Date: Fri 03-Jul-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

land-preservation-Iroquois

Full Text:

Town Considers Two Land Preservation Projects

Representatives of the Iroquois Gas Transmission System came to Newtown on

Wednesday to look at two pieces of property which might be enhanced by using

the town's remaining $48,000 in grants from the company's Land Preservation

and Enhancement Program.

First Selectman Herb Rosenthal said the projects at properties on Black Bridge

Trail and Hopewell Road would involve the construction of footbridges to

provide access to state forests. There also would be a small parking lot at

the Hopewell site.

The footbridges would be part of a trail system, proposed by the town's

Greenways Committee, to connect the town's open spaces in a greenway

stretching from the Huntingtown State Park on the Redding border to the upper

and lower Paugussett state forests.

Committee Chairman Gary Fetzer submitted a proposal last year to the Board of

Selectmen to build a parking lot along the Huntingtown State Park on Hopewell

Road and for a bridge over the Pootatuck River near the Black Bridge Trail off

Glen Road.

Last year the town used $400,000 in Iroquois funds to purchase a 13-acre

parcel off Elm Drive, adjacent to Dickinson Park.