New Charter Article - Referendum
On the future of Waveny, and every acre of land we all own together.
New Canaan's charter is being revised this year.
Tucked inside the revision is a new safeguard: before the Town Council can change the use, sell, lease, or transfer any town-owned land, that decision can be put to voters. If enough of us object, we vote on it ourselves.
One sentence, and it could decide what happens to fifty acres of Waveny.
Let Voters Decide!
WHAT'S CHANGING · § C4-13 - Town-owned land, on the ballot
The proposed addition reads: “The Town Council shall approve any change of use, as defined by the New Canaan zoning regulations, sale, capital lease or transfer of Town-owned real property.”
In plain terms: a Town Council vote to change what a piece of town land is used for, or to sell, lease, or hand it off, becomes a legislative act like any other — and legislative acts under the charter can be sent to referendum. If residents disagree with the Council's call, we get the final word via a referendum. If Town Council approves the MOU after November, then the voters can get the final say if needed.
Waveny LifeCare Network has proposed a senior living campus on Parcel E — nearly 300,000 square feet of housing and care buildings on land the town currently holds as parkland. By its own account, the design is still “pliable.” The acreage is not: LifeCare wants the full fifty acres, not a subdivided piece of it. Today, that parcel is parkland. A life-plan community is not.
Approving a memorandum of understanding for it would mean approving exactly the kind of change of use the new charter provision was written to catch.
OUR ASK - Wait for November.
The new provision doesn't take effect until voters approve it this fall — but the Town Council doesn't need a technicality's permission to do the right thing. If it votes on the Waveny MOU beforehand, it will have made the decision for all of us, on land every taxpayer owns, before the safeguard meant to protect that ownership can apply.
That's not an oversight anyone can make in good faith once it's been pointed out.
Town-owned land is scarce and shared. It belongs to all of us, not to whichever board happens to be sitting when a proposal lands on the agenda. Before fifty acres of Waveny are committed to a private operator, New Canaan's voters deserve the same chance to weigh in that this fall's ballot is about to give us.
Don't vote on the Waveny MOU before November. Give the charter revision a chance to do its job.