Open Space Committee Minutes Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Present: Kelton Burbank, Jim Samdahl, Deb Cary, Karen Rossow
Excused: Kim Houde
Committee convened at 7:00 pm in the Spruce Room at Wachusett Mountain Ski Lodge. We participated in the Princeton Land Trust annual meeting. The Princeton Land Trust is a private non-profit entity whose mission is to preserve open space in Princeton.
PLT business including the treasurer’s report and elections.
PLT currently owns 250 acres and holds 15 conservation restrictions for a total of 450 permanently preserved acres of land in town.
Historically they have been involved in two big events: the preservation of Red Fox Farm, where they were helped by the Nimrod Rod and Gun Club, an abutter and major funding contributor; and the preservation of Four Corners, which is in the area including Lombard , Gates, Thompson and Old Colony roads, and was assisted by the taxpayers and DCR. The third big event is the preservation of Fieldstone Farm owned by the Smith family.
The Smiths are working openly with the PLT and are going to wait until next October to put the land up for sale, thus omitting the town’s Right of First Refusal from the process. On a positive note that means we have at least a year to prepare a gameplan. The family has made it clear that while they are in no rush, when they are ready to sell we had best be ready to propose a plan.
After two hours of discussion about which portions should be saved, how to pay for it and which organizations should be involved the meeting was adjourned at 9:00 pm.
The Open Space Committee did not review the meeting minutes from October 9th and will postpone that until our next meeting on November 20th.
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