Open Space Plan ready to implement

Nantucket Conservation Foundation land off Milestone Road. PHOTO BY ROB BENCHLEY Nantucket’s 2007 Open Space and Recreation Plan is almost ready to implement.

The Board of Selectmen, which endorsed the update of Nantucket’s 1988 open space plan at its meeting on Jan. 27, was the final of three town review boards to sign off on this plan.

The Conservation Commission and the Nantucket Planning & Economic Development Commission have already approved the final draft of this plan. Now the revised plan only needs to be ratified by the state’s Department of Conservation Services within the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.

Planning Director Andrew Vorce is confident that DCS will approve this plan, as it readily approved the draft version.

“Finalizing it does two things,” said Vorce. “Number one, it opens up grant opportunities from the Self- Help program, which we haven’t had since 1988. I know that Park and Rec is interested and there are other programs that we may be interested in.”

The 2007 Open Space and Recreation Plan is one of the nine elements in the town’s Chapter 41-81D Master Plan that Vorce, the Planning Board and its planning staff completed in 2008. It contains the following goals and objectives:

· Acquire, retain, preserve and protect a maximum of open space for the community and its natural and wildlife habitats, while balancing this with practical needs such as recreation, affordable housing and water supply;

·Protect public access to, use and environmental health of Nantucket’s surface water resources;

·Protect the town’s present and future groundwater supply;

· Identify and coordinate open space and recreation needs to benefit each simultaneously;

·Accomplish open space and recreation goals, objectives and actions expeditiously and at minimum expense;

·Protect and enhance Nantucket’s unique and fragile natural and cultural resources including scenic beauty, historic areas and unique habitats;

·Acquire, maintain and expand recreational opportunities and access throughout Nantucket and ensure that the needs of every user group are met appropriately;

·Design and manage all public properties for their intended public benefit and to protect open space and recreational resources and

·Protect and enhance wildlife populations and habitats.

Nantucket’s previous open space plan, struck in 1988, focused on acquisition of land for the public’s use. Through the Nantucket Islands Land Bank, the town has contributed substantially to the island’s open space portfolio that totals close to 60 percent of the island. Such properties include the Gardner farm property on Hummock Pond Road, the Eilert parcels at 169 and 169R Polpis Road, the Holdgate Trails off Old South Road and 40th Pole Beach off Eel Point Road.

“I think we have an active group of open space agencies and the work has really been ongoing,” said Vorce.

Vorce added that he expects island conservation organizations including the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, the ’Sconset Trust, the Madaket Land Trust and the Trustees of Reservations to use the town’s open space plan as a guide for shared uses and protection of resources where their properties intersect each others’ and the town’s around the island. The controlled burning of conservation lands by the Nantucket Heathlands Partnership of various parcels owned by island conservation groups is one example. The brush cutting of NCF’s Serengeti property by the Land Bank for the maintenance of Northern harrier habitat is another.

“Many of the groups that are engaged in open space protection, hopefully they now have a guide for where the public agencies are and how they might fit in,” said Vorce. I

Read the entire open space plan at www.nantucket-ma.gov/Pages/ NantucketMA_Planning/forms/ openspaceplan.pdf.