Former New Canaan P&Z Commissioner: No "Spot Zoning...Save 1913"

To the editor,

The 1913 + 1936 Library is a three-dimensional 3,600 square feet building and cannot be “memorialized” by a pediment, a terrace of its scattered stones, or a bronze plaque.
Our appointed members of the Planning and Zoning Commission are now confronted with the task of following the Guidelines in the Town’s Plan of Conservation and Development and the Guidelines in the Town’s Village District description.

The Library’s application, after some 12 years of development, has finally been submitted at the last minute – “we plan to break ground in June, prices of materials are going up, so please hurry, etc.”

That’s not how it works. The Library’s application does not follow the Guidelines mentioned above. Period.

The Village District outlines were drawn to include Town Hall at the north end of Main Street and the 1913 Library at the South end. The application creates its own “Guidelines” by taking the existing Library out of the Commercial Zone, with its Village District designation, and arbitrarily placing it in a new “Library Zone. We used to call that “spot zoning” when I served on the P&Z: a new zone created to allow a developer to build what he wanted without following the Guidelines or existing zoning regulations.

It is not complicated: the application should be denied and sent back to be corrected, to include the existing very historic 1913+1936 Library.

The Library board has had 12 years to figure this out. The architects, if so directed, could have come up with a solution years ago. Meanwhile….

Keith Simpson has prepared a very detailed, landscaped two-building solution, which has been published and studied. It would allow for the 1913+1936 to exist in a landscape with terrace for public use. It would eliminate the proposed problematic above grade water detention system at the corner of Cherry and Main, and not push back the sidewalk into the existing lawn. So let’s go with that, to make everyone happy.

Sincerely
Mimi Findlay