Upon closer inspection of the polluted soil dredged from Mill Pond one finds pieces of plastic, metal and landfill debris at every step.

It would be a challenge for someone to reveal a single square foot of the cornfield area that does not contain man-made pollutants withing the first few inches of soil. Oh well, nice try New Canaan ~ burying your trash in Waveny Park was not environmentally responsible.

The website ccrcfornc.org states:

Q: Was this the type of Waveny land usage envisioned by Mrs. Ruth Lapham Lloyd?

A: Most definitely.

Q: Are “Open Space” and a CCRC on Lapham Road mutually exclusive concepts?

A: Absolutely not

Statements like “Most definitely” and “Absolutely not” do not allow for debate, they are absolute and definitive. Statements such as these are definitively one-sided and absolutely preferential. They want this facility built on our public park solely for financial reasons and they will put forth only the information that benefits their tenacious efforts to destroy woodlands in the name of financial gain. Read the site!

On a personal level, I currently face the difficult process of transitioning my father from Home Care to a Life-Care Facility. Currently we are looking for just such a facility as a CCRC. Finding issue with the development of a CCRC in Waveny Park is something that contradicts my own personal needs. I would love nothing more than to end my interstate commute and long-distance worry and have my father here with me, at home in New Canaan.

I wouldn’t have written this post if it weren’t for this statement:

“Like the majority of projects built to-date on Waveny land, a CCRC on Lapham Road would be situated on its perimeter – allowing for the continued preservation of wide expanses of openness throughout the heart of the property.”

…the continued preservation of openness? WHAT? openness???? You mean, we had a forest, without which there would be no life on planet earth. Someone came and destroyed the abundant flora and fauna of a beautiful New England woodlands to create openness. Now we care about preserving openness? Honestly, are there any conservation organizations that preserve an empty field? You can’t breathe without trees, people!

Read the website ccrcfornc.org and you will likely be stopped short of breath by the outright deceptive perspective.

From ccrcfornc.org:

“A CCRC project built on Town-owned land would be done through a lease agreement, wherein the Town would receive annual lease payments in excess of $1M. This steady and dependable boost to the Town’s annual revenue could help launch yet-unfunded special town projects, maintain and improve park grounds, or even fund the purchase of additional land for Open Space use.”

Does this paragraph make sense to you? Destroy our park so we can have money to buy a new park?

From ccrcfornc.org:

“We are committed to a project pricing structure that reflects the economic diversity of the Town of New Canaan, with units priced well below the average/median price or assessed value of homes in town.”

According to Zillow.com that price today is; New Canaan $1,038,900. “Well below that”, could represent the information on AARP.org – Entrance fees of $400,000 with monthly dues of $2,500. Unfortunately even those costs, from existing CCRC’s in neighborhoods nowhere near the caliber of New Canaan, preclude admitting my 83 year old father; retired business executive and long-term resident of New Canaan.

From Wikipedia:

Continuing-care communities are ideal for seniors that may be living in isolation, and would like to be immersed in a hospitable environment with other people of the same age. Typically, a range of activities and amenities are provided for both recreation and resource. However, CCRCs are costly, and vary widely in entrance and recurring fees. Often, a life-care contract is required, and the stipulations within such contracts can also vary in terms of service. It is important for any considering such contracts to have anelder law attorney review its terms and ensure legitimacy.

From seniorresource.com:

“CCRCs are highly regulated in some states but no federal agency oversees retirement communities. The Continuing Care Accreditation Commisson (CCAC), a private nonprofit organizaiton, accredits these communities. ….For more information contact the Continuing Care Accreditation Commission www.ccaconline.org.”

It is questionable if my father will still be with us by the time we cut down the trees, pave over the fields, develop the earth for concrete foundations and construct so many commercial buildings in Waveny Park. What is unquestionable is the fact that a New Canaan CCRC will replace nature with an exclusive facility, according to George M. “…for 200-250 units (mostly holding 2 people in each).”

From ccrcfornc.org:

“More importantly, a CCRC on the site would be developed to fit into the hillside and not obstruct the vistas from either Waveny Park or Lapham Road. This former dairy farm pasture-turned-scrub-forest-and-mulch pile would be enhanced and beautified to increase its open space features and accommodate a CCRC.”

How are they going to hide 200 homes, administration buildings, care facilities, septic accommodations, driveways, garbage containment, massive traffic flow, vehicles and more?

Again, on a personal level, I find the ways New Canaan has changed over the past 10 years to be upsetting. I plan on moving away within the next decade, but just as I wrote the State of Connecticut almost 30 years ago pleading not to widen the Merritt Parkway, I hope you will all consider we have athe few acres of public land left in New Canaan. If the wealthy want a home, they can afford it. Without a full disclosure of proposed costs per unit, number of units, number of residents and overall environmental and economic costs, I am 100% opposed to destroying Lapham Road with traffic for hundreds of new residents.

