Former New Canaan Conservation Chair: Preserve Our 1913 Library

Letter sent by a New Canaan resident, to New Canaan P&Z:

Dear Commissioners,

Thank you for your diligent work throughout the year to ensure our zoning regulations continue to protect our Town’s unique character and distinct sense of place.

As you consider the New Canaan Library’s current application through your Planning & Zoning lens, I’d ask you to focus first on how that application falls seriously short of our current Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD), our Town’s strategic plan for the physical development of New Canaan.

When the current POCD was prepared, approved, and put into effect, I was Chairman of the Town’s Conservation Commission, and I am familiar with the important role the POCD holds for guiding the future of our community.

The Library’s current application claims its requested “QUASI-PUBLIC LIBRARY OVERLAY ZONE (LZ)” is consistent with the POCD, specifically a few parts of POCD Chapters 4, 5, and 6, but conveniently ignores or contradicts far more essential parts of that guiding document:

PRESERVE & ENHANCE COMMUNITY CHARACTER
• Protect Physical Character
• Preserve Historic Resources

NURTURE DOWNTOWN
• Maintain And Enhance The Character of Downtown
• Rationalize Parking

These seem like fundamental objectives far more important than, for example, adding a privately owned and operated lawn. It’s as if someone said, “Yes, we’re going to tear down Waveny House, but just look at the pretty “open space” lawn we’ll gain in doing so!”

The POCD is clear: New Canaan residents have indicated consistently that preserving and enhancing community character is important to them. “As a result,” the POCD states, “the intent of this Plan is not to change the character of New Canaan but to preserve it. Residents clearly want to preserve what they love and cherish about New Canaan.”

Is the 1913 Library worth preserving? According to the Library’s “New” Library website, no, because it “is not on the National Register of Historic Places, nor the list of National Historic Landmarks. It is not in the New Canaan Historic District.”

That’s an extremely narrow definition of historic value. In fact, the only listed “National Historic Landmark” in New Canaan is Philip Johnson’s Glass House. Nothing else. Not God’s Acre churches, not homes from the 1700s, not Town Hall, not the Train Station, not Waveny House, not even the Frank Lloyd Wright home on Frogtown. By the Library’s reductive logic, none of these special places need to be preserved for future generations of New Canaanites.

But the 1913 Library IS a significant place that helps give our downtown village its character. A building does not have to be “designated” a landmark to actually be a landmark. If you read the book Landmarks of New Canaan, published by the Historical Society (and available in the Library itself), you’ll see the 1913 Library figures prominently, meriting a whole chapter with illustrations devoted to it.

This isn’t an abandoned, obscure, or failing building in disuse. We’re talking about our original Library, well-maintained and in constant use, in situ, for over a century. It’s a high-profile landmark, built into our public Main Street village life.

If the 1913 Library isn’t worth preserving, what is?

Please don’t be swayed by the false argument that the Town stipulating preservation of the 1913 Library this “late in the game” would be costly and delay construction, that those who wish to preserve the 1913 Library stepped in “too late,” or that donors gave “only” for a plan that included demolition of the old.

Go back, as I did, and read the local news coverage of this project, and you’ll see Town elected officials and citizens have long been in favor of retaining the 1913 Library — and what’s more, Library officials stated for years that they would do just that. Then, just a year ago, they revealed their new plan to the general public: it doesn’t even preserve the 1913 Library, it destroys it… for a lawn that may or may not be here in a few years. Add that to the $10 million they’re demanding we taxpayers chip in, plus taking over the Center School parking lot since their architect-designed onsite underground parking plan (also part of the plan that donors supposedly bought in to, right?) was completely unfeasible, and I don’t know how this thing has gone so far, far astray.

I’ve been a happy card-carrying patron of the New Canaan Library since 1965. Always a great place to go, it helped me get through Center School, Saxe, New Canaan High School, college, grad school, job searches, and parenthood (books for my kids), and it has helped me to explore fiction and non-fiction, lectures, films, and exhibits. So I’m a fan, and I certainly appreciate how a good library is an active part of a vibrant downtown.

But, back to your Planning & Zoning lens, I think New Canaan’s P&Z Commissioners should be wary of the extreme special-case “spot zoning” the Library wants to impose on our Town’s Zoning laws. If this list of demands (tear down a historical building, give us $10 million of taxpayer dollars, change your zoning regulations, ignore fundamental objectives of your POCD, let us take over public parking on the other side of a busy two-way street) had come to us from somewhere else, like Hartford, how welcome would it be? Zoning may evolve, but not by cherry-picking and crafting special exotic cases to override the sound planning that has built and maintained our Town’s cohesive integrity as a place.

I’m asking you, and other Town officials, NOT to get distracted here; there’s really very little debate over the need for a “new” Library. The debate is because, like me, many New Canaanites do not agree we should sacrifice a beloved Main Street icon to do so. Nor do we wish to be forced to subsidize that historical demolition through our taxes.

Everyone needs a say in this decision, not just those well-heeled donors the Library courted in secret during its “quiet” fundraising period. Especially since the Library relies on taxpayers to fund millions of dollars of operating expenses every year. If it’s going to claim to be “quasi” public, it can’t also pretend to be completely private.

As you consider the Library’s current application, which requires the Town (and its taxpayers) to make so many sacrifices and compromises, I urge you, guardians of our Town and its essential character, spelled out in our Plan of Conservation and Development, to do everything in your power to encourage the preservation of our local community history.

We can embrace the “new” Library and respect the “old” one as well – it’s not one or the other. The Town should make no commitments until preserving the 1913 Library in situ is clearly spelled out and built in to any potential agreement.

Sincerely,

Cam Hutchins