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Politics & Government

Committee Recommends Expanding New Canaan Town Hall

The proposed expansion would bring satellite offices at Irwin Park and Vine Cottage back to Town Hall.

is among numerous Fairfield County towns struggling to figure out how to fund upgrades for in an eroding economy.

During last week's Board of Selectmen meeting, the Long Range Planning Committee reportedly recommended a renovation and expansion of Town Hall, currently estimated at $16 million to $18 million.

According to a report in the New Canaan Advertiser the proposed expansion would bring satellite offices at Irwin Park and Vine Cottage back to Town Hall. The town could then renovate the building at Irwin Park, at an estimated cost of $5.6 million, and move the school administrative offices to that facility, saving more than $200,000 a year in rent.

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Other capital projects recommended in the committee's report include renovating the town firehouse and making pedestrian and bike lane improvements in the town center, the report states.

Another recommendation — adding a second tier to the Locust Avenue parking lot — has already been budgeted in the proposed 2012-13 town budget, the Advertiser report states. That project is estimated to cost $3.3 million.

Find out what's happening in New Canaanwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Meanwhile, in what will likely be a public-private project, the board of the New Canaan Library recently decided not to build a new library, as the long range committee had originally recommended, but rather to .

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