The truth won’t come from the glamorous journalism of the New Canaan Advertiser, nor from the politicians who approved the immolation of the cornfield area.

The ‘Cornfield Alliance’ is asking for $250,000 for a project titled “Waveny Cornfield Restoration Project” that has stated restoration is not the goal of the project.

• Clear invasive shrubs in overgrown fields.
• Clear stone fences and trees of choking vines.
• Re-distribute and grade pond fill.
• Replant fields and borders with natural grass, native wild flowers and shrubs.
• Build a trail, and add benches.

Re-distribute and grade pond fill?
The “pond fill” was newly introduced and contains thousands of plastic bags, bottles and rubbish, scrap metal, tires and literally tons of crude oil. Re-distributing that material can in no discernible way represent restoration of the habitat.

restoration – noun
1 the action of returning something to a former owner, place, or condition

Building a trail and adding benches is considered Restoring?

When the proposal was heard by the Park and Recreation Commission, there was a question as to what the annual maintenance cost would be for mowing the area once it is cleared.
Not only did they save money by using our public parkland as a dumping grounds for unsightly and hazardous waste, but also saved on the mowing expense that just five years ago Parks and Rec. handled without complaint. I guess they forgot the not-so-distant past when this was a field abundant with wildlife. I haven’t.

Without removing all traces of foreign soil, all toxins and all pollution from the area it cannot be restored. The truth is Waveny Park will never be the same. From the moment the diesel trucks began delivering sludge, the ground began to absorb the toxins, the wildlife displaced and the area contaminated.

There is a difference between ‘neglect’ and ‘abuse’ just as there is a difference between ‘restoration’ and ‘transformation’. If it were an “alliance” asking for funds to ‘transform’ the ‘abused’ area into a path through planted fields, I wouldn’t have gone out and taken pictures while I am sick as a dog.

A public-private group formed recently with the intention of restoring the Waveny Park cornfields.

Is public-private a word? Or is it two antonyms, such as good-bad, put together?

The cornfields, some 18 acres located in the southeast corner of the park, have been neglected for years, leaving it overgrown with invasive plants and vines that are choking native species of trees and bushes, many of which were planted 50 years ago or more.

I know newspaper journalists like to ‘editorialize’ but to say the fields have been neglected is an outright falsehood.

The truth is, the cornfields have not been neglected. The cornfields have received constant attention for years, purposeful destructive attention by the town of New Canaan and it’s contractors who have deposited hundreds of cubic yards of toxic crude oil product and thousands of cubic yards of dredged waste.

The fields have, under the care of The Town of New Canaan, been systematically destroyed according to their plan and the residents of New Canaan paid for that deleterious process. To call it neglect is just not true. Neglect is defined as “Fail to look after, pay no attention”

On the contrary, the Waveny cornfields have received constant attention and there are more than 100 photographs on Waveny.net showing “years” of ruinous attention.

Judging from the statement the cornfields are “overgrown”, the journalist who wrote the Advertiser article obviously hasn’t visited the cornfields which have been devoid of life for quite some time.

Does it not seem odd to anyone that persons responsible for the deplorable condition of the cornfields should be appointed to the Restoration Project’s Steering Committee?

Waveny.net has been concerned by the destructive behavior of a Town bent on selling off and irrepairably altering the natural landscape of Waveny Park for years.

Most of all, the question remains; How have we come to the point where a few residents are forming a committee to clean up for the Town of New Canaan? Why do citizens have to call on the Attorney General to protect us from our town governement? Why do we elect and support with our tax dollars men and women who don’t hold righteous values? Why do we as residents of New Canaan allow our elected officials to treat our precious resources with such injust disdain?

The article should have said: “We, as a town, have been using the Waveny Park cornfields as a dumping grounds for several years. The abuses have taken a serious toll on the environment, forcing out wildlife and completely obliterating native and planted flora. Despite our decision to use the grounds for debris storage, we have come to the conclusion that a Natural setting is preferable to the continued use of our Public Park as a dump and therefore have decided to reverse our decision despite the millions of dollars aready invested in destroying the area.

We, as a town, have decided to remove the tires, scrap metal, plastic and asphalt in order to reestablish the Natural environment to the best of our ability. Though it will take years for such a reversal of behavior, it is in the best interest of future generations to keep Waveny Park the wonderful natural landscape it has been for hundreds of years.

