Fairfield Hills Is Key To Recreation Planning

By Andrew Gorosko

Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members are considering future town parks and recreational needs as a component of P&Z’s ongoing revision of the Town Plan of Conservation and Development. As expected, Fairfield Hills is a key component in the town’s recreation planning.

P&Z members June 27 discussed how recreational facilities may evolve through the decade ending in 2013, with representatives of Harrall-Michalowski Associates, Inc (HMA), the Hamden planning consultant that is helping P&Z revise the town plan.

Voters’ June 2001 approval of a town purchase of the 189-acre Fairfield Hills core campus from the state implicitly endorsed the town’s continuing policy of concentrating its facilities for active, organized sports in several centralized locations, according to HMA.

HMA notes that many of the recreational needs, which urbanized areas typically address by municipal systems of neighborhood parks and playgrounds, are met in Newtown by individual homeowners on their relatively large house lots.

The planning consultant suggests a series of park and recreation policies for P&Z consideration:

* Using the Fairfield Hill campus as a key component for town recreation during the coming decade.

* Use of extended hours and flexible scheduling to more efficiently use existing facilities.

* Strengthening the cooperative relationship between the town’s Parks and Recreation Department and the public school system to maximize the local use of recreational facilities.

* Physically improving the playing fields at the several public elementary schools and the middle school to improve those fields’ usefulness for organized sports.

* Develop public recreational access to Lake Zoar for Newtown residents. The town now has a boat launch on Lake Lillinonah.

Recreational activities including walking, jogging, bicycling, and horseback riding will be addressed in an upcoming HMA report on open space.

Town recreational facilities have increased as the local population has steadily expanded, David Hannon, an HMA planner, told P&Z members. The town has two sets of recreational facilities, one set supervised by the Parks and Recreation Department, and the other set managed by the public school system, he noted.

The town has had a policy of centralizing its recreational facilities, he said, whereas in cities, such facilities more typically are scattered throughout a municipality.

The two public parks designed for active recreation are Dickinson Park on Elm Drive and Treadwell Park on Philo Curtis Road, he said. Orchard Hill Nature Center off Huntingtown Road is designed for more passive forms of recreation, he noted.

It is expected that the town will continue to concentrate its recreational facilities in several central locations, with the Fairfield Hills campus seen as the prime place for such development, he said.

The Parks and Recreation Department has stated a need for seven new athletic fields to handle public demand for organized sports, Mr Hannon said. Such facilities would include two baseball fields, two adult soccer fields, two multipurpose fields, and one youth baseball field.

It is expected that new athletic fields would be built at Fairfield Hills, he said. The town is in the process of buying Fairfield Hills’ 189-acre core campus from the state. Fairfield Hills closed as a state mental institution in December 1995.

Recreation officials also have expressed the desire for two large gymnasiums, a small gym, an all-purpose activity room, an indoor swimming pool, a new teen center, a skateboarding park, one new outdoor basketball court, and one new playground, he said.

The town’s boat launch on Lake Lillinonah needs better vehicle parking and needs an improved accessway, Mr Hannon added. He also suggested the town create a public recreational access point for Lake Zoar.

Taunton Lake

Noting that the town owns open space land next to Taunton Lake, Mr Hannon asked why town officials have not advanced the lake as a site for public recreation. The town owns open space land in the vicinity of Taunton Lake Road’s intersection with Mt Pleasant Road.

P&Z member Lilla Dean said the town owns open space at the lake, but the parcel is quite inaccessible. Based on the results of past research, the people who own property along the lake’s edge, also own the land lying beneath the lake, posing public access questions, she said.

Mr Hannon suggested that public access be provided to Taunton Lake to allow picnicking there, as well as canoeing and kayaking.

Hearing no support for the idea from P&Z members, Mr Hannon said, “So I guess we will not put that in?”

P&Z member Daniel Fogliano told Mr Hannon that raising the Taunton Lake public access issue would be controversial. “You will be opening a big old can of worms,” Mr Fogliano said.

A past proposal to use public land on Taunton Lake for public recreation met with strong opposition from Taunton Lake property owners.