Ad Hoc Group Hopes To Rally

Public Support For Open Space

By Andrew Gorosko

The town Open Space Committee, an ad hoc panel under the purview of the Conservation Commission, is seeking to rally public support for the municipal acquisition of additional open space land to provide public areas for passive recreation.

On such open space, new trails would be created or existing trails would be improved to make such property useful to hikers, horseback riders, bicyclists, cross-country skiers and people studying nature.

Among the communities of Fairfield County, Newtown is one of the few towns which still holds much undeveloped land, said Jane Nickerson, one of seven members of the Open Space Committee. The Board of Selectmen formed the open space panel in late 1999 to address open space issues facing the town, said Open Space Committee Chairman Judy Holmes. Ms Holmes also is a Conservation Commission member.

The original open space panel did not function well, however, and has since been reconstituted with new members, she said. Besides Ms Holmes and Ms Nickerson, the members are Beverly MacMillan, who represents the Newtown Bridle Land Association, Inc; Martha Wright, who represents the Newtown Forest Association; and general members Al Goodrich, Rob Sibley and Bill Paskey.

Each committee member brings with him or her a sense of commitment to open space issues, Ms Nickerson said. “You’ve got a group that’s committed,” she stressed.

The committee wants to publicize the value of local open space and to protect and enhance it, Ms Holmes said.

The two women discussed their ideas on open space in an interview at the 70-acre Foxview Farm, Ms Holmes’ horse farm on Hundred Acres Road which is situated in the heart of Newtown horse country.

Pointing to the surrounding verdant landscape, Ms Nickerson said “It’s so peaceful. It’s so beautiful here. It’s so tenuous. These (local) farms aren’t going to be here forever,” she said.

Point O’ Rocks

Ms Holmes described a past prospective town open space acquisition that eventually proved frustrating to committee members.

Earlier this year, the panel sought to have the town acquire a rugged 55-acre open space parcel along Point O’Rocks Road, a dirt road lying in an undeveloped area between Boggs Hill Road and Brushy Hill Road.

But town government officials decided against pursuing that acquisition, Ms Holmes said. The asking price for the land had been $320,000, she said, noting that the property eventually sold to a private party for $157,000. The town was eligible to seek a state grant as a subsidy to defray the land acquisition costs, she noted.

 Open Space Committee members had made a presentation on a possible Point O’ Rocks Road land purchase to the selectmen and Legislative Council members and the response seemed generally positive, but the support that was needed for the acquisition did not materialize, Ms Holmes said.

“It all comes down to funding. Without money, there’s not a lot we can do,” she said.

Acquiring open space requires a financial commitment from the town, Ms Nickerson said.

Candidates in the November municipal elections should be polled on their views about municipal open space acquisition to gauge which candidates are sympathetic to the issue, Ms Nickerson said.

Former Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) member Michael Osborne is a land conservationist who is sympathetic to open space issues, Ms Nickerson noted.

Current P&Z Chairman Daniel Fogliano similarly recognizes the need for town open space acquisition to protect a dwindling resource, she added.

Ms Holmes said she wants the town to create a budgetary line item specifically for open space land acquisition. Also, the town should designate a person to apply for open space acquisition grants, she said. Beyond that, the town’s Geographical Information System (GIS) maps should be expanded to clearly depict all local open space areas, she added.

Ms Nickerson called for a review of town zoning regulations with an eye toward increasing the local inventory of open space areas.

Ms Holmes said zoning regulations for “cluster-style” residential development should be created to allow that type of growth. Cluster housing is less expensive to develop than conventional single-family housing in traditional subdivisions, she said. Cluster development allows relatively larger tracts of open space to remain among areas that are developed, she said. In cluster housing, housing is clustered on a parcel, allowing adjacent areas to remain undeveloped.

 

Fairfield Hills Hub

“Fairfield Hills is a wonderful opportunity,” Ms Holmes said.

To take advantage of the town’s pending acquisition of the state’s Fairfield Hills property, the Open Space Committee urges that a suitable trail system be created on the open space sections of the almost 190-acre parcel. Roughly half of the parcel is open space land, in the form of forested areas and rolling fields.

The centrally located Fairfield Hills could become “the hub of a wheel,” in which open space trails radiate outward from the campus like the spokes of a wheel, extending out toward open space areas on the wheel’s rim, she said. Outlying open space areas would include Upper Paugussett State Forest, Lower Paugussett State Forest, and Huntington State Park, which is partially in Newtown and largely in adjacent Redding and Bethel, she said.

The extensive watershed lands of the former Bridgeport Hydraulic Company, which are to be acquired by the state as open space, contain a network of open space trails, Ms Nickerson said. That land is adjacent to Huntington State Park.

The Newtown Open Space Committee’s charge is to make recommendations on the acquisition and preservation of open space to the Conservation Commission for possible submission to the P&Z  and/or the selectmen.

The committee’s mission is to preserve the town’s sense of place and character through cooperative work with the selectmen, the P&Z, Conservation Commission, Parks and Recreation Commission, and Legislative Council. The committee’s prime task is the creation of a townwide open space plan designed to interconnect existing open space parcels and to create a trail system which interconnects the two state forests and the state park.