Town Acquisition Provides Key Open Space Link In Sandy Hook

By Kendra Bobowick

A hidden vernal pool alternately emerges to shimmer, then disappear according to its own tides. As its time aboveground wanes, the forest floor soon drinks it back in, covering the seasonal wetland with fallen leaves that scratch across nearby rock ledge.

Brambles and footpaths traveled by deer weave through the landscape on roughly 18 acres that the town recently acquired along Great Quarter Road — including the temporary shallow water body. Impressed with the feature, Deputy Director of Land Use Rob Sibley said, “There is nothing else like it around; it’s textbook.”

The pool is one primary environmental reason for buying the land. On Monday, February 2, Newtown closed on the $126,000 sale of Salvatore Feola’s consecutive parcels abutting private land along Great Quarter Road, running eventually into the lower Paugussett State Forest. The buy was approved in 2007, but had been lodged in probate court.

“It’s a great price. [The purchase] was difficult, but it’s done,” Mr Sibley said this week.

Thoughts about the vernal pool aside, Mr Sibley mentioned, “Ultimately, it’s all about connection.” Residents can now step across the street from town-owned Eichler’s Cove and step into the new property via a short offshoot from Great Quarter, which reaches driveways for a few homes. At that dead-end, upon entering the forest, a hiker can stride across the 18 acres and enter the Paugussett land.

Connecting the spaces creates an uninterrupted corridor for wildlife, preserves water quality, and deflects impact of development. Also within those acres are parcels owned by Newtown Forest Association, also preserved. Mr Sibley likes to “keep the connection going,” he said.

Development on the land severs that connection, creating “fragmentation of habitat,” Mr Sibley warned.

Land acquisition is an ongoing effort. The Conservation Commission is always looking for opportunities. Land may come through sale from a private owner, or could be a straight donation, which has not happened — yet. “We could get that call: ‘My aunt left me 14 acres in town. I don’t want it, do you?’” Mr Sibley imagined. The town offers a host of incentives for residents to consider for setting aside property for conservation.

Some Background

Each parcel alone was residentially zoned, but too small for the two-acre building requirement. Mr Feola may have bought the lots, side-by-side, in a consecutive swath in order to build, but he did not develop and Mr Sibley is not sure why.

“I don’t know the history,” he said, but added he is sure about the land when it was splintered lots. Looking back at each single parcel, some slightly more than an acre, he could say for certain, “People would say they wanted a house, but we would say no.” Access to the parcels — many behind private property along the road — and lot size influenced the  decision of the Land Use office.

The geography in some cases thrusts rock up from the top of a craggy slope, and in other places the ground dips to form the concave vernal pool floor, waiting all year to fill and offer its brief, isolated feature to the wildlife.

Mature trees and mountain laurel in some cases border forgotten stonewalls, and traveling away from the road and closer to the forest is the sound of water trickling across smoothed stones. Traffic noise evaporates and leaves whisper in the spring and summer.