The initial proposal of the CCRC to build on Waveny property cited the low cost of Waveny land relative to privately owned property nearby and the Town cited the income from the sale of our heritage as reason in favor. Since I’m not sleeping in the same bed, I’m overwhelmed with a discouraging air of disappointment.

When there are 75 extremely wealthy people living directly under falling fireworks debris what will become of 10,000 people’s Family Fourth?

–
Other contact submissions I have received included a most interesting proposal for a privately funded trust to outbid the CCRC. The email offered an amount equivalent to several million dollars per acre from only two trustees. Imagine if the town allowed people who would rather see forest forever to outbid those that want to pave and charge admission to a select few.

I would be willing to donate to such a conservation land trust.

DATE Tuesday December 2, 2008
TIME: 7:15 P.M.
PLACE: South School Auditorium

AGENDA:

1. The Park and Recreation Commission will hold a Public Hearing regarding the proposal from the Summer Theater of New Canaan, Inc. The proposal to create an area in a portion of the Cornfield located in Waveny Park to allow for public performances of a theatrical productions beginning in the Summer of 2010.
Start Time: 7:15
Date: 2008-12-02

A resident quoted in the paper, Mr. Hanson, is correct when he says that the summer theater won’t “desecrate” the cornfield.
That’s true because the town has already desecrated the meadow area. The theater will occupy the cornfield. The concessions for people and vehicles will desecrate more than just 4 1/2 acres of Natural landscape.

Conversations about building a new summer theater in Waveny Park are intensely debatable. Those in favor of the idea want to develop roads into the woods and repeatedly drive 100 cars and trucks into a “cornfield” in the center of our little-remaining forest. With dump-trucks delivering waste products from across town the ‘cornfield’ has already been 100% raized and ruined by the current “stewards of New Canaan’s assets”.

After explaining how they would use newly widened ‘roads’ (existing footpaths) in the woods to allow vehicles to drive into our forest, the man pushing the project forward said: ” We’re not building parking lots, we’re building meadows.” A defensive, illogical statement.

“A meadow is a field vegetated primarily by grass and other non-woody plants. It may be cut for hay or grazed by livestock such as cattle, sheep or goats.”

A cornfield is “a field in which corn is grown.”

The cornfield, before the town decided to obliterate it, was already a meadow.
Residents should be in favor of restoring the ‘cornfield’ or ‘town dumping grounds’ to a meadow status but should we be in favor of driving cars into the woods? The trucks have already deposited piles of crude oil product. The trucks have destroyed and then polluted the habitat area, driving out thousands of animals leaving them no similar habitat nearby. So, yes, please restore the cornfield to natural, wild habitat. But why, why in the world would anyone want to impact the tiny amount of Nature we have left in New Canaan’s greatest park in such an indisputably negative manner? Roads, cars, pavement, structures, run-off, litter, increased traffic… all pollution to the Natural setting.

Unfortunately for local residents;

It turns out that for cultivation to successfully remove the existing weed seeds, has to be done every two to three weeks for 12 to 18 months.  So, maybe this isn’t a project for the low-maintenance crowd.

Maintenance requirements for the first season after plugging consist of about 20 hours a week of hand weeding and weekly watering with a sprinkler unless an inch of rain had fallen during the week. (gardenrant.com)

Will the summer theater group pay for the 20 man hours per week to maintain their “meadow” or will this be more reason Park and Rec needs to cut down more trees for a 2,500 square foot storage shed built nearby?

Let’s build more stuff, let’s cut more trees, let’s have Disney world instead of Nature. Keep going, destroy destroy, destroy. There’s nothing like a good summer theater performance. Let me just suggest the idea that when there is no place left untouched, there will be no place to “get away” from it all and find inspiration in the beauty of Nature. Maybe we can go see a play about the way things used to be, before they paved our world.

BTW: I was very pleased to learn from the newspaper that the town admits to destroying the fields behind the pond. I am glad to know the area is called the cornfield and I’ve added tags to my related posts. I was glad to know that other runners share my disdain for hard surfaces, there is plenty of road for runners, why widen footpaths for trucks and pave. I was glad to hear words like “desecrate” used in the paper! The fact that several minds share the perspective should be enough to cause sufficient consideration.
I think it’s a dreamy setting for a performance tent. Someone will eventually use pesticides to control the bugs since you are parking yourself smack in the center of ticks from your “meadow” and mosquitoes from the pond. With the exception of the bugs, I imagine it would be a great spot to be, especially at night. How idyllic. Yes, that’s my point. Nature provides the idyllic setting and it is Nature that you intend to alter to suit your structures and then you are going to bring automobile traffic and what more? Electricity? Water? Sewage plumbing? It is not the restoration of a meadow or the placement of a tent in a field that is a concern. It is the devastating impact of the concessions for human and automobile traffic.

