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Proposal for Small land adds to Harvard’s search for additional athletic fields

The Select Board’s quest to find land for athletic playing fields has expanded to include the possibility of using the town-owned land behind Hildreth Elementary School, known as the Small land, for two playing fields and a ball field. This adds to a list of possible locations for the additional athletic fields that a recent study said the town needed. The Select Board intends to identify land and funding sources by January 2025.

A September 2023 needs assessment by the design and consulting firm Gale Associates recommended Harvard add one full-size, multipurpose rectangular field; two youth-sized fields; and a ball field. The Parks and Recreation Commission has settled on two full-size fields and a 60-foot diamond field, Recreation Director Anne McWaters told the Press this week. Having two fields, she said, allows one to rest for at least a season to avoid deterioration by overuse.

The possibility of building fields behind HES was first discussed publicly at a Nov. 12 School Committee meeting at which Chair Abby Besse showed a schematic drawing of two rectangular fields and a ball field on the Small land. The sketch was rendered by a landscape architect associated with Arrowstreet, the architectural firm that designed the elementary school.

The Small land also figures in another effort to find town-owned land that could accommodate athletic fields. In what has become known as the “land swap,” the Small land could be traded for conservation land on Old Mill Road, known as the Stone land—a flat, open field that backs up to Harvard Park on Lancaster County Road. Provided Town Meeting approved the trade and state-mandated procedures were followed, a playing field and parking lot could be built on the Stone land.

At the Nov. 12 meeting, Besse said the Small land option surfaced when an architect from Arrowstreet walked the Small land to advise the School Committee on the swap and suggested the parcel could be suitable for a school building or playing fields. Besse said the School Committee wants to explore the feasibility of playing fields there, noting that students from the schools could walk to youth sports or school games and practices. “And if 50 years from now we needed a new school, we would still have the land,” Besse said, adding that a land swap would be unnecessary if the Small land could be used instead.

Accordingly, the School Committee voted unanimously against transferring jurisdiction of the Small land to the Conservation Commission at its Nov. 18 meeting, citing its wish to preserve the land for fields or a future school facility. At press time, it was unclear whether the School Committee’s vote would take the land swap option off the table. But Select Board member and liaison to the Open Space Committee Rich Maiore told the Press Tuesday: “The town has the final say when transferring control of town land from one committee to the other.”

An ‘equal and and alternate’ proposal

Three days before the School Committee’s vote to reject the swap, the Open Space Committee had voted to ask the Select Board, along with the School Committee, to pay for a survey of the Small land, and the School Committee obliged at its Nov. 18 meeting, voting to request the surveying. “This is information we need anyway for the swap,” said OSC Chair Jim Lee, adding that the Small land was likely “unsuitable” for fields. Conservation agent Liz Allard agreed, saying, “I don’t see a high potential for development due to the extent of the wetlands that are there.” Lee advised a parallel approach. “I’d like to move forward on the land swap as an equal and alternate proposal” with the Small land fields, he said.

This brings to five the number of possible sites for playing fields, Maiore said at the end of the 60-minute discussion. In addition to building fields behind HES, the options are leasing fields in Devens; acquiring land from a private buyer; installing an artificial turf field at Harvard Park that would allow for more use than a grass field; and swapping the Small and Stone parcels. The estimated cost and overall viability of each possibility must be known by January, he said, if the best choices are to be brought to Town Meeting in May. (For details, see “Select Board to evaluate field sites, aims to winnow list by January”)

Although five options remain on the table, the focus lately has been on the land swap, which has been discussed over the past six months by the School, Agricultural Advisory, and Open Space committees; by the Parks and Rec and Conservation commissions; and at Select Board meetings, usually during the public comment period. Despite the School Committee’s vote against the swap Nov. 18, the Select Board has not dropped the swap as a possibility. Because the land swap remains a viable option, the Old Mill Road residents who have followed the meetings continue to object to the environmental and financial impacts, and to the process, which they say is opaque.

A neighborhood overwhelmed?

Old Mill Road resident Luke Kirkland is worried about increasing sedimentation at Old Mill Pond, listed in the 2016 Harvard Master Plan as a body of water to protect: “Old Mill Pond, which has historic importance in Harvard, is threatened by sedimentation due to upstream development and erosion,” the plan says. The pond sits right next to the Stone land. Kirkland said sedimentation, which can block the spring that feeds the pond and reduce its depth, would likely worsen if the athletic field and 100 parking spaces were built on the Stone land.

The Press met with Kirkland and his neighbors, Bill Weiss and Pablo Carbonell, in early November at the Stone land. Heading to the field, they encountered clouds of dust from the 24-unit affordable housing development under construction at the corner of Old Mill and Ayer roads. Four walkers, three with dogs, moved through the meadow path during the hour spent at the field. The path, which leads from Old Mill to the wooded trail in Harvard Park, is a valued asset in the neighborhood, they said. Weiss, Kirkland, and Carbonell questioned whether Old Mill residents were being asked to shoulder more than their fair share in meeting the town’s needs.

Weiss said an “overarching lack of transparency” has marked the process, citing a late spring meeting between neighborhood residents and McWaters at which they were told they’d get comparison costs for the Stone land versus leasing fields at Devens, and information about the other parcels considered for a swap—but hadn’t received it as of Nov. 8.

