outdoor concerts and showcases for local eateries—has garnered positive feedback from residents, businesses and town officials. On Wednesday night, the architects and volunteers who organize the popular park—noting that the labor required to set up and break down each summer weekend is not feasible long-term—turned to town planning officials for direction on whether the Pop-Up Park should become a summer-only, more frequent or even permanent feature of downtown New Canaan. “The original concept was, ‘Let’s try it and see if it works,’ ” Pop-Up Park Committee member Arnold Karp said at a special meeting of the Plan Implementation Committee, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department. “I think we’ve had three seasons to really test it out. It does work, so where do we take it from here?

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.

Business

Cross and Vitti Streets: ‘Ripe for Change’

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Calling the area of Cross and Vitti Streets a largely neglected section of downtown New Canaan that has potential to serve the community better, officials on Tuesday sketched out a plan to re-imagine its use, density and streetscape, possibly even introducing a newly defined business zone. As it is now, most of the businesses on either side of Cross and Vitti are part of “Business Zone B”—a designation that allows for heavier-duty commercial use such as for garden supplies, hardware and lumber. But the way the area has developed—in some ways, as a kind of industrial park within New Canaan, with repair shops, car washes and print businesses—may not be just how it would be mapped out given a choice now, Town Planner Steve Kleppin said at a subcommittee meeting of the Planning & Zoning Commission. “It’s ripe for change,” Kleppin said during the meeting, held in the Sturgess Room of the New Canaan Nature Center. “It’s the one area that I don’t know if there is anything that couldn’t change over there at some point in time, and there’s already talk of some new development over there, so I think it’s a good idea for us to be out front and really decide how do we want this area to look in the future, what’s the potential of it.”

Kleppin said he has money in the budget now to bring in a planning/design consultant to sketch out some designs and then oversee a series of public meetings and workshops for feedback from residents.

Business

Planning Officials Target Problems with Merchant Signage Downtown

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Saying that too much and certain types of signage in the downtown are unseemly, New Canaan planning officials are turning their attention to a problem that they say ultimately affects overall property values. The three major problems with signs in New Canaan’s business district are sandwich boards, pasted notices on windows and ‘For Sale’ signs, Laszlo Papp, chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission, said at the group’s Aug. 26 meeting. Papp said P&Z would appoint a task force to take up the matter, and that he would include merchant groups such as the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce “so that it would be obvious that controlling signage does not mean the commission would intend to harm or curtail the merchants in town.”

“The significance is the quality of the downtown—that is the issue,” Papp said at the meeting, held in the Douglas Room at Lapham Community Center. “And the quality of the downtown is an issue for overall town property values.