Report on the LWV of New Canaan Study Group on Community Development: Decision-Making and Communications Process

From spring 2009 to spring 2010 up to 27 members studied the decision-making and communications process by New Canaan’s boards, councils, commissions and municipal departments with respect to the issue of Community Development.

We sought to understand the broader issues and implications of planning and prioritizing and the process for addressing current and future community needs.

We accomplished 3 important goals:

1. Creating a reference table and literature review of past studies done by/for the Town of New Canaan in the area of land use and community development. This reference table will be available from our website, and reports on individual studies will on file at the Library.

2. Interviewing over a dozen relevant Town officers, staff, commissioners, and advocacy group leaders to identify steps that have been taken, what needs to be done and how needs have changed. Minutes of these meetings will be on file at the Library

3. Assisting community decision-making by educating the public on the process and the issues of land use. We held two public meetings: The Future of Waveny Park: Understanding the Decision-Making Process and The Greening of New Canaan, a panel presentation on green building.

Our work will serve as background education to allow us to evaluate, and possibly take action, in accordance with our LWVNC Support Positions. The Study Group recommended review of four of our positions. Two, Recreation and Public Awareness, were rewritten and approved by the membership.

We determined that two other positions, those on Conservation and Open Space, required further research and study.