Walk to the “tent” – no electricity, no lights, no pesticides, no vehicle access! You pack it in, you pack it out!

How many  porta-potty toilets are you required by law to place in the “meadow” for performance visitors? How often will sewage removal trucks be driving past the endangered bog turtle?

This spot is too remote and requires too many concessions.
This will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

“We want to be good stewards of New Canaan’s assets.”

How ironic since the page before tells of more planned destruction of our park. In a self-motivated move to house the equipment that cuts, chops, shreds, moves, plows and maintains the park system, the Park and Recreation Department’s plans for a new equipment shed were approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission.
Admitting the necessity to cut down another half-dozen long-standing trees and a slew of saplings their only concession is to paint the building brown and use renewable wood to build the 2,480 square-foot space. Why don’t they build it out of the five large trees they have to cut down? (or the hundreds of tree that were cut down under the previous Park and Recreation Chairman, Tom Stadler. Yes, hundreds of trees cut down during his “stewardship”. (waveny.net has photos of over 60 trees destroyed in the past 1 year!) We know they didn’t chip them to make new paths because they are paving the footpaths with asphalt now.

In other news, the group ‘Hands off Waveny’, if it still exists, is, if not a farce, a failure. Since the group was formed we have eliminated a significant percentage of the park’s land for a pool, a toilet, debris stockpiling, two new roads, parking spaces, a dog park (which claimed acres of untouched woods) and more including the unimaginable paving of the forest.

In today’s Advertiser article titled “P&Z approves Waveny storage shed” a resident voices concern that the Town of New Canaan didn’t adequately inform the public about the proposal to build a storage shed and that it hasn’t been properly vetted.
Does the public know that Park and Rec has cut a new road in the woods already? Does the public know that Park and Rec has destroyed a huge field and completely eliminated the habitats of thousands of animals without a word? They would if they read all 51 entries on this website.
The government never wants to hear from the people, they just want to spend their money. The shame is, they are using our money to progressively eliminate our most precious and irreplaceable assets. In ten years can we have a shed built? In ten years can you replace a 50 year old tree?
This is not stewardship. This is just build and conquer sprawl. Good thing we don’t have the Northern Spotted Owl in CT, otherwise it’d be harder to cut down so many trees in the name of progress or …the storage of gasoline powered equipment.

November 1st 2008 I took pictures of the paving of our woods. No wonder they’ve been storing crude oil resins where deer used to live, no wonder they killed everything on both sides of our trail in a murderous swath through the park.

No wonder they crushed the little stream that ran along the path. They have made a road complete with drainage.

Effective drainage is critical to the stability and longevity of any road. Road ditches lining the asphalt installation allow road run-off to percolate below grade and the new culverts allow traveling water to run below our new roads through the woods.

What was once a Nature trail is now a grass-lined asphalt road system. Bravo!

From my perspective this is a shameful act and an outrageous destruction of Natural habitat that will have a lasting negative impact on our Park’s ecology. My favorite place in the world is being turned into urban sprawl. This is a real bastardization of our privilege to use this land as our park.

[Show as slideshow]

The Town of New Canaan figured out how to stop folks from parking on the grass in Waveny Park. They tore up the grass and made a parking lot. Wow! Now there’s some deductive logic for you. Could they have read my blog?

Every day of the week in Waveny Park visitors drive right past the huge empty parking lots, ignore the ‘No Parking’ signs and display their character by parking on the grass as close as they can get to an “athletic” field. Laughable, isn’t it? Like driving to the gym and getting on a treadmill.
Photo of the empty lot:

Photo of cars just yard from the empty lot, on the grass:

In an attempt to curb the illegal parking, they tore up the grass and made it pavement. Only thing is, the 50-60 new parking spots aren’t where everyone typically parks. I’ll bet money right now, this destruction of 10,000 square feet of fields will do nothing to stop drivers from parking as they have for years: all along the main drive and anywhere else they want to keep from walking the extra 100 yards to a legitimate parking space.

The installation of a yellow rope border along the driveway only forced cars to park parallel instead of pulling all the way onto the lawn. The No Parking signs do nothing to deter people.

When a builder considers a new development, a priority are the zoning requirements for parking. Didn’t the pool come with it’s own parking lot at the price of a woodlands? What about the moving of the Paddle Courts? What about the Dog Park? I think someone forgot about parking. Maybe there isn’t enough room in our Park for all these new developments.

I’m not an engineer but I noticed stormwater management issues. The grass they tore up served as a drainage culvert allowing water to move along the roadside. Now there will be a large surface area draining onto the driveway which is graded toward the pool. When it rains…. Enjoy.

Love those oil solids.