Last week, McWaters released the information she had on costs for leasing at Devens, but they were the same numbers shown on a poster she’d displayed at the last Town Meeting and at the neighborhood meeting. “The numbers we do not have are the maintenance numbers for our current fields, as I have mentioned many times,” McWaters wrote in an email to one of the neighbors and copied to several town officials. In a conversation with the Press, McWaters reiterated that “the discussion of new fields is still very much in the fact-finding phase and no decisions can be made until we have all of the information,” noting that cost and feasibility for developing fields on the Small land were also unknown.

Note: The table does not include estimates for the Pond Road baseball field; two baseball fields at Ryan Land; the softball field at Ann Lees Road; or the open space at HES and in front of the library. Also not included is Bromfield field, which is contiguous with the library open space and closest to the Bromfield main entrance; it is used for lacrosse and field hockey. But like the open space areas in front of HES and the library, it cannot be maintained to athletic field standards.

More information about maintenance costs of existing fields is in the table “Estimated annual maintenance costs for Harvard’s multipurpose rectangular athletic fields.” For details about how the Open Space Committee evaluated land for potential use as athletic fields, see the sidebar, “How was land for fields chosen and who will decide?”

Affordability was another question raised by the Old Mill group. “I don’t understand how they’re expending this much energy on sites for new fields when [the town] is not in a financial position to take care of what it has,” Kirkland told the Press, an objection echoed by Weiss and Carbonell.

The cost of field maintenance is of concern to McWaters, too. She said she is working with new DPW Director David Smith to untangle the cost of maintaining fields from its place in the DPW budget. Not only is maintenance part of the DPW budget-–not Parks and Rec’s—but maintenance costs are not itemized. Field upgrades are not in either the Parks and Rec or the DPW budget and have, in the past few years, been paid for with money allocated by the Capital Planning and Investment Committee. To make matters worse, the shortage and consequent overuse of fields has created conditions beyond the help of routine maintenance. Upper Depot Road field, for example, “is 50% dirt right now,” Select Board member Charles Oliver told the Press.

In fiscal 2024, field maintenance was accounted for in the DPW budget under “Total Common and Field Maintenance” at $44,075. The table “Estimated maintenance costs” shows costs for existing multipurpose fields according to a 54 cents per square foot estimate prepared for Harvard by Activitas, landscape architects and civil engineers. Generic estimates available from the Sports Turf Management Association range from $20,000 to $30,000 per field, size unspecified.

Maintenance has been better lately, according to the director of the Harvard Athletic Association, Peter Kelly-Joseph, who also runs the HAA youth lacrosse program. The main problem is the shortage, he said, brought on by the increasing popularity of youth sports, especially soccer and lacrosse. He said more than 120 girls, from age 3 to high school age, played lacrosse in Harvard in 2024, a 40% increase since 2022. The even more popular soccer drew 404 registrants this year, while 227 kids registered for fall-winter basketball. HAA offers baseball, soccer, basketball, softball, and Frisbee for youth from preschool to high school age, supplementing the school offerings, which begin in grade 7.

How was land for fields chosen and who will decide?

The Press asked Open Space Committee Chair Jim Lee about his committee’s initial search for viable land, while Select Board liaison to the Open Space Committee, Rich Maiore, addressed the decision-making process.

Open Space Committee’s role: Initial selection of parcels

The Select Board asked the Open Space Committee to evaluate and recommend land for possible acquisition as recreational space starting last year, beginning with both public and private land.

 “The first task was to evaluate town-owned lands that could be used for playing fields. Lands that were considered were the town gravel pit [on Stow Road], Warrilla land [on Stow Road], Small land [behind HES], land behind the Ryan Land baseball fields, and land at Harvard Park,” Lee said. But none of the parcels were “considered ideal” for building an athletic field-–except the land at Harvard Park. The parcels that were rejected were either too wet, too steep, or were needed for other purposes by the town, he said.

The Select Board then commissioned the planning and design firm BCS Group to create a concept plan to show what recreational facilities might be built in Harvard Park. BCS was asked to include the Stone land—which backs up to the park—in the plan, which was completed in December 2023. The park is owned by the town under the jurisdiction of the Parks and Recreation Commission; the Stone land is owned by the town under the jurisdiction of the Conservation Commission.

As the study was underway, Lee said, “the OSC identified about 25 potential sites in Harvard for fields that had, at a minimum, 4 acres with < 4% grade outside of wetlands and wellhead protection zones, and accessible from a town road.” Owners were asked if they would consider selling to the town for athletic fields. Discussions with one of the two owners who responded positively are ongoing; the other parcel proved too wet.

Lee said it was about six months ago that the committee “started to look into what it would take to convert land already protected as open space into recreation land,” ultimately identifying the open field on Old Mill Road, the Stone land, as a candidate for a “land swap” with the town-owned Small land behind HES. Such exchanges must follow Article 97 of the state constitution and state law, “An Act Preserving Open Space in the Commonwealth,” which are meant to ensure no net loss of protected open space.

Select Board’s role: Establishing a process, proposing a solution to voters

The final decision about which options to present to voters at Town Meeting rests with the Select Board. “We will discuss the decision-making process once we receive options and recommendations from the Open Space Committee,” Maiore said. The committee includes representatives from the Parks and Rec, Agricultural Advisory, and Conservation commissions; the School Committee; and the Harvard Conservation Trust.

Whatever options the Select Board recommends, Town Meeting must approve them. For instance, a land swap requires a Town Meeting vote as part of the state-mandated Article 97 process. And requests for money from the most likely sources, Capital Planning and Investment and Community Preservation committees and excluded debt proposals, all require votes.

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