Government

Owner of Walgreens Building Seeks Permission To Open Access to Underground Parking Garage 

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The owner of the Pine Street building that houses Walgreens is seeking permission to open access to an unused 52-space underground parking garage, according to an application filed with Planning & Zoning. Constructed at the time the building at 36 Pine St. went up 12 years ago, the vast garage was created in anticipation that the Planning & Zoning Commission would update local regulations so that underground parking was allowed in the Business A zone, according to an application filed on behalf of the property owner, New York-based Eton Centers Inc.

An amendment to the New Canaan Zoning Regulations came into effect about three years after the building’s construction, according to the application filed by attorney Steve Finn of Stamford’s Wofsey, Rosen, Kweskin & Kuriansky LLP. “Recently after urging by the first selectman and others, Eton Centers Co LLC has decided to ‘open up’ the underground space and utilize it for a parking garage with ingress and egress to the garage to be constructed along the easterly side of the building,” Finn said in a narrative that accompanied applications for Special Permit and site plan approval. 

A site plan shows a 28-foot-wide proposed garage opening at the far end of the east side of the building (see rendering above). The regularly updated document that helps guide land use planning in New Canaan, the Plan of Conservation and Development or ‘POCD,’ “strongly endorses addressing a parking deficient for both downtown patrons and commuters,” the application said.

Government

Owners of Two Richmond Hill Road Homes Propose Combined Parcel, Redevelopment with Four Dwellings

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The owners of two contiguous properties on Richmond Hill Road are seeking permission from the town to knock down the single-family homes already there, combine the parcels and then build four new dwellings. Filed with the Planning & Zoning Commission on behalf of owners Dennis Quinn and Joan Cheever, the plan for numbers 19 and 25 Richmond Hill Road requires not only site plan and Special Permit approval, but also changes to the underlying New Canaan Zoning Regulations. 

The proposal is “designed to provide high quality multi-family housing in single occupancy units to contribute to the unique and diverse housing opportunities in the Apartment Zone and adjacent to the downtown,” according to the application filed by attorney Jacqueline Kaufman of Stamford-based Carmody, Torrance, Sandak & Hennessey. “The Applicant has designed the proposed dwellings to be consistent with the surrounding Richmond Hill neighborhood, which consists of a mix of aging and new single-family and multifamily dwellings.”

Under the New Canaan Zoning Regulations, site plan approval is needed for development of a multifamily use in a residential zone (see page 179 here), and a Special Permit is required to construct multifamily dwellings in the Apartment Zone (page 100). According to the application, the project meets required Special Permit criteria (page 186). 

The regulations specify that for properties in the Apartment Zone, the minimum side and rear yard setbacks for a principal bundling are 25 feet and properties in the Apartment Zone have a minimum landscaped area of 50%. Under proposed changes to the regulations, the setback distance would be preserved for a single structure, while it may be reduced to 20 feet “for properties with multiple structures, with Special Permit approval,” while the landscaping figure would be reduced to 30% for such structures. 

The proposed text changes to the Zoning Regulations also add the following sentence to the definition of ‘multifamily dwelling’: “The Multi-Family Dwelling use may be provided as attached or detached units and may share exterior amenities on the subject property as provided by the permitting Regulation.”

According to the application, each of the four detached dwelling units planned for the would-be merged lot will be designed for single-family occupancy. 

“New landscaping, driveways, sidewalks, lighting and drainage improvements are also proposed,” it said.

Airbnb

Airbnb: P&Z Weighs Draft Regulations on Short-Term Rentals 

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Town officials are weighing proposed zoning regulations that could require the owners of properties let out for short-term rentals to obtain a zoning permit first. The proposed regulations, now in draft form before the Planning & Zoning Commission, could come to a public hearing next month, officials said. Obtained by NewCanaanite.com through a Freedom of Information Act request, the draft proposal would see P&Z regulate short-term rentals as an accessory use, not a primary use, in residential districts. Specifically, a “minor short-term rental” would be defined as “the temporary rental or part or all of a residential property for fewer than 30 consecutive nights at a time, for no more than three times in a six-month period, for which the guest compensates the owner of the property.”

Such “minor short-term rentals” would occur no more than three times in a six-month period and would be required to meet Housing Code occupancy requirements, to be used for lodging only—as opposed to activities such as parties, fundraisers, photo shoots or corporate retreats—and must not “materially disrupt the residential character of the neighborhood,” according to the draft. Commissioner Krista Neilson, who has taken a lead on helping draft the regulations along with Town Planner Lynn Brooks Avni, said that in some ways the language is designed to give more discretion to a zoning enforcement officer who might be faced with difficult situations and the prospect of resigning the requirement zoning permits. 

Another part of the draft regulation specifies that the zoning permit, which would expire after one year, could be revoked if the rental “imposed a nuisance on neighbors.”

Brooks Avni noted that it would important to have “some sort of threshold about what the nuisance might be.”

“Just because they are bothered by the fact that a neighbor is renting, that might be their nuisance but if it’s allowed then it’s not really a nuisance,” she said during P&Z’s regular meeting, held April 30 at Town Hall.

Government

Owner of Four-Unit Office Building Seeks To Convert It into Four Condos

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The owners of a four-unit office building in downtown New Canaan are seeking to convert those offices into residential condominiums, according to an application filed with the town. Built in 1975, the structure at 93 Cherry St. has always been used for offices. Yet in the last five years, its owners—town residents John and Alice Chen—have “had trouble finding interested tenants for any of the units,” according to an application filed with Planning & Zoning by  New Canaan-based attorney Kay Jex. “At the suggestion of several Realtors and the applicant’s architect, they would like to convert the building into residential apartments,” Jex said in the application.

Dan Radman

‘These Are Our Pets’: Applicant for Proposed Sanctuary Barn Makes Case to P&Z; Another Neighbor Objects

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After hearing from an Oenoke Ridge Road man that a neighbor’s plan to install a barn and pens for rescued pigs, goats and sheep was insufficient and potentially a health hazard, town officials on Tuesday night called for more time and an expert’s perspective on the proposal. The Planning & Zoning Commission continued the application filed on behalf of Laura Holson Boswerger of 1770 Oenoke Ridge Road. 

A Wilton native who met her husband at a wildlife sanctuary in Africa and has volunteered at the Animal Care Centers of New York City and Woodstock Farm Sanctuary in High Falls, N.Y., Boswerger purchased her four-acre property in northern New Canaan in October after researching its ordinances on keeping farm animals, she told the Commission during its regular meeting. After consulting with an expert from the Woodstock sanctuary, Boswerger put together a plan to rescue four slaughterhouse-bound pigs, goats and sheep and to build an approximately 2,000-square-foot barn where the 12 animals could live, creating separate paddocks that would run out of the structure. Under New Canaan’s Zoning Regulations, such an accessory structure larger than 1,000 square feet requires a Special Permit from P&Z, and Boswerger applied for that permit through her attorney—David Rucci of New Canaan’s Lampert, Toohey & Rucci LLC. 

One neighbor lodged objections to the plan with the Commission that Boswerger addressed during the hearing (more on that below), and another resident of the area—Joseph Gerardi of 1745 Oenoke Ridge Road, which is across the street and one property over—told P&Z that what’s proposed would not be “safe, sanitary, aesthetic and comfortable” for the animals. “These animals, they need pasture areas that rotate because of parasites—animals get sick and if you don’t rotate the let-out areas, it is not healthy for them,” Gerardi told P&Z during the public hearing, held in the Town Meeting Room at Town Hall.