The Parks and Recreation Commission is seeking to conduct feasibility studies on two parcels of town-owned land at Harvard Park and Bare Hill Pond. In a funding application to the Community Preservation Committee, the commission has requested a total of $50,000 to determine whether the land could be used for recreation other than hiking trails. As the CPC deliberates its funding recommendations for the upcoming fiscal year, members of the Conservation Commission and the Bare Hill Pond Watershed Management Committee have written the CPC to object to the prospect of disturbing the land.
These two properties came under the jurisdiction of Parks and Rec after the passage of a citizen petition at last year’s Spring Town Meeting that gave the commission authority over several public land parcels. Parks and Rec Chair Bob O’Shea explained to the Press that the land in question at Harvard Park, on Lancaster County Road, is the flat, wooded area that lies in the middle of the circular walking path beyond the track and playground. The Bare Hill Pond property consists of six lots for a total of 9.17 acres of forest; it runs along the intersection of Whitman Road and Pond Road beyond the beach parking lot.
O’Shea said the commission is particularly interested in learning if lots 9 and 10 on Whitman Road are usable for recreation. This is because these two lots are relatively flat in comparison to the rest of the woods, which continue down the steep hill toward the beach. At the commission’s Feb. 1 meeting, O’Shea described lot 9 as “deep in the woods” and said it would require “lots of fill and tree-cutting.” Lot 10 is near a town wellhead and would require “run-off detention” to mitigate harm to Bare Hill Pond.
The commission’s Athletic Field Planning Subcommittee submitted its request for funding in the initial hope that this land may be usable for playing fields. Commission member Dan Daly presented the applications at the Dec. 16 CPC meeting and explained that the town’s current athletic fields are overused. New athletic fields, particularly near the schools, are a much-needed resource, he said. “We have a capacity problem for fields, and we’re never able to maintain them correctly,” O’Shea later told the Press. “We’ve had complaints that we have the worst fields in the [school athletic] league.”
Open to possibilities
However, O’Shea said the commission is open to exploring all recreational possibilities and that the purpose of a feasibility study would be to discover what the land could be used for, whether that be an athletic field, a pickleball court, or a trail. At the Feb. 1 meeting, he said a boathouse or extra parking were also possibilities. He added that the original design for Harvard Park had included tennis courts and a second soccer field, and he said it is unknown if such additions are still feasible.
The controversy arises at the intersection of conservation and recreation, where the missions of the Conservation Commission and Parks and Rec meet. As both of these properties are currently heavily wooded and border wetlands, the Conservation Commission and the Bare Hill Pond Watershed Management Committee worry about the environmental impact of transforming the parcels into recreational sites.
In a Jan. 19 letter to the CPC, Conservation Commission Chair Don Ritchie wrote that neither property is likely to be able to support an athletic field. Harvard Park, he explained, has elevated wetlands that would affect a playing field unless it were raised significantly. Furthermore, the wooded hills at Bare Hill Pond serve the purpose of cleaning the runoff traveling toward the pond, and the flatter portion of the woods borders wetlands and the town’s wellheads, he wrote.
Bruce Leicher, the chair of the Bare Hill Pond Watershed Management Committee, expressed a similar sentiment in his own letter to the CPC on Monday. “Development in the watershed, and removal of native habitat and forested land is the primary cause of nonpoint source pollution leading to excess phosphorus levels and a decline in water quality in the watershed,” he wrote. Leicher wrote that the committee has invested significant funds in an effort to protect the pond from pollution, installing rain gardens in the woods near Bare Hill Pond to help reduce runoff. However, even with this tactic, there can still be surges of phosphorus in the water, like the one during the drought that led to an algal bloom last summer. He wrote, “Any development along the shore that removes established forest is likely to further tip the balance in the wrong direction.”
Concern for the future
Both committees also voiced concern about what conducting feasibility studies of Harvard Park and the Bare Hill Pond woods would mean for the later development of these properties, as well as the development of other places in town. For instance, Leicher wrote that studying and developing the woods by the pond would “undermine” the work of preserving the watershed because permitting deforestation on this land would make it harder to protect other forests on the pond and throughout the town. On a similar note, Ritchie wrote that funding the studies, valued at $30,000 and $20,000 respectively, would likely result in development after investing such a great expense, despite environmental concerns.
“Not all of the land is buildable. There are wetlands and setbacks,” O’Shea agreed, “but that is what the study is for.” Following the conservation concerns of these two committees, however, Parks and Rec suggested in a letter on Tuesday that the commission trade the Bare Hill Pond property with the Conservation Commission in exchange for a more suitable plot of land for recreation. “If we can make a swap, then it’s a win-win solution for everybody,” O’Shea said. “We end up with a field … and they end up with a conservation restriction on the land by the pond which protects it.” O’Shea further explained that if the committees can reach this agreement, the CPC funding application would be broadened so that funds initially meant for the Bare Hill Pond study could be used to study a different land parcel.
“It’s all a work in progress,” O’Shea said. “We’re all trying to do the best thing, but we all have different missions.”
