Plan & Zoning - Regular Meeting

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the uh February 3rd, 2026 meeting of the Orangetown Plan and Zoning Commission. I am Commissioner Razie Parenti. It's so nice to see so many people in the audience tonight for a change. Uh let's have the uh commissioners introduce themselves. Tom Torrenti, Paul Kaplan, Jenny Bowser, recording secretary, Kevin Cornell, Jay Magcguire, Jack Deer, zoning administrator. Okay. Uh on our agenda tonight, first item is a review of the minutes from the January 6, 2026 meeting.

I got I have I have no uh changes to suggest if anybody else does. I do not. Move to approve. You looking for a motion? Yes, I am. All right. Move to approve the minutes of the January 6, 2026 meeting as submitted. Okay. Do we have a second? Second. It's been seconded. All those in favor? I I Okay. [clears throat] Next item on our agenda is old business.

Does anybody have anything they'd like to bring up under that topic? Uh Jack, under your uh report, are you going to give us u an update? After the last meeting and Attorney Weaver's presentation, you were going to start looking into some stuff.

Uh we we did um I can go into it a little bit. I don't know how deep I'm going to go tonight. Uh we did some calculation, but there's still a lot for us to kind of break down. Um, you know, we have some rough ideas, but ultimately it's going to come to whether the board decides to take this, which road they decide to go. Um, but I will go into it a little bit during my report.

Okay. And uh while you are you know putting together subsequent to this meeting uh it would be helpful to me if there were some timelines on those decisions in more of a little u you know rather than trying to extract it from the PowerPoint. You know by you know 2027 we need to do this by 2029 we need to do that

you know would be helpful. Absolutely. I think um kind of where we're at now is getting uh an inventory for what these priority development areas uh and other options that the new bill laid out would look like in orange and that's easier said than done. Um, so I think Owen and I are still kind of taking, like I said, an inventory of commercial property, um, area that could be utilized to help the town, um, you know, with housing areas maybe that we aren't favorable towards housing on. Um, but we we will start putting that together.

Okay. And as part of a a timeline, understanding when the fiats are going to start being issued from OPM and SKG or CROG or Yeah, that's that's a very good question. I I have no idea what time frame they're they're working under. I will reach out and try to get some answers there. Okay. Because that sort of sets the framework for our decision. Absolutely. Okay. Anything else under old business? Okay. Then how about under new business? Item number three. Any Well, you okay? Number four is report of the zoning enforcement officer. Jack.

Yeah, Kevin. Just to go a little off of that for I was taking stock of uh total commercial acreage in orange or in orange. Now that includes commercial umly owned property, local shopping center, business office park, any of our you know commercial options that we have, not just C1 or C2. Uh with undevelopable undevelopable area, so I included wetlands and you know steep slopes that can't be built on. Uh it's tough for us to weed out those areas and come up with a number.

Uh I think we were going off of 800 acres for was roughly 10% of Orange. Uh 438.8 acres is what I was able to come up with encompassing all of our commercially zoned area with the undevelopable areas included. So it brings us to maybe around 5% of that, you know, 10% total. Um but again that's subject to change depending on us weeding out those those areas. Uh so Owen and I will continue to work on that. Um and then my last item is we did receive a proposed text amendment application uh for our PRD regulations. If the board remembers I think it was two years ago now uh attorney John Nuff represented a client uh for some PRD amendments. It was mainly bulk regulation standards as well as some of the affordable language that we have there. We do have another amendment in front of us that will most likely be heard in March. So, just to put that on everybody's radar.

All right. Other than that, I have nothing.

Okay. All right. Then, uh we can move to our uh the item on our agenda that has some meat on the bones. Uh it's item number five. It's it's a 8-24 municipal improvement referral and it's the request by BL Companies uh on behalf of the Orange Board of Selectment and it's to review and provide recommendation regarding the Fred Wolf Park concept plan. So um just quickly um 8-24 is a reference to Connecticut General Statutes which says in pertinent part no municipal agency or legislative body shall locate relocate substantially improve acquire land for abandoned se sell or lease any airport park playground school or other municipally owned property or public building until the proposed proposal to take such action has been referred to the commission for a report commission referring to the plan and zoning commission and a report referring to I don't know exactly you know what but what we've done in the past is uh you know we we uh vote on a either a favorable report

or an unfavorable report and the effect of a favorable it's not binding correct no that and that's my next point I mean it's we're not we're not here we don't have the authority and we're not here to approve the plan or not approve the plan. Uh just to give our our recommendation, you know, what we what we see and I think if if uh if we gave a negative uh report, then I think the vote to approve the plan at the board of selectment is is by twothirds rather than a majority vote. But I'm not even positive of that. But oh different.

That's my that's my understanding. We'll check with Owen on that to be sure. But but anyway, so I just you know I just want to make sure everybody is is clear that uh you know we're not approving or disapproving the plan. We're we're reviewing the plan and just giving our opinion as to whether we think it you know it it merits further you know merits you know approval or disapproval. Kevin, you got a question?

Well, so with respect to being a planning and zoning board, you know, we have those two functions. So with respect to zoning, it doesn't deal with any of that function of ours. So, we're really operating in a a planning capacity to give an advisory uh opinion report to groups that have spent two years, right? Uncounted meetings. Yeah. and committees and subcommittees to distill down a plan that we really don't know that we just that that we got last week.

Yeah. Okay.

So, but that's the statute that's that's that's so you know the board of selectman can't move forward without this uh sign off this this decision recommendation that we make. Um, so, uh, I believe that the the board of selectman's, uh, representatives are here tonight to, uh, tell us what the plan is all about, uh, and allow us to ask questions and, uh, we're going to allow comment from the public, uh, because that's what we ordinarily do. And, uh, we'll make a decision hopefully tonight. I think there's a a time limit on making decision. I think you have to make it within 35 days or it's deemed to be

approved. Positive referral, right? Yeah. So, a positive referral, right? So, then let's get started. Uh is is BL Company's here? If you would come to the uh podium, identify yourself and proceed. I'm going to help you get that. Yeah, you might want to do that. We're going two seconds just to get situated. I'm going to be in the way. Yeah, I think uh you may want to take a seat next to Paul and Tom over there. All right. Oh, the big new chairs.

Okay. Chairman's all set. Yes, sir. You good? Yes.

Okay, perfect. Uh, first of all, good evening to the residents and good evening board. Thank you for having us tonight. My name is Dominic Seltrude. I'm a landscape architect with BL Companies. Uh, for the record, um, I think on my on the one card I gave you, 100 Constitution Plaza in Hartford. Uh we do have office in Meridan that we operate out of as well. Um and I brought some people with me tonight. I'll acknowledge them as as we move through it. Uh we've got Derek Cole, vice president of engineering uh with us and Josh Wheeler, another landscape architect with us as well. You're going to see their their their mug shots a little later in the presentation. [clears throat] First of all, this is a culmination of years. Can people in the audience stop talking, please, so that we can hear the presentation?

