Aquarion property floated onto Town Council’s radar Wednesday night.
After a resident of Indian Waters Drive urged the Town Council Wednesday night to “figure out a way to fund the future of open space,” Town Planner Steve Kleppin said he would not recommend that the town buy the land.
Resident Susan Bergen of 210 Indian Waters Drive and another resident spoke during public comments about Aquarion Water Company’s announced intention to sell 18 acres of land for possible development. The neighbors are hoping that some entity will acquire the land and preserve it as open space.
The land is surrounded by Indian Waters Drive, Weed Street, Welles Drive and Thurton Drive.
Bergen told the Council that only 7 or 8 % of New Canaan is considered open space.
“There should be some way — either municipal laws or passing some kind of tax on real estate or buildings, or applying for grants — some way that doesn’t rely on individuals to support open space,” said Bergen.
“When a large chunk of property like this comes for sale, I want to know why the Town doesn’t jump all over it.”
Kleppin was an attendee at the meeting for another purpose and was asked to comment. “There’s probably some conservation value to the property. If the land trust, the residents and whoever else are interested in wanting the Town’s help, in terms of putting together supporting letters for an application or to get some monies for an outside source, we would be happy to do that.”
Benefit to local neighbors
Later in the meeting Kleppin said, “Personally, I would not recommend the Town put in any funds in towards the purchase of this property. To me, it’s kind of an isolated pocket of open land. It’s only 18 acres, which in New Canaan I guess is a lot of land, but it’s not connected to other protected parcels which is usually one of the major criterias that gets considered in open space purchases. To me, this is more of a benefit to the local neighbors, if it gets preserved, that’s great, but I think there’s a limited value in this property for the Town as a whole.”
Avery Stirratt, resident at 204 Indian Waters Drive, also spoke during public comments. “Aquarion, all of the good work that they do, they own over 200 acres in New Canaan now. They will sell every acre that they can, eventually.”
“The bridge over the Thurton River is 13-feet wide,” Stirratt said. “If they come in and cut down 300-400 trees to log out that property for development, who do we come to when the bridge is wrecked?”
Councilman John Engel asked if the size of the road and bridge, which Stirratt referenced, would limit the amount of development that goes on there. Kleppin responded, “Potentially, more than likely, if an application is received for any subdivision on those lots we would refer to the fire marshal, because that would be our primary consideration, could emergency vehicles safely access that property, given the current constraints of the road? If not, what remedies would they have to make in order to make it safe?”
According to Kleppin, the Town has worked to make several private roads in New Canaan safe for emergency vehicles.
Council Chairman Bill Walbert told both residents of Indian Waters Drive who spoke to Council, he wants to schedule a time to walk the land in question with other Town Council members.
Walbert and other members of the Council agreed to continue the conversation at next week’s March 16 meeting.
Town Planner Steve Kleppin addressing open space and Aquarion land at the Town Council meeting March 9. — Rich Durazzo, Jr. photo
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