Town of Old Lyme Open Space Committee Meeting
Christ the King Church
Minutes: November 9, 2007
Chairman Diana Atwood Johnson opened the meeting at 08:45 with OSC members Peter Cable, Evan Griswold, George James, and Ted Kiritsis in attendance.
OSC Budget
OSC expenditures to date for the current year have been $2.2k for an appraisal of the Ames property, $200 for purchase of a chain saw and $200 for purchase of a weed-whacker, for a total expenditure of $2.6k. In discussion for the budget request for 2008, George recognized a need, under the Committee’s open space stewardship responsibility, to purchase a field mower having an estimated cost of about $1.6k. Potential costs for legal fees for the coming year were estimated at $500 and for land appraisals at $2.5k. Diana asked that George inquire whether the Town has a field mower appropriate for our requirements that could be used by OSC.
Diana also noted that the Old Lyme Conservation Commission did not plan to have additional copies of the booklet “Hiking Trails and Land Preservation, Old Lyme, Connecticut” printed. Diana indicated that few copies of the useful guide remained and that the cost of printing the booklet in 2006 had been $800. Peter agreed to examine ways and means of reproducing the trails booklet and to report back to the Committee.
In following proposed budget discussion and in light of the figures cited above it was agreed that $5k was a responsible OSC budget request for 2008. There was discussion also of a recommendation by George that the Committee request $150k for an open space fund but there was not final action on the recommendation.
Subdivisions
Diana distributed a list of Town subdivision projects approved or underway from 2005 to the present. Currently a total of 163 acres of land in these 19 subdivisions are protected under conservation easements, common-use open space or open space provisions.
a) Dougherty property
Conservation easements have been identified along the west edge of the property on Route 156. Evan inquired whether the easements would be granted to the Town or to Conservation Trust and Diana answered that it isn’t clear. Evan and George noted that Town regulations require that conserved areas be marked. Diana suggested that, because the requirement for marking easement is a municipal requirement, she believed the municipality should assume responsibility for enforcing the requirement.
b) Enok Pedersen property
Diana showed copies of both the latest site maps filed 11/07 by Doane-Collins Engineering Associates for the Pedersen property on Burr Road and the previous maps on file. There have been modest changes to the planned building lots and to the area designated open space, but there have been major increases in the conservation easement areas, with designated easements increasing from 21 acres to 34 acres. Though the summary of the total number of acres in the subdivision, including building lots, open space and conservation easements, does not appear to tally from the previous maps to the current maps, the intention of Doane-Collins to incorporate OSC recommendations as much as possible seems clear.
c) 100 Acres LLC/Montanaro property
Plans for development as a subdivision of 31 units of Jeffrey Montanaro’s property behind Cherrystones Restaurant and the adjacent driving range on Shore Road will require a zoning change for the property. Attorney Stephen Sheehan and Jeff Montanaro plan to seek a change along the lines of Old Saybrook’s PRCD regulations. Diana suggested in discussion that OSC should consider supporting a plan to the Zoning Commission that would provide a bonus to the developers allowing higher building density (units per acre) in exchange for donation of open space. It was agreed that Diana would contact Attorney Sheehan and indicate that OSC would support an increase in building density in exchange for designating the area of the back portion of the proposed development as open space.
d) Lord’s Woods development
Diana informed the Committee that a telephone vote by OSC that she had conducted the previous week had unanimously agreed to accept Bassam Awwa’s firm offer of $75k, to be paid within 2 years, for remediation for unauthorized tree cutting on designated open space land at Lord’s Woods development. In discussion the issue of securing guarantees that the remediation would be paid by the developer was raised and the possibility of placing a lien on the development discussed. Diana also noted that a lien on the open space area at Lord’s Woods had been placed by Jeremy Silvester; in discussion it was noted that any lien on the development property should more appropriately and effectively have been placed on the building lots. It was also noted in discussion that the Town had not yet accepted the open space land at Lord’s
Woods and it was agreed to initiate the process for the Town to officially accept the land at a Town meeting. It was suggested that Amanda was the appropriate OSC member to undertake this process. It was also suggested that a title search of all existing open space grants should be performed, and a formal procedure for Town acceptance of all future open space grants should be formulated and adopted by the OSC..
Town Open Space Status
Diana presented data showing open space and conservation easement acreage in Old Lyme. The data show that 1719 acres of Town land are in open space and that there are conservation easements on approximately 300 acres; these protected areas constitute 12.7% of the total town area of 15791 acres (data from CLEAR-UCONN). It was noted that the State goal is to have 21% of State land dedicated to open space.
Conservation Easements
Committee members reported on action and status of follow-up calls to Town property owners who had received letters from OSC concerning consideration of donating conservation easements on their properties under Public Act 490. This is an ongoing activity.
New Business
a) Kus property
Diana reported that Peggy Kus wants to sell 123 acres of property with an asking price of $1.7m ($21k per acre). Diana said she understands that Peggy Kus is not currently disposed to deal with OSC.
There being no further old or new business the meeting was adjourned at 11:20.
Respectfully submitted,
Peter Cable
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