Thank you. First of all, this is uh as one of the the uh chairpeople said, this is a culmination of years of of research, analysis, uh planning, development, and a lot of community outreach within your town. Um, and we're coming before you to not only show you the process so you understand it in terms of planning and zoning and what those elements were as we walked through. Um, just as as as the first foray into it and this purpose of the plan, why why we why did we do this plan? develop a clear vision and roadmap for future recreational development within Fred Wolf Park and it is good to see people in the audience because a lot of these people are familiar faces to us. Uh they've walked through the process with us and how did we go about doing that? Well, we reviewed existing conditions and usage inventory and and analysis of the site. We engaged the community on multiple uh avenues be it through public outreach um structured uh stakeholder agreement or stakeholder meetings. We developed plan alternatives on the findings because we had to have some sort of direction on where we were going and we we actually went through and had developed a final plan for the community's current and future needs and we provided permit considerations and constructions opinions. There's that permit considerations. So part of the process as we move through there was going to be a timeline next is we took a look at your zoning regulations. We took a look environmental both local and state and federal. We got d existing data on the site. We reviewed the plan of conservation development the adopted plan. We looked at older plans. We looked at a lot of a lot of information within the plan to make sure that what we're providing is going to be in lock step with the rules and regulations. This is a plan. So you you were correct, sir. Your planning hat, not your zoning hat on, but we looked at both concurrently to say as a road map for the development of the of the of the park, we want to make sure those elements are in lock step with all that all that information. Furthermore, what we did is we put some guide rails in the plan because it is a roadmap and we've

discussed that with the community before. It's a vision of what can be um but there's guide rails in there. So, there's some checks and balances. So, this will not be a oneanddone endorsement or a recommendation or approval on your part. It is only the beginning. It's the it's the concept of what could be each individual phase or step or construction within the plan. There is a recommendation by our consultancy that says it needs to come back to you. You have to look at each piece. So as it develops, it's it's it's weighed against the zoning regulations which we all know change. It's it's it's it's weighed against planning and uh plan of conservation development which also can change but kind of stays steadier than the zoning documents sometimes. Um and there's a check to revisit the plan but there's also checks to make sure that we're in that in that alignment. And like I said, you get another bite at the apple. People in the audience might say that there's always a few more bites at the apple as pieces of the plan are implemented because over time this is a very aggressive plan. Um but over time pieces will be implemented and they have to be checked off by either the ad hoc committee or the parks and recck committee who are very involved in this process and then referred to before construction plans documents approvals uh regulatory type aspects have to be brought before you again. Um, so you're digesting a lot tonight. So I'm going to try to make it as easy as possible and we're here for questions. That's the biggest thing. So what what how do we got here? Go ahead. When you say we'll get another bite [snorts] at the apple, we'll see this again.

Yeah. As we

um are you talking about uh another 8-24 approval with respect to each phase? I would imagine you would have to look at the site plans that come in because we are dealing with hydraology on site. We are dealing with built form. We are dealing with a lot of site uh pertinances, construction, things along those lines. And there'll be a need to move that through the process in order to implement those pieces to make sure we're being a accountable uh to the environmental aspects and b accountable to the actual plan for recreational and development. So, I'm not sure I u [clears throat] that's why we're here.

Yeah. No, I mean we're it'll ultimately require site plan approval. Correct. project. Correct. In each phase of the project, but will there be a separate 8-24 uh you know uh endorsement with with each phase or at some different I and I and I don't want to speak out of term. Usually when you come through with the conceptual plan of what we're looking at, you're endorsing the entire body of work. Okay. And then that you you were going to test that against pieces that come in um to for phrase development. All right.

And then and I think there's a stipulation in there and I don't want to interrupt you, sir, but I think there's a stipulation if it deviates there's obviously a conversation that has to happen at that point. So, we're going to be giving a referral on a master plan concept that's a phased construction sequence. And as long as it doesn't vary, they wouldn't have to go through the uh 8 24 referral 824 referral 824 again. But if we built phase one and all of a sudden people realize that phase two needed different elements to it, we'd probably have to go through it again. you you'd be you'd be a referral back and there would be a modification to the master plan at that point, right?

And that's kind of one of those guard rails that wants to be built in for now so we don't have something go in without referring back to the plan, but ultimately we'll have site plan approval, right? But will you be [clears throat] the infrastructure would also to support the the surface level improvements would also be phased or just sequenced so that they can be added.

The recommendation that we made was some of the infrastructure has to be done in phase one and I can show that a little later in the presentation. Um but it's kind of like building a house you have to build the foundation first. Um there is a need for some of the other pieces. Um but some of that can be the identifier is to balance like the drain as we develop a phase to develop that drainage. Okay. And and and the infrastructure pieces. Some of it's already in place and some of it needs to be modified. Okay.

And at a master plan level, we're not getting down to the brass tax. We're just saying this is the overall vision and understanding of what wants to happen. Then we there'll be times to come back at that point. So we went through this phase. So how did we get here? Just so you're all familiar, um we started before this, but in November 2022, uh investigation started. You can see April 2023, we had a earlier, um need a cause and need for some safety items, if you're aware of the site, that had to be implemented on a short-term basis to solve uh parking uh circulation and safety and security to the actual site. Uh we implemented our first work community workshop in November of 2024. We started our focus group interviews. It's sometimes hard to get people even to get on a virtual meeting. So, those took place and were completed in September 2025, but they were ongoing before that. Um, [cough] a community survey which consisted of a survey and a website and an email address for the project for people to so we can solicit feedback and input on planning efforts. Public workshop 2 happened. Uh, that was where we had some more preliminary what do you want out there? What do you don't want out there? how how is it developing? Uh public workshop 3 was completed and then we went through the draft plan. The final presentation on the workshop portions and then the final plan um went to the committee November 10th of last year. It has subsequently gone to your selectman. They were the ones that referred it back over to you and then depending on how you operate in terms of your agreement or disagreement or recommendation, it will go back to the selectman. One thing I thought and and some of the people that are at the selectman meeting have seen some of these slide before, but I'm taking them in a different angle because of the body that I'm speaking to tonight was to understand what we're doing on site. Looking at your POCD and certain aspects of of the planning aspects for the entire town, understanding the approved documents through that POCD, we really started to understand the balance of the

space. It is a park. You want preservation and activity in parks. There is open space associated with that park. uh and then we have a farmland aspect as well. So we tried to strike a balance and create a balance in the park. We don't want an overprogrammed space. So we try to balance out how these areas are going to to uh affect the overall plan for the actual development of the park itself. So we start looking at hard areas, roads, built forms, organized play, fields, playscapes. And you can see we start to strike a balance where we can kind of balance that site between environmental factors. And we're doing that for other reasons as well. for drainage. We want to make sure as we start to implement this plan, we're very cognizant of of all the environmental factors on site, especially with in terms of of the hydrarology of site, making sure we can keep water and retain it on site, get it back into the into the soil um and retain it on site, which it currently does not. Uh and then we want to also in our hard areas and our organized play areas, we want to make them more safe and playable is the word that we use. that in terms of the circulatory system, we want to balance that out uh to make sure that it's a safe environment not only for children but for anybody who's going to be a park user uh in the future. So that was one of those early steps that was taken to understand how we don't overprogram but we balance environmental and the programming for the site and by program I mean the elements that can go in over time. So we look at functionality and identity of those areas. We look at environmental considerations that are on the site and we know there's some terrain and natural features of what's out there, community needs, demographics, amenities that they the wish list is the amenities obviously uh passive and active features and multimodal access to the to to and within the site. We also looked at uh some of the historical aspects and cultural aspects to the site as well. And I can I can touch on that uh a little bit more. Actually, it's kind of you can see one of the the signs that we

