Around Town

P&Z Approves Pool Pavilion Expansion at New Canaan Field Club

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Town officials on Tuesday approved the widely discussed expansion of the pool pavilion at the New Canaan Field Club. The Planning & Zoning Commission’s vote followed two public hearings at which several neighbors, mostly on Glen Drive, cited what they anticipate to be increased noise and light, more frequent and new uses, and lower property values brought on by a significantly larger pavilion. P&Z placed 16 conditions on the approval, and though those conditions were not publicly available straightaway—since they were in draft form until the moment of the vote—they appeared to include that pavilion functions end prior to 10 p.m., that the club receive the town planner’s approval for a modified landscape plan designed to provide screening for neighbors, and that no noise-generating construction (nearly everything outside of painting) takes place on weekends. Commissioner John Goodwin said at the regular P&Z meeting that though neighbors objected to the size of the expanded pavilion—plans call for a 65 percent increase in square footage to its existing two floors, plus a new 2,322-square-foot floor and 1,078-square-foot outdoor deck—that the structure is in line with other clubs and appropriate for the Field Club’s property. Goodwin said he felt the style of the pavilion was attractive and that the club had taken some pains to ensure that porches generally were pointed away from the residential neighbors.

News

Home Renovation Plan on Marshall Ridge Road Earns Support from Neighbors, Dad

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A planned Marshall Ridge Road home renovation that includes turning a blacktop driveway and garage into a grassy yard is winning support from neighbors and town officials. The lot at number 34 sits on the southwest corner of the loop created by Sunrise Avenue, and includes a 1929 two-story Colonial. Owner Mitch Hoffman, a Board of Education employee (and NCHS varsity baseball coach) represented at a Zoning Board of Appeals public hearing Monday by Stamford-based attorney Burt Hoffman (his father), needs three variances to build an addition off of the rear of his house—that is, down along Sunrise Avenue—that will include a playroom and master bedroom built above a new lower-level garage. “The most severe impact of what he wants to do is a renovation and addition—essentially a bedroom for his growing family, and the most impact is on the Sunrise side,” Burt Hoffman said during the hearing, held in the Douglas Room at Lapham Community Center. The addition would increase the size of the home, which would still be well under allowable coverage—Mitch Hoffman is allowed 2,128 square feet on the .2-acre property, and he’s asking for about 1,780.

Government

Officials: $18 Million New Canaan Town Hall Renovation on Time, Budget

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The widely anticipated renovation of Town Hall is on pace to wrap up next spring and officials said Monday that even after earmarking about three-quarters of what’s been budgeted for contingencies, the project is on track to come in at its estimated $18 million. According to the Joseph Zagarenski of Bridgeport-based firm The McLoud Group, which is overseeing the project as construction manager, the project is within two days of schedule and with the installation of steel by the end of June, “We will be 100 percent on schedule.”

“The foundation is 95 percent of the way complete,” Zagarenski said during a meeting of Town Hall Building Committee III, held in the Adrian Lamb room at New Canaan Library. “The frame will go up in the next two to three weeks. It will be a huge difference in what you see.”

A project expected to improve dramatically New Canaan’s main municipal building and services, the Town Hall renovation since its inception has been guided by principles of creating a modern facility (adding ADA accessibility and built-in technology to ease public use, for example) while retaining the historic character of the original 1909 structure (it was designed by celebrated architect Edgar Alonzo Josseyln after he’d won a competition for the right to do so, historians say—by then he’d already designed what’s now called the “Old Town Hall” of Stamford). The following renderings of the renovated New Canaan Town Hall are from White Plains, NY-based KSQ Architects and have been included in multiple presentations to town officials over the past two years.