The Town Planning Committee met Monday afternoon to discuss taking preliminary steps toward developing a plan for reorganizing and revising municipal buildings and parking in downtown New Canaan.

The five-person committee charged with devising a strategy for rethinking New Canaan's aging Town Center is beginning to cull through architectural and town planning firms in an effort to devise a feasible strategy for the ambitious changes.

Among the topics of discussion at Monday's meeting was finding a firm that can provide statistics of New Canaan's traffic patterns at an affordable rate. Traffic data is crucial to understanding whether current parking accommodations around town are suitable. In order to ensure competitive bidding, the committee said they would seek at least three price quotes from firms for gauging congestion data and other pertinent statistics relevant to vehicle traffic throughout town.

The committee is also setting their sites on hiring a firm to draft a report on the history of the buildings being considered for renovation, the scope of work required, as well as the estimated space needed by each building and associated parking needed. The Town Planning Committee will begin considering applications from architectural and town planning firms. However, in order for a firm to be considered, they must:

-       Be able to pledge a nine to twelve month commitment, with extensions likely.

-       Have completed comparable projects, working with buildings larger than 10,000 square feet or more costly than $5 million.

-       Have a working knowledge of New Canaan, as well as the ideas of historic preservation and sustainable design.

-       Have an extensive knowledge of the school system.

-       Meet employment requirements.

The committee plans to have a short list of potential architectural and town planning firms by August 2, 2010. They will then review the short list and hope to have found the right firm by late September. The committee reiterated this firm will only be used for gathering information—they are not yet focusing on price of possible renovations.