P&Z Affirms Nursery School Renovation Plan

After getting rave reviews from the Board of Selectmen and the Town Council earlier this month, the New Canaan Community Nursery School has received its first official approval from the Planning and Zoning Commission for its renovation plans.

The commission granted a special permit to the nursery school to add a 657 square foot addition as part of a reconfiguration of the existing building, which is situated in Kiwanis Park and owned by the town.

The overhaul of the 54-year-old structure will give the nursery school's 51 students and its 9 staff more "elbow room," according to attorney Michael Sweeney, who has been presenting the plans to town government bodies. There will be a new hallway, an entryway, a director's office, a kitchen, and an adult bathroom (currently staff have to share with the pre-schoolers).

Additionally, the school is taking the advantage of the opportunity to address some long-standing maintenance issues. The heating system will be converted to propane and an underground oil tank will be removed. And, while the architects are not planning to apply for LEED certification, they will be following those guidelines to make the building greener, including designing the roof of the new addition to harvest rainwater.

"I think it's great," First Selectman Jeb Walker said in reaction to the presentation of the plans at the Board of Selectmen meeting on Sept. 15. "I used to live across the street from there and it was not a pleasant thing to look at."

Currently, the view from the road is of a brick wall and the expansive black roof of the one-story modern. The plans call for breaking up the building's mass by adding height to the entryway and windows throughout the structure.

The building will be reoriented so that it addresses the park landscape instead of the parking lot as it does now. All the classrooms will have doors that open out onto the park.

The only discord over the plans has come from a handful of neighbors, including Christine Rowan of 86 Old Norwalk Rd who called the school an "eyesore" at the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting Tuesday. Rowan and other neighbors advocated a landscape screen and an upgrade to the chain link fencing around the property.

Rowan also spoke up at the Town Council meeting on Sept. 16, objecting to a proposal for aluminum fencing meant to match the style of the building; she suggested cedar fencing be considered instead. Sangeeta Appel, chair of the nursery school board, said then that cedar fencing would likely be too expensive. The board still needs to raise about $125,000 to reach the $450,000 budgeted for the project, and they had contemplated deferring any fencing upgrade to a phase two.

The Planning and Zoning Commission gave its blessing to the project Tuesday while requesting that the nursery school board return when it's ready to install new fencing, which may also be contingent of the Public Works Department's plans for new sidewalks along Old Norwalk Road.

Since the building is on town park land, the project still needs to secure official approval from the Town Council at its next meeting in October.

The nursery school has invited past and current parents to Waveny Park Wednesday evening for a presentation of the renovation plans and a fundraiser to benefit the construction. The general public is welcome to attend.