put out there. so we could kind of get some some information out to the people um on the site itself. So as of uh the third or the third meeting and then obviously with the endorsement uh from the committee um we have endorsed program elements. I think you're going to be more interested in the the next slide which is the endorseed park elements but I'm going to go through them because it kind of paints a picture for you of the thought process and why we're doing this. Um the first and foremost is it's town taking ownership of the park itself. Uh making a concerted effort to own actually the scheduling, the maintenance, the security of that site. Uh an increase in mainten budget could be recommended uh because it is a bigger area. The environmental impro improvements, mitigation, and enhancement. That's something you're going to be interested in. Whatever is done on site has to balance the environmental impacts and the impact on playability. So, if you're going to be putting in a parking lot, we have to plan for the re, you know, the storm water retainage on that parking lot. If we're going to be providing a roadway system or a new field, how is that affecting the environment? And sometimes if it doesn't affect that, we can look at wetland mitigation or enhancements to removal of invasives are all mentioned in the plan. So, there's a balance between what we're building for for active and passive recreation and playability, but also a balance for the site itself. I'm going to touch on some of these if you have questions. So, I'm going to kind of skip around a little bit. Uh, long-term rep review of improvements against the plan. We talked about that endorsement by the committee, approved by the selectman, and then there's those those bumpers or guardrails I talked about making sure we're always referencing back to the plan and it can make changes and like we said, then it's going to come back to you as well.

What's your first name? Dominic. Dominic, you mentioned in passing. Does the town not own this property? They own it. We said ownership in terms of how it operates currently right now the scheduling is done by different um groups and activities. So scheduling the overall maintenance the documentation of what's being added uh in terms of any kind of maintenance or fertilizers or how things are cut should be handled by the town especially if we're going to be undertaking the environmental portions of the site in terms of storm water making sure we're cooling it making sure we're getting it back. Okay. The the land is owned by the town. The land is owned by the town, including the entryways and exits and so forth.

Currently, yes. I'm going to get into that in the plan. There's a small portion that is currently not owned by the town, but there are offshoots um on your drawing, and I'll control when I bring the plan up that they have already purchased some adjacent properties which go to the overall size of the of the parcel itself. So, there's a couple of pieces that are not technically part of the actual uh park, the big piece, but they're adjacent or right up against the the existing park. Um, then it gets into fees. I don't think you're concerned with that. Field designations. Uh, review a plan and predetermined basis for conformance and adjustment as need as the needs change. That kind of be that could be considered in tandem with a PCD review. So uh if things are changing the PCD it kind of gives you a short circuit to review the master plan especially depending on how development is ongoing on the process. It all get developed in five it all gets developed in five years you might not need to do that um but there's a a cost associated with developing that quickly. So the park itself uh revision and and and make sure I'm on the same page. Revision and renovation of the current field layouts. Um they're tired. They need irrigation upgrades. They need some drainage or some some undulation to the field to make the playability for the end users more safe and effective and efficient. Um addition of additional fields at least one to three long term. Uh we call sport court Larry layouts that was coming out of um the information gathered by the community. We we lump sport court altogether. That could be basketball, it could be pickle ball, tennis, uh undefined court areas that can go out into site. uh we we identified cultural and historical zones where there's some information uh that could be given back. Uh the the graphic you see uh shows uh from left to right, north is to right a little bit. Um if if for some reason the corn fields were were overtaken by fields, we want a demonstration field out there to

understand the history and the culture of farming in the community. Um I'll get into a little more of that when we walk around the entire park process. uh bathrooms, environmental buffers, pavilions because there's a need for some shade when you have a a park of this size. Some of it's been done already, but more or less dotting around the landscape for that. The demonstration garden, demonstration fields. Um structured parking and storm water improvements are one of the things we looked at early on. Uh one of the reasons we were brought into the project, uh it's unstructured. Uh by structured, don't think that they're going to be paved parking lots. that are most likely going to be impervious, but they're going to be structured and and designed in such a way that they provide order and a uh clear path to where you're supposed to park. It also can can act as um defining where people circulate within the within the actual park itself because right now it's kind of a little open area in certain areas. Define vehicle and pedestrian circulation, cultural, educational, historical nodes can be added very easily. Um the site itself does tell a story in terms of its farming heritage, its wetlands, uh its old uh grove areas, the buffer zones, things along those lines. Uh dedicated entrance to meeting house land is something we were trying to develop to try to balance um access into the actual site itself. And that's where we're really looking at uh working we know the farmland adjacent to it. we would work with that and define that that piece. Uh maintenance, storage, cultural facilities, things along those lines, pieces that we can add very easily to the plan. Um and then some health stuff, cardiac loop, and then possibly a synthetic field option. Something like that would definitely be coming back to you guys. So that's the type of thing when they're going to be doing a bigger review, you're going to you're going to see it again. And what that culminated is what was in your packets. I want to apologize. We did send along this presentation as well. I'm going to provide it afterwards. For those in the for those of you in the audience, the only difference between this one and the presentation we made to the selectment is we put our faces at

the end instead of at the beginning. So, you'll see it again because we do want to acknowledge this this staff and the amount of hours that have gone into the project. So, this is the community endorsed plan. Um, I can walk you through it um to orient yourself. North is to the right of your screen and essentially you've got the two access points that occur today. One is in the center of the of the screen to the top. I might I can't do it on this program. And one is to the left. Um existing fields are the first three from on the top from right to left. We're going to basically expand the fourth field that's out there right now. So we don't I'm going to I'm sorry to interrupt. I want to make sure I keep up. Yeah.

You're talking about the entrance way from on Hollow Road, correct? Hollow Road and then Oak View on the left. Oak View on the left. And then the new entrance we're defining a meeting house is over on the right hand side. So that's and hemlock is hemlock also an access point? Hemlock would be deadended in this design. Okay. And so the access point would be over at mini meeting house. Correct. And I think that's called PE currently. Uh PE runs into at the intersection. Um

I don't think we have it defined because one of our one of our uh recommendations is the roads inside the the park will be defined as their own designated road designation. Uh the reason rationale reason behind that is currently the roads inside or the pathways inside the park do not conform to town roads. uh we would probably be coming back to you during the design to develop those rules in a park drive type of aspect so that there can be um enforcement if people are not doing what they're supposed to do in terms of speeding and not utilizing the road. did not sorry go ahead you not um in terms of the size of the road or the width is not it's not going to be conforming with town specs

this we planned it out that the size and the width but we might have softer edges we might invoke some low impact design on the on the edges utilization of non-curved roads so we can push the water into swelles and obviously we don't want to we don't want to uh we want to make sure we can account for all the water that's on site and the roads themselves may or may not be completely structured as paved per se. They might be some different elements that wasn't worked out completely in the plan itself. Okay.

