Lewisboro park partnership prompts pushback

A proposed plan for Lewisboro Vista Community Park  showing tennis courts, baseball and soccer fields, parking and site improvements. COURTESY OF KSCJ CONSULTING

By JEFF MORRIS 

A complicated proposal by a Connecticut private school to make improvements to the town park in Vista has run into swift opposition, including a unanimous vote against it by the town’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Council.

The proposal by St. Luke’s School in New Canaan, Conn., is for the school to enter into an agreement with Lewisboro whereby it would make a multi-million dollar investment in capital improvements, including a turf field for soccer, baseball and lacrosse, in exchange for the school having priority scheduling to use the facilities in much of the spring and fall.

St. Luke’s is a secular private school serving grades five to 12, located at 377 North Wilton Road, New Canaan, Conn.

The park

As it exists today, Vista Park, which straddles the state border at the intersection of Smith Ridge Road (Route 123) and East Street, has a small community house that is used by the Vista Scout Troop, a baseball field, and parking. It does not have potable water or bathrooms, which would be part of the proposed improvements.

According to Town Supervisor Tony Gonçalves, St. Luke’s currently pays Lewisboro to allow its students to use some Vista Field parking spaces; they are then picked up and shuttled to the school, a drive of about 1.5 miles. They have also used the tennis courts at Fox Valley Town Park in Goldens Bridge.

Gonçalves said the school initially contacted Parks and Recreation Superintendent Nicole Caviola inquiring about fields they could use; when she suggested some of the facilities at Onatru Farm Park, they rejected those but focused on Vista. 

“They actually went through the work of looking at the parcel and identifying what could be put there,” Gonçalves said. “So we entertained the conversation.”

Gonçalves said St. Luke’s came up with the idea of a public-private partnership, in which each of the parties receive benefits, and he suggested they develop a proposal. He said they knew there would be wetlands challenges on the property, and he referred them to KSCJ Consulting, the town’s planning, engineering and wetlands consultant, with whom they contracted directly.

According to Gonçalves, he first met with St. Luke’s in April. 

“People think that I’ve been involved in this since, like, January or February, which is not true,” he said. 

The school then came back with a couple of different proposals, both of which required demolishing the community house, which is a former schoolhouse dating to the 1860s. 

Those plans were rejected, but Gonçalves said somebody got hold of them and posted them online, which prompted him to send out an explanation last week, just prior to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee meeting, that included the latest proposal, designated “Concept 4.” 

However, Mary Shah, a Town Board member who attended the advisory committee meeting, said the version of the plan that was handed out was not Concept 4, but Concept 3, and spurred objections regarding the absence of the historic schoolhouse.

The plan

The centerpiece of that latest plan is a 380-by-200-foot multipurpose artificial turf field. It is surrounded on two sides by seven tennis courts — three on the East Street side and four on the Smith Ridge side — along with a proposed 65-by-50-foot playground, the community house, a proposed bathroom, and parking for 64 cars.

The plan shows parts of the turf field and a tennis court within the wetland, and nearly the entire turf field within the town’s 150-foot wetlands buffer. The existing community house is already within that buffer.

A draft term sheet included with the plan reserves use of the turf field to the school on weekday afternoons, from 2 to 5:30 p.m., during fall and spring athletic seasons. It reserves use of the tennis courts to the school during those same times, “plus occasional Saturday windows during SLS athletics season” as well as weekday mornings, from 9 a.m. to noon, during the summer for St. Luke’s School camps. 

It states 75% of available parking, “exact count to follow final site plan,” is to be reserved to the school weekdays, from 7:30 a.m. to 5:45 p.m., from late August through early June, “plus event Saturdays in fall and spring seasons.” 

The community house, it says, would be available during the school’s tennis and turf field use, and there will be shared, non-exclusive use of the playground and bathroom. It says town and public use of all facilities would be available at “all other times.”

Gonçalves said St. Luke’s would be responsible for the capital investment and maintenance for the term of the arrangement.

Shah said there were over 35 neighbors at the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee meeting and about the same number online, and every one of the public comments was against the proposal. There were concerns voiced about traffic, safety, change of the spirit of the hamlet, second-class status of residents of Lewisboro for access to resources, moving the playground next to the state highway, and lack of regard for the wetlands.

She disagreed with Gonçalves about the need for tennis courts, saying she understood there was no such need; that in fact, “there was someone who works at the tennis court within Oakridge Commons who said that those courts would take away from her business, and that she suggested that they contact her for playing time.”

Erica and David Levens, who live on nearby Carol Lane, wrote to the town expressing opposition and asking numerous questions.

“Why is our town allowing the destruction of natural woods surrounding two sides of the park to make room for this project?” their letter asked. “Those woods are a natural habitat for the myriad of wildlife in our area.” 

“The proposal from SLS severely limits the use of OUR town park by OUR taxpaying, law-abiding town residents,” the letter continued. “SLS should make plans to use property in Connecticut where they are located.” 

For his part, Gonçalves said he has received positive feedback about the concept; he insisted a turf field has been on Parks and Recreation’s wish list, and that the plan would include renovation of the community house for continued use by the Vista Scout Troop, with the addition of running water and bathrooms, and that it can be expanded for other community use.

What’s next

For the supervisor, the key is that upgrading the park, which he said is currently underutilized, to have wastewater or bathrooms would cost money that the town does not have. 

“Because then you’ve got to get engineers involved,” he said. “You’ve got to design the water system. You’ve got to design a septic system. And all of that takes engineering design, and then you have to go through all the permitting with the health department, and it costs money to build it out. So I’m looking at this from a positive perspective: folks in Vista want to use that community house for meetings. If we had running water in bathrooms, we could expand the use of that community house. And St. Luke’s was going to pay for that.”

In the end, Gonçalves said, any plan has to go through a thorough review by the town’s attorneys, and be subject to continued revision based on public input; it ultimately will be up to the Town Board whether to even move forward with an agreement. The town, he emphasized, is not “selling” the park — nor has it invested any money in the proposal.

Shah observed that there are many people in Vista who, “now that someone from New Canaan is trying to become involved in the park, they’re becoming a little protective of the neighborhood. They think that we should take responsibility for our own park. So I’m not sure how things are going to move forward.”