New Canaan committee reports early survey favoring Lumberyard site for affordable housing

The New Canaan Affordable Housing Committee heard on June 8 that a May 19 public workshop drew more than 80 attendees and an online survey launched afterward has yielded 195 responses to date, with a preliminary 56% of respondents preferring the Lumberyard site for a future affordable housing project.

Project subcommittee chair said the workshop at the Laplin Center drew standing-room attendance and that the survey will remain open through June 23, after which the subcommittee will reconvene on June 30 to analyze responses and identify a preferred option to be refined by consultant "Amena Emma," whose contract currently runs through the end of June. "We had over 80 attendees in the room," the chair said, adding the public “was very engaged in the options that we shared with them and even options that they came up with themselves.”

Committee members said the survey’s early results show 56% favoring Lumberyard, about 16% preferring no development on the sites presented, and that 61% of respondents opposed relocating parking off smaller sites such as Richmond Hill and Morris Court so those parcels could be exclusively housing. The chair said the most popular criteria driving preferences were how many funding "points" a project could earn and how well a proposal would fit into its neighborhood.

Members discussed implications for each site. Several said Lumberyard—while popular—would likely require a broader planning effort because of central location and commuter parking needs, including potential decking or mixed-use development, which could add steps and time to that option. By contrast, smaller lots were criticized as harder to accommodate both units and parking.

Outreach tactics remain active. Committee members reported placing boards and a Survey Monkey QR code at the train station and library, distributing flyers, and coordinating press outreach via the Sentinel and the Canaanite to raise responses toward a target sample (committee members noted a town population of about 20,000 and roughly 7,500 households as context for desired response numbers).

Next steps: the project subcommittee will analyze survey data at its June 30 meeting and prepare a preferred option for refinement by the consultant and for eventual presentation to the board of selectmen. The chair said she will look into extending the consultant’s contract so the consultant can complete the next steps.