So, essentially you gain a half a field on the top four. The one to the left is the smaller field currently. Um from right to left between the the far left field and the second field is where that current roadway runs through. We remove that roadway and all roads are forced to basically an outer loop so to speak around the site. That way we can kind of cut down on conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles.

And then to the bottom of the screen, we we defined a smaller area where the sport courts would be a little bit adjacent. Uh trying to tuck them in. Obviously the biggest you can see where the playscape is at the top. Um and then structuring the parking because what that does for us is we can condense the amount of you know it's still a parking lot even if it's gravel but we we condense it down. We define it so people understand where they're parking. Uh we were very successful with the help of uh the lacrosse people last year where they um did some minor paint striping on the ground and people are creatures of habit and they line start lining themselves up based on that so you can actually reduce that amount of of space but we still have to account for um the water on the site. So there are areas built into this design for above ground retention or detention depending on how uh the design is laid out formally. I'll draw attention to the the right hand side where that's going to be phased the last phase to be developed currently at at our recommendation. Uh currently there's a lease on those farm fields uh working with the POCD that can be taken either as farm or if it goes away we are going to convert some of that to natural meadow uh never to be developed. Is that number Those are numbers 30s on your total way to the north?

29 and 30. Yep. And that's you said that's leased land. That's owned by the town. Oh, okay. I think there's a lease for farming of it right now. Oh, okay.

So, like right now it's all dashed in on your plan. So, it's for future development uh if or when uh the town either requires it or needs it. Um we took a look at the active recreation and passive recreation elements. uh we bubbled to the top use the use the primary uses people wanted. So some of the passive uses are and we've already gotten feedback on is um some of the trail outlets may be adjusted um but we wanted some walking trails possible outdoor classroom to talk about the environment or the different micro environments on site and then also you know making sure we balanced out those uses with the the the active uses that are the sport courts and the fields themselves. The primary use currently is fields. Primary use, we want to balance it, but it'll be fields and probably outdoor rec recreational spaces of undefined. Uh, another one of the recommendations is we've numbered all the fields, so they're going to be designated as number and we designed them so that they're to the largest uh use that we have right now, which is women's lacrosse. Um, but they can be used for anything and configured any different way. Um, in the packets in the plan, we show one that there's no field lines on all fields. So, it's just big areas of of natural grass that would be out there to be used for whatever uh the community would like to do. Uh, in those spaces, you'll notice that there's there's a separation between the upper on your screen, the higher and the lower fields. We're keeping that. Uh, we did make some recommendations about some thinning. There's some invasives in there and some dead wood uh that can come out, but uh we tried to keep that alone. We also try to make sure the buffers around the outside of the park itself uh took advantage of some areas where we have some adjacent properties and then obviously the bottom left hand side of your screen um is is more the naturalistic area that's where we have wetlands. We did do some mapping of wetlands out on site on site itself to understand where what our opportunities and constraints are and then we also

provided in the plan uh options for some grants that can be done so we can improve that uh those areas as part of one of the phases. So um as we're doing any improvements for the good of the recreational aspect we want to make sure that it's balanced with a an environmental aspect or historical aspect or cultural aspect. So when you when we thought about those nodes, maybe we put in a parking lot with the drainage, but then maybe we add into that phase plan uh historical placards about the site or about the farming industry or something along those lines. So we would let the town define how they want to handle that. We can provide suggestions. Excuse me, mouth is dry tonight. So we took a stab at the uh phased approach for the project. Uh what you see in red is the phased approach and what that does is it talks it actually lends itself to infrastructure improvements really uh improving hollow a little more than it's been done today providing some structure to it. Um building a the loop down so we can cross connect and eliminate that central spine that runs between the fields. Um we identified that as a safety uh elevated safety risk. So, we want to make sure we can circumn that piece and then also talk to them about obviously extending uh if we didn't extend utilities in one phase, we're going to provide conduits, things along those lines. So, you can you don't have to go backwards within the plan. Phase two uh looks at that connection out to uh meeting house and adjusting that portion of the plan. what those two phases do and they may get changed a little bit in terms of its phasing. Um it unlocks the potential of the rest of the site both for environmental aspects and for playability aspects uh by basically anchoring parking in some areas and providing circulation so we can push circulation to the outskirts as much as possible while being cognizant of

neighboring properties and buffers and then also implementing storm drainage features. that will obviously we can make sure the site is being balanced in terms of its of its water uh dependency use pushing outward. Phase three would be the field adjustments proper. I I have to digress. Back one, we would develop that smaller field that's out there now into a bigger field so that we can start to take and phase through some of these fields offline in a structured fashion and do the improvements. Some of them don't need a lot. They just need some resurfacing andor regrading. uh but we don't want to adhere or or or uh dampen any of the existing activities on those portions. And then you move into phase four. Uh phase four would be the lower area. There would be some environmental aspects to that, some drainage aspects, and then obviously your sport courts. And then we balance out phase five on either end of the document. Uh kind of an area phase five on on the lefthand side of your screen or to the south of the site where there could be some different options of what goes there. We we we did uh identify some additional parking possibly a community type building either for performances or definitely maintenance uh aspects to that. Uh but we made it robust enough so there's some redefinition that can happen when the site plans are developed. And then phase phase five on the north side of the site takes into account the existing uh farm fields uh either conversion uh to a an athletic or an active play or conversion to meadow. uh to the bottom of the page. That area is really close to a defined wetland. So, we figured we could offset that. One thing I want to go ahead

uh Dominic, if I'm looking at this, there's you're not constructing any restroom facilities till phase two. Phase one has a restroom facility in it. should be uh just to the south southeast of the southeast southwest of of the parking I'm sorry of the play structure there is a restroom facility uh proposed in phase one.

Okay. And then it's good you brought that up because we recommend on for the restroom facilities there is a recommendation in the report that facility would be probably the prime that could be done with some sort of a um conventional type um restroom type facility on the site. We wouldn't be running sewers out to it. So we would look at how we were going to do that. And then we also recommended using uh restroom facilities in a couple of other areas that would more be reliance on um an organic uh type restroom facility that's utilized at state parks across the northeast uh where it's more tied into a uh composting type system. They're not they're not your dad's composting systems. They're lot they're done a lot more efficiently. Uh they use solar panels on the roofs of them to control odors with pipes and fans. And um the long-term aspect of that is there's a service that provides they come in once a month and they regrade it and pull out the the uh the fun stuff that goes into the system. Uh but they've been very successful at at uh parks both in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts currently. So then you don't have to run a sewer system and a water line to those systems.

