Business

An Old Traffic Plan Persists: Elm Street Reversal

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For more than 75 years, Elm Street has been the epicenter of downtown New Canaan. Once called “Railroad Avenue” due to its proximity to the train station, Elm Street is arguably the most identifiable road in town, providing New Canaan with a Rockwellian charm with a mix of independent businesses and upscale chains that draw local and out-of-town shoppers alike. “Everything needs a spine, it is what makes the train go,” Rick Franco—owner of Franco’s Wine Merchants— told NewCanaanite.com. Franco’s is one of the oldest businesses in New Canaan and one of the first to set up shop on Elm Street, originally as a grocery store during Prohibition. “There’s a certain amount of comfort that is generated here by the one-way street and shops.

Around Town

Ticket Upheld: No Relief for Woman Who Parks Illegally on Main Street To Run into the Bank

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Officials on Thursday upheld a $30 ticket issued to a woman who had pulled into a no-parking area when faced with construction traffic downtown in order to run into a bank. The woman appealed her ticket in person before the Parking Commission during a special meeting in the Town Meeting Room. At 1:44 p.m. on Sept. 2, the woman said during her appeal hearing, she came to a stop while traveling west on Main Street, opposite New Canaan Library. Three construction laborers working around the corner on Cherry Street had walked into the road, holding up traffic and preventing the woman from turning right onto Cherry and into the parking lot of Wells Fargo Bank—her destination, she said.

Government

Hopeful Post Office Developer: Roughly Half of Now-27 Parking Spaces To Serve USPS Customers

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About half of the 27 parking spaces at the proposed new Post Office on Locust Avenue will be designated for USPS customers, and after-hours they likely will be open for customers of restaurants in town, the site’s developer said Thursday night. A second-floor commercial tenant on the proposed 8,220-square-foot building would use an estimated 10 spaces at 18-26 Locust Ave., while the Post Office requires three or four spaces for workers at the new branch, leaving about 13 or 14 spaces for customers, according to New Canaan’s Richard Carratu. “The postal trucks will not park on-site, which is important for the town—they will only come in four times a day to deliver mail from Stamford to New Canaan and load it and then leave, so there will be no permanent trucks on-site,” Carratu told the Parking Commission during its regular monthly meeting, held in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center. Carratu said he’s agreed on business terms with the Post Office and that as of Thursday, the USPS district that includes New Canaan had signed off on the proposed building. Plans call for a two-story brick, cupola-topped, Federal-style structure at a combined lot that would include 18 and 26 Locust Ave.

0684-Old

Discarded Treasure: NCHS Class of ’39 Yearbook Turns Up at Dump

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New Canaan’s Steve Benko was at the Transfer Station making his regular Saturday morning dump run on a recent weekend, when one of the guys who works there flagged him down. Someone had been discarding books into the bin there, Benko learned, and one of them was an old New Canaan High School yearbook that had his own (Benko’s) father pictured in it. “It was pretty neat,” Benko, New Canaan’s longtime recreation director, said on a recent afternoon from his office at Waveny House. “It was fun. He told me somebody was throwing out books and he saw this one, thought I may want it.”

He was right.

Government

New Parking Permit Fees, Fines for Late Renewals Proposed

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Parking officials are proposing modest increases to parking permit fees at municipal lots. The Parking Commission’s following set of proposed rates, supported unanimously at its March 12 meeting, requires approval from the Board of Selectmen:

 

The commissioners compared New Canaan’s rates to nearby towns. Chairman Keith Richey said he was uneasy about upping the cost of a permit more than the rate of inflation unless the town does something to “add value to the lot,” such as putting in lights or resurfacing. “I do think that we should always have an increase to reflect inflation, because there’s always inflation, and we didn’t have an increase last year because of the economy,” Richey said. Commissioner Pam Crum said she appreciated that Center School lot was increased by 10 percent, but said there’s still too large a gap between Center and the others.