George Blauvelt

Re-Digging Up Roads: Water Company Plans To Install New Main Line in New Canaan

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The water company plans to install a main line in New Canaan, a project that likely will affect roads recently dug up for the natural gas expansion, officials say. Aquarion’s planned 36-inch water main is a transmission line that’s designed to address the company’s “resiliency problem,” according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. “So that’s going to come from Wilton and run its way through to the Waveny tower, to the water tower,” Mann said during a Dec. 11 meeting of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure, held at Town Hall. 

“That is primarily going to be on state roads, until it gets to Little Brook, and then they want to come down Little Brook, past the school, down Lakeview, down Millport, down Main, down Farm, get into Waveny Park. So everything that is already being dug up is going to get re-dug for the 36-inch line.”

The comments came during an update on upcoming major capital projects. 

The line installation will be a three-year project and it’s now in the planning phase, Mann said.

Government

Town To Make Temporary Repair at Downgraded Ponus Ridge Bridge

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A bridge in western New Canaan recently was downgraded due to new state regulations and fire vehicles are prohibited from traversing it, officials say. New Canaan Fire Department vehicles now must go around the bridge on Ponus Bridge near Collins Pond, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann. 

“It’s not adding much to their time but it’s still sensitive in that area since that services Dan’s Highway—they already had a structure fire there—[and] certain other areas,” Mann said during a Dec. 11 meeting of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure, held at Town Hall. 

He referred to a Nov. 16 fire that rendered a Dan’s Highway house uninhabitable, opening a discussion about installing more dry hydrants in New Canaan’s outlying areas. As a temporary fix, Mann said, the town will install a shear slab over the top of the road “that should take care of almost every single one of their vehicles.”

And a consultant is analyzing what’s required under new Connecticut Department of Transportation regulations, he said.

Government

Public Works: Praise for New Traffic Island at Laurel and Canoe Hill After Signage, Striping Went In 

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Complaints about the reconfigured traffic island at Canoe Hill and Laurel Roads have stopped since the town put in new signage and striping, officials said Wednesday. Town officials had grappled for years with ways to improve the intersection, where motorists sometimes ignored instructions to keep right around an existing traffic island. Last fall, the Police Commission green-lighted a plan to push the island itself deeper into Laurel Road, no longer requiring westbound Canoe Hill traffic to drive wide around it. According to Public Works Director Tiger Mann, residents used to lodge complaints with the town about “people going the wrong way around it.”

“Specifically box trucks, FedEx trucks, landscaping vehicles, things like that,” Mann said during a meeting of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure, held at Town Hall. “If you’re going the wrong way and somebody doesn’t notice you’re going the wrong way, that’s a bad accident waiting to occur.”

Construction of the newly configured traffic island “lagged a little bit,” Mann said, and “while it was being installed, people were unhappy with it, because they didn’t understand how they were supposed to travel.”

“I’m still uncertain as to why that was true, because it’s pretty self-explanatory to me, but we put the signage in, we striped it, and I have gotten nothing but compliments since that time,” he said.

Government

New Committee Reviews Unused Town-Owned Buildings 

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A newly appointed committee on Wednesday identified and discussed eight town-owned structures that New Canaan may no longer need in its portfolio. The town has 62 total buildings or structures that require some level of maintenance, according to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan. The figure does not include school district buildings. 

Some of them are “possibly expendable,” Moynihan said during the first meeting of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure. “All of these buildings are used for some town function, so even though there are a lot of buildings—New Canaan has a lot of buildings—they all have a purpose,” he said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. “And some of them are not totally utilized in terms of their capacity.

Board of Selectmen

Six Appointed to Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure

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The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday voted unanimously to appoint six members to a newly conceived committee that will advise the executive branch of local government on building and infrastructure projects. First Selectman Kevin Moynihan will serve as chairman of the committee, which is to meet monthly and “provide expertise and financial oversight on an ongoing basis for major decisions and plans such as town-owned buildings and infrastructure projects including but not limited to major capital projects that are part of the Five-Year Capital Plan,” according to a draft resolution read out at the Board’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall. “Right now I am the oversight over Public Works, and some other towns have standing commissions,” Moynihan said. “I have discovered that I sometimes do not have the bandwidth to be on top of all projects and this is an opportunity for us to have people on Board of Finance who have a continuing interest, making sure that projects are on budget, so a sort of standing building committee in that regard, and also it gives us the opportunity to better coordinate with the Board of Education on their projects, like solar.”

The appointees to the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure include Moynihan, George Blauvelt (a Board of Finance member), Neil Budnick (Board of Finance), Penny Young (Town Council), Penny Rashin (Board of Education) and Stuart Sawabini, former Police Commission chair. Moynihan said he’s still looking for a seventh member to nominate, a “contractor type.”

Under the resolution, committee members will serve two-year terms.

Moynihan and Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Nick Williams voted 3-0 to make the appointments. 

The first selectman introduced the concept of the committee two weeks ago, saying it would include specialists such as contractors and architects and would advise the Board on projects such as major roadway renovation, bridges, school roofs and solar installations.