What's the lighting plan? Currently, um the recommendation is uh it's it's open-ended. It's a park that's supposed to be dusk till dawn. So that there would probably be some low-level lighting that you'd want to provide um both for for access and security. But uh our our take on it was dust till dawn. Any lighting would end up having to come back to you anyway. We are recommending running a robust at least a decent amount of power into that if there if in the future because we always want to plan for the future. if they wanted to light a field. Um, that can be an option. So, we want to leave those options on the table, but that would be currently it's supposed to be dusk until dawn in our study. Uh, I should also say that they can take some of these access points offline for motor vehicle access because we are calling for gate gated accesses. Uh, be it a dead end or enough to pull in and get back out onto the street. Uh, but we would not be taking the park itself offline pedestrians. So, we would still have access to that park. Uh but you could kind of curl till the the overnight use of the park uh for certain times of this time of year. You could we we tried to circuitize circulation. So you might be able to take a couple of roadways offline so you're not someone could come out there and and and utilize the playscape but maybe not get to the back fields and things along those lines. Um one thing I will draw attention to is in phase two we do dead end um drawing a blank on the name of the street but we do dead end the street to the right hand side. So we can bring that roadway in. Um we've talked we've had some conversations because we realize that adjacent farmland is in in a certain trust type situation. Um if we had to balance at this point because we have to cut a corner a little bit. We can do it within the public right of way. But we would we would look to do a uh a sharing effort on that. If we had to reduce a piece of of the land to the direct bottom where the meadow is as as an offset to offset any land taken. Um it is less than a quart less than a quarter

of an acre that we would have to take for that. It might might take where there be a negotiation but we can get the the driveway in. We just want to provide enough stability in the in the circulation both into the site and also the the dead ending of the adjacent street that I'll move on. So endorsement of the recommended plan has been done by the committee. We've delivered the final report. um the adoption of the master plan is the process that we're in now as we discussed earlier and then we get excited because then the plan goes into implementation mode uh in some some some way or fashion. You don't need my Michael Phelps quote. People are probably sick of it by now, but there it is. Uh it does speak to this plan. And then I'd like to thank I'd like to thank a couple of people here tonight and I've done it before. There's our mug shots. Uh those are the three primary people that are here tonight. Myself, uh Derek Cole, and Josh Wheeler. Um, there's been architects looking at this for facility planning. There's been parks and recreation planning teams looking at this. There's been environmental and hydraulic analysis, public outreaching engagement, obviously civil engineers and I'm a landscape architect by trade. Uh, transportation has looked at this from the beginning and throughout the process and we use GIS. Uh, we did aerial mapping and also wetland identification on the site proper. Uh, with that I want to thank the residents. This has been a very uh informative uh you have a really good town in terms of the um point and counterpoint I call it. There's a lot of opinions in town and that's great because it makes for a better plan. It really does because there's a lot of people involved in the process. I also want to thank the ad hoc committee that we worked with the parks and rec commission uh and the selectman because they were all very um very amendable and and talked through the discussion. Um, but I do want to circle back to the residents because we had some very good turnout both on the survey, comments back on our on our email address, uh, visits to the website which we tracked and were documented in

the report as well as um this the sess the sessions that we did in the public engagement. So with that, that's a lot to digest, but I thank you very much for your time. All right, let me go back to my seat. All right. Do we do we have any uh questions for Dominic?

Um what what is your perspective time? I understand they're going to be phases. Um what are the perspective time frames assuming from from start to finish? Right now it's undefined. Um I think it's going to come down to how how you appropriate grants and funding and then understanding the aspects. But we would guide the phases. We provided the recommended phases. There could be subphases to those. But again balancing those those aspects we talked about and then also understanding that some of the infrastructure improvements really have to get done or be planned for in those first couple of phases. Um, I think everyone's very wants phase one to start. I I could be wrong and I might only get 60% buy in on it. Um, we take a lot of stock in how we recommend because we just recommend, but we think unlocking the potential of the entire site and making it safe for the users of the site currently and the future ones are the two key elements. And in order to do that, you could be looking at a 5 to 15year time frame.

And again, it really comes down to funding because there's some big numbers associated with how if depending on how you develop certain portions. Um, it could be, you know, there there's there's there's prices in the plan. And then we do our pricing based off, you know, basically a the opinions we provide are based on designing it. Like all the roadways right now are 24 to 26 ft wide on the plan. If you measure them, do they have to go in at that size? Things along those lines. So, we plan for the worst case scenario. Obviously, other things can happen. You start lighting a field, the numbers go up. Okay. Thank you very much. No, no problem.

Anybody? All right. I know the we're going to have public comment, but is is there anyone in the in the audience that has a question that they'd like to ask of the uh consultants? Do they have to come up here and state their name? Uh, yeah. Okay. Yes. If you would come up to the podium absolutely and introduce yourself, sir. And ask your question. And your address. How you doing? Good. How are you? Good to see you.

Good evening. My name is Scott Richards. I live on 662 Peek Lane, which is the part that's going to be deadended at Hemlock on the little corner. Um, you know, we obviously have some major concerns, but we've been to all the meetings and I think we're past that point now. We kind of just looking for a little more information. So my question to you Dominic was um you know on phase two where they are going to be dead ending that road and going into meeting house is PC the part of PC still going to be existent is the road going to be on the left side like how does that work? Is PC going to dead end or is my driveway going to be in the park's entrance now? I can answer. Thank you. Thank you.

Again it's a 10,000 foot view. We've utilized the majority of pack lane and we in terms of it peek is still going to exist the dead end occurs adjacent to uh PC lane uh to answer your question the way it's designed now and we would think during phase one or phase two there would be more in-depth conversations with you the homeowner on what you would like to see currently under the current configuration we could bring you right out to PC lane pack lane would become the through road it's a paper road through the site right now um and it would become the end park entrance on that on that aspect.

We can we can work with you know again 10,000 foot view there can be adjustments made where you can be dumped out to the side street as well.

Can you can you point that out for me on the on the map the location? This is his house. Yeah. His driveway comes into pack lane. We're keeping pack lane. So his driveway will stay on back lane and then we angle it after his house. Okay. So it continues through the park. Correct. Dead end uh hemlock. Correct. Okay. All right. Good. Okay. Anybody else with questions?

Hi, I'm Chris Kelly, 469 Oakview Drive. Uh just a question for Dominic about um the slide in the presentation called uh on the top it says committee endorsed program and it's the fifth bullet down about his uh recommendation to change um convert um the internal park roads to town roads. Does that um include the existing entrances uh on Hollow Road and OQ Drive?

Our recommendation would be to make all the roads to into some sort of town accepted road uh for for the issue of safety and security. And like I said, working through the standards, we've kept them wide enough and adaptable, but there'll have to be some some probably zoning uh zoning board of approval input on those. Um, in terms of making them into something, um, definitely the circulation path and the entrances would would speak to that. So, there could be some improvements done and some some obviously some modifications for safety and security. Um, it's shown in the plan. We do call out for adjustments to both in the written plan, not on this plan because they're off um both of the existing entrances to put in a splitter island in the middle of each of those to kind of direct traffic uh uh correctly. And then I can't say slows traffic. I'm not a traffic engineer, so I don't want to speak out of turn and my boss is sitting in the in the audience shaking his head. So we want to make sure that we adapt it. But the answer is yes. So when you say town road, you mean built to town standards, but the access points are going to be gate controlled and open and close, dusk and daunt,

not right at them. They would be in areas where we can control it. So they would be within the park. So you always want an area where you can turn around. So I'll use Hollow as an example. The dead end, that one could be could be taken on or offline. And by town standards, we know we're going to have to adapt town standards in the park setting. Um, but it was a recommendation because the biggest item that we biggest hurdle we had is enforcement of traffic within the actual park itself. Because right now your police department has stated to us, they can't do anything inside the inside the actual park because they're not town roads. They can't enforce traffic, but if there was a problem on a town facility, they would respond.

Well, we're talking about traffic enforcement. Part of the study that we did was um the early on study for safety and and circulation security. We put the speed camera out there. Uh we didn't document a lot of fast speeds in terms of the road use level, but we did document some fast speeds watching people move through the site, especially before we put the concrete blocks that you might be familiar with out there. we start to structure uh those entrances. A lot of it we're doing with teeing intersections, things like that. So, right now, people can speed directly from Hollow up all the way through to the lacrosse fields without even hitting the brakes.

Okay. It's okay. So, are there plans to put either cameras or softening uh I don't know what they call traffic? People have a very nice way of saying traffic calming. Yes. I'm already going to sleep. [clears throat] um you know bumps and so forth. By design right now there are no no that can be something that can be brought in for cameras and security. Um we recommend obviously the layout of the roadways we're going to more stopped intersections T intersections. We're we're moving like basically right now if you walk in to the uh soccer field parking lot it's before we put the concrete in right

it's like open field on where you're actually driving. So trying to structure the driving patterns which will in turn structure the people to kind of manipulate themselves along those roadways. But at current time, no. That's going to have to get addressed more formally with this each site plan package. Correct. You know, and then sign offs from the police. Will we have um some leverage there to to uh get additional um security if we feel like on a site plan? never have before. Wow.

So that that goes under that utility infrastructure and that can be addressed as you know we're going to be looking at as we develop roads we're going to be putting in conduit chases for other information and that's something that can be addressed there. Um there are multiple levels for I'm not and again I'm not a security expert but there's different levels that we've seen in parks where it can be closed circuited um all the way down to just utilization of wireless trail camps. So, there's a definite way to watch sites. Um, we don't get into that in terms of this because that's going to be something that has to go before you select me in terms of they want to camera the site. Okay. Imagine they'll have the uh police department's input. Yes, I would hope so.

Okay. So, so you're still envisioning as each phase comes in that uh to create those plans, the committees and town departments will create the program elements that show up in that particular phase and are fully engineered and agreed on. Right?

We would imagine if if you take on like let's use phase one as an example because it's what we're calling phase one. We would recommend engineering plans are developed for that phase that take into account the program elements that are called out in the master plan and are augmented by the recommendations in the plan and then the best management practices of both your civil engineering group planning and zoning uh things along those lines. So we can understand um there may be new placement like we talked about bosses of trees. I don't know if everyone knows a boss boss of trees are um you may require that we have if it's a roadway we're going to have a certain amount of trees are on that roadway. We might since it's a park setting, we might push back and say if you have one every 40 ft, can we do a bosque of three? Then have an open area. Obviously with ball fields and playfields, you want to kind of have shade, but you want to provide a decent access. So it's a little bit of a different animal when you're designing a a true town road and you're around your road through a park.

So just want to be clear there'll be an application for site plan approval. Yes. with with phase one and then another with phase two. So before anything actually gets built, we would make a recommendation for that. Okay. So we'll we'll get we'll be able to look at it and we'll be able to decide whether the parking's adequate. Be able to decide whether there's the the uh improvements are adequately buffered from the from the neighbors.

Good evening. I'm Derek Cole, uh, vice president of, uh, engineering for BL Companies. I'm also a licensed professional engineer. Uh, Dominant does a great job. I usually just come up and put an exclamation point of where we are in the process and kind of some of the questions that you alluding to. This is very much a planning document. Uh, we've only performed, I'll say, conceptual design to lay out the overall master plan. Uh, again, conceptual. Uh the computer graphics look great in our visualizations. Uh but for those of us that have been around for a while, this is really like a napkin sketch in terms of the level of detail. Uh there is a full thorough design process that needs to be undertaken for each and every phase of the project. going out and performing land surveying, uh picking up topographic information, boundary information, uh additional environmental studies, maybe some traffic data and so forth. And then we get into design and we typically go through a multi-ter design phase for each one of those phases well about a 30% level, 60 70% which we then go apply for any permits both at a local uh state and federal level as well. So we get all regulatory approvals and then we would progress to about a 100% level which at that point we can then go out for bidding for construction documents and ultimately have this constructed.

Okay.

So there is a very detailed and thorough process that takes place postmaster plan and the public engagement and outreach continues all along the way. And then as we're getting into details of traffic calming, signage, uh specific individual property concerns, uh we can really work at a more micro level uh and granular level to build in those elements and address individual concerns. So just wanted to put an exclamation point on that uh of where we are and the process that will ensue down the road. Um and I would say that this plan is exactly that a plan and a roadmap or a framework and it needs to be dynamic. Um if the town is fortunate enough to get a grant uh for a particular aspect and let's say an infrastructure grant becomes available, it may align with one of those early phases. If another grant becomes available, we may need to adapt and see how we can kind of like tinker around, revise, enhance those phases to take advantage of that funding that becomes available. But Dominic's absolutely right. This is a fairly long process given the type and number of uh improvements and will certainly be done over a uh a multipleyear period. Uh typically on one of those phases uh we're designing for probably about a 12 to a 15-month period uh to go through that process on each individual phase. So

okay. So hopefully that helps. That does. Okay. Any other questions? Yes, sir. Just a quick followup with I just was concerned that you' mentioned that you're gonna meet with the homeowners beforehand that process for phase two. Would that be with the firm of your company? Oh, yeah. You got to be Sorry about that. You got to beat the mic

again. I apologize about that. Meeting with the homeowners, which would be my family. Is that would be with your company or with the town itself? Because I'm sure you could see why I'd be concerned. You know, we've been living there for over 10 years now and there, you know, my kids ride their bikes and walk on the street and we get probably 20 25 cars by our house a day. It's really quiet area. It's one of the main reasons we purchased the home and we love it. Now to find out that, you know, this is probably going to be the main entrance to the park that everyone's going to be going through the park, you know, past my driveway. And it's just really, you know, it saddened us. And, you know, losing the farmland, which is a big part of us, too. I know that's down the line conceptually, you know, phase five, but it's, you know, it's very saddening to hear that we possibly take down the farmland and say it's okay because we're going to put up a plaque and say this is where a farm used to be. So,

you know, I was just wondering if the you'd be meeting with myself or I mean with you guys or with the town itself. Answer to that. Thank you. No, no worries.

We're only under contract for the planning process. Obviously, the town can use a bunch of different avenues to solicit the design. Um, it would definitely be part of the design process uh to meet with homeowners. Also, within that, there's a obviously when we're designing, if it comes back to site plan, there'll be notifications given out. But I would say even before that, especially for phase two, uh, and maybe even phase one, depending, there'll be there'll be outreach for that engagement specifically to homeowners and buffered homeowners, uh, to walk through that process. And again, I'm going to go back and circle back to something Derrick said, the phases are granular, the aspects of the plan in terms of future development, that's why it's called future possible development on there. Um there can be some nuance to that where you may not build out all the aspects on the plan. We're just showing you that 10,000 foot view roadmap as you get granular and you walk through the individual phases um needs needs and attitudes and and actually what the town wants may change and that that's the good thing about of a plan. We've got something to work off of as a road map and as the phases come about. you know, maybe we don't want the bathrooms to happen in that it's supposed to happen in phase one, but maybe oh, you know, we could put in phase two and move them over. Um, that's why there's some checks and balances both with the ad hoc and the committees to understand those little facets moving forward.

Okay. [clears throat] All right. At at this point, if uh anybody in the in the audience wishes to uh comment on the plan, uh let's please feel free to do that now. I'm a big Thank you very much. You're welcome, Mr. Paisano. Thank you. Thank you.

I I must I must thank this group because the last time I tried to talk at a selectment meeting, he told me we couldn't talk. So, I thank you for this commission. I am Tom Paisano, 523 Fairway Road, Orange, Connecticut. I actually have been the co-president and president of Orange Soccer 40 years. And uh this particular piece of land uh when we developed it in 1998 9798 I was part and parcel of that u that effort to purchase it and design it. Um and actually it it's important to bring this this piece of information up. [clears throat] Our committee at that time uh only saw one entrance unfortunately. It was uh uh the what we call little peek road off of meeting house. That was [clears throat] our plan. actually have some drawings where we put some fields that were in the cornfields. Um, subsequent to that, we found out that Hollow Road was going to be developed and there was a bankruptcy issue and everything. And then we developed what was just a temporary road, a temporary driveway. I should never call it a road. It was a temporary driveway into what we built that time was three fields, three soccer fields and we controlled it. The wish, the master plan, we kept planning more. I have some drawings from 19 1970 which was a high school that was going to be built there. I have the wetland drawings and the entrances and and Peek Road was mentioned at one time uh completely came all the way from Meeting House to Peek School. That was the plan that school was going to be built and um those architects and engineers figured a way to do that. Subsequent to that, we said well of course we we're only building small fields at this time. This all volunteer money. You have to understand there wasn't any master plan done until 2014. Then we hired a company called the Carlo and Dull. They laid out a master

plan. They laid out some some things that they we gave them at that time and and a lot of those requirements have changed. Okay. One of the the biggest requirements that BNL company was told is we got to do something with the parking. Okay. We got to do something with parking. But we we restricted them from all these options of possibly coming in through a wetland, possibly using peek, possibly closing hollow road. H you know because a lot of conversation was was talked about and and and neighbors complained about it, but we did restrict them. So they came up with a plan. I got to give you credit. They is a lot of effort, a lot of input from the town. They did an excellent job and said, "Okay, we'll put a road around the whole thing." Okay. I no one mentioned it, but it's a very expensive proposition compared to put in little bridge for $500,000. Matter of fact, the 2014 plan, which we never got a price from uh Derek and uh Dominic, uh that 2014 plan, I was under the impression it was less than a million dollars to put roads into uh parking uh parking lots. But again, then you're have dedicated parking lots didn't uh fit the town's purpose of having some road. Anyway, bottom line is we did and this um just so the town know everyone knows we did do some traffic studies. Everyone knew matter of fact the playground I was very concerned it would create a lot of traffic. It did not. We we survived pretty well with the playground there in the soccer parking lot and what have you. But what we didn't study, guys, and I've been mentioning this at every meeting. I run a soccer association where little your Bumblebee from years ago, uh, Kevin played with me. Uh, we still run that. And we have 250 kids that I don't want to see playing behind Marielle Tracy. It

it's we're outgrew that program. We want to move it to Fred Wolf Park. I know you've got six or seven fields. We cannot have 250 uh cars coming in and out at least 10 and some per hour through Hollow Road or or Oak View. You know, you have to have a separate entrance for that. We haven't discussed that. It wasn't part of a a um um traffic study. I got it. Okay. But it is is a need. I'm 76 years old, guys. is I started this 25 years ago at Fred Wolf Park and we built some soccer fields, donated money for lacrosse fields, planted grass. I know how to maintain fields and unfortunately I the only criticism I give Dominic and and and Derek is you overstepped your your uh your your boundaries a little bit because he came in and told us how to run our programs. We we do things differently in this town because the volunteers are so necessary. Our park and recreck department did not tell you they will take over these programs. They're not interested in it. The town selectman said we don't have the the the supervision to do that. So, if we just build 10 or eight fields and and again, when you guys first came here, you said you you'd design a build a park and tell us that where we could put things, but I think you overstepped your your boundaries there. And now you're telling us exactly where we're going to play, what sports, and that it's going to be shared by all. None of you, I don't think anyone in this room has ever maintained soccer fields or lawns as as I have personally done for 25 years at Fred Wolf Park and have personally worked with park this park and wreck that we have to deal with. Okay? And sorry if I'm criticizing this park and wreck department, but they have limited staff, so we have to work with what we have. Orange soccer Association spent

$17,000 just on the soccer fields. Okay? And in a yearly basis, it's something like 10 to 12,000. The point is we need that volunteerism. Those parents need it. Yes, we need dedicated fields. It's not possible. We are trying to dedicate a a baseball a football field because the need has come up. We dedicated lacrosse fields. I knew that soccer gave them $10,000 so they could do their own fields. You can't you can't just say we're gonna build seven fields and and someone else is going to tell you who's going to play on what day. You we didn't Dominic, we never talked about the logistics. You have to have a club. You have to go to meetings. You have to schedule those those fields. It can't be scheduled. The park and recck department who's not here. I wish they were here to respond to me. They said, "Well, we'll get a program. or just somehow you get a spreadsheet and we'll decide who plays where. It's not like that, folks. You have to have dedicated fields. Those those thousand kids that come because our our in-house program is only 250 to 300. There's another 300 kids uh that play just travel field to uh town people from out of town. So, this has got to be thought out a little bit more than just throwing the baby out with the bathwater and saying we're just going to do this. Um, and you got to you got to be able to realistically do this. What we're looking at here, folks, which is in the PowerPoint, is a $20 million operation. You know, maybe six or seven for roads, and it's all broken down to me. We threw the baby out with the bath water because we decided not to come in through one place, Peek Road. It's a little, as a matter of fact, if any of you are are free, as soon as the snow melts, I will walk you from the lacrosse field to PC school, and I'll show you my feet when I'm done. They're not wet. Okay, there there's there we what happened before, and I'm sorry to

go on, but this is important. What happened before Ed Lieberman went out there with our 2014 plan? He puts flags as to where this road was going to go to a a roundabout, a gazebo. Those flags went through wetland. Clearly, there's wet land in that lower area. I got it. But there's a small portion that if we didn't go at an angle, we would go straight as the farmers did for years. There's a big tank that's actually shown in the in the wetlands. They used to go there and water their apple orchards and everything. But if you went straight through, you could circumvent any wetland. And by the way, we didn't even talk about it, but Azie, I'd love to hear an update on what is the wetland requirements today. It has changed over the last 25 years. There's there's people relocating wetlands. There's there's things, but we never looked at that option because we threw the baby out with the bathwater. We said, "No, we just want to do that." So, in my opinion, I'll put a million-dollar bridge in rather than a $20 million road uh around the whole park. That's one person's opinion, but anyone that wants to talk to me later, my cell number is 2036091392. And if you want to know anything about Fred Wolf Park for 25 years and started in 1998, myself and several other people have lived there every Sunday for 38 years that we've run the program. So I I'm just telling you it's the the town of Orange needs to to do something. This is a great plan and the money's well spent. It's a master plan with a great idea. safety. The first thing I I'm in agreement, 100% agreement, we got to do something with safety. We did a safety plan and the only reason it wasn't uh done. [laughter and clears throat] Uh one of our selectmans here knows that we didn't do it because we were waiting for a master plan. But

guys, we now have a liability. We just said we have a problem. We voted on it. We have a safety plan. We did put in some some rocks uh cement blocks to channel the the the driveway. It did help. It did help and and we did live with the uh the playground that's there. But the point is now that we voted on it, we know there's a problem. God forbid should something happen. This town's in big trouble. So, we should do immediately the the safety plan, the phase one. So, thank you for all that effort and thanks for listening to me. Yeah. Anyone have any questions? I I do. Sorry. You you very expansive. I just want to make sure I understood most of it. You're in favor of the project. Yes.

Okay. it. There's things about it that you want to um clarify. Oh, I think I have an audience. Um but generally speaking, as far as the project and the use of the money, whatever monies they're going to be, that part you're in favor of. Yes. Okay. Yeah, it is hard. It is hard to get money. We had $300,000 uh from the state for what was uh originally earmarked as a road in to uh the center of the the facility really to the what was the lacrosse fields um because of the the wetland that was there and because of the way it was laid out at that time

which is my concern but um then then we decided that that money couldn't be used for road because we'd gone through wetlands have to deal with them so our select then asked the state if you could use it for a playground, which was a fantastic ad to Fred Wolf Park. And this, of course, would just be another ad. So, yes, I'm in favor of that. I lived there for a long time. I I just don't want to see us, you know, compromising programs. Uh I don't want an overreach from somebody saying, you know, the park and wreck's going to run your program. I talked to Park and Wreck. They don't want to run soccer program or lacrosse program or or football. Um, matter of fact, I get the phone calls for um for a Richard football team and and we said, "Yes, we'll find us a spot for you to play the but but I can't see." Does anyone ever have kids playing sports? You you ever go to a football game on a Friday night and and then you think you're going to play soccer on that field the next day? That's never going to happen if it's grass. Now, we did have an option for um for turf. If you want to do those fields in turf, you're talking 10 million. It's it's about a million a field with drainage and everything. Um so yeah, okay, if we have all turf, then we got a drainage issue and everything else. But um then then yeah, we can schedule anything. I'll have a ball. So let's add the 10 million to the 20 million estimated on this program and let's get 30 million. Let's go. I'm all for it. I'll I'll stick around for a few more years. Uh I'm trying to find somebody to replace me, guys. So I'm this is a big advertisement. Anyone out there wants to replace Tom Paisano in Sunday Soccer, be my guest.

Thank you very much. My pleasure. Thank you, Tom. [clears throat] Okay. Anyone else? Yes.

Alenni Hasos, 469 O Drive. Um, I just want to say my property currently abuts the Oak View entrance. I'm to the east of the entrance. Um, and I just want to start by saying that I do support park improvements. Parks are for, you know, the community to be enjoyed. Um, and I do appreciate the time and effort that you guys have put in trying to get as many opinions as you can. Um, but as an abuing resident, I do want to make sure I fully understand how this access is currently being classified in the land records. Um there is an important difference between a public access easement, a public road, and a public right ofway. And so each carries different implications. Um my concern is that if it does become a public road or a public right of way, then that would reduce my ability to create a reasonable separation um with like fences or any kind of landscape management. Um, and so it it's concerning to me because of the privacy and safety concerns given the pedestrian activity already. Um, and so before any recommendation is made on this concept plan, I would like to respectfully ask for clarity on a couple of things, specifically the exact classification of that easement. Um, because to my knowledge, we also we also need buffers. So, like I'm concerned about the right of way with setbacks, all of that that goes along with it directly for my property. Um, and then in terms of buffers, to my knowledge, you don't necessarily have to have it as a public road. It could be a part of the easement agreement or you could get approval from the property owner for certain buffers. And so I just would want to mitigate that and make sure that we actually know why that's being used because I, you know, I don't want a lot of I don't want a lot to impede on my actual property itself, you know, through pedestrian use.

I mentioned that earlier. I mean it, you know, when when it comes time for site plan approval, that's one of the things we, you know, as commissioners of planning and zoning routinely ask for, you know, is when when someone wants to uh you know, do uh what have what have we had it um on on numerous occasions for um larger structures on um right addition, right? Larger additions. uh we've asked for you know buffers, noise attenuation, light pollution. Yeah.

Sort of buffer. So we there will be an opport I know I'm not saying you know we'll do it but I'm I'm saying there will be an opportunity to discuss it. That's understandable. Phase one that time will come for it. I just wanted to put it on the radar

and I think we'll be able to answer one of your questions. I I put it to the uh to Dominic before um as to whether or not they own or lease. I wanted to know if they own the property. Um and uh it I'm not sure it affects your ability to use the property because if it's whether it's owned by the town or they have an easement over it, I don't think you can use it necessarily. um even if you were the owner and you gave away an easement which is a right to use uh you'd have to look at the document but um I do want to clarify as to who owns that strip. Yeah. Okay. I believe after that was put in that is owned by the town.

It is not a access easement. It is a continuous piece from the Yeah. the park access off of Oakville. Off of Oakview. Yes. That that property is owned by the town. It is not an easement. Okay. That clarifies at least part of the Okay. And and I asked the question, but I'm not sure that I understood the answer. Is there going to be access gate control to keep, you know, the dusk dawn hours? You know, people talked about a gate, somebody going to close the road when the sun goes down? That's the question.

Yeah. But th those are like sort of the site plan questions because we're sort of being asked to look at this uh document. You know, perhaps these are the wrong words to use. This is a sales brochure. We have to get to the design specifications to understand the actual impacts at the level you're going to have to live with. uh we don't have those now.

We have an idea rendered into a a a nice presentation. Mhm. Yeah. So your your Yeah. Your questions may not be fully answered until the later part of what occurs, but but they're good questions and things that we we need to pay attention to, right? The buffering is always been very important to us. Um, lighting, as Kevin said, I mean, he had a litany of things that we usually look at. And couple notes I I made, you know, cameras and security. Yes. And, you know, a gate on Oak View to enforce the, you know, dawn to dust,

right? But that's not for now. That's for the police department to give advice to us when we're considering a site plan, you know, at some later point. All right. Well, thank you guys. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? Mitch.

Good evening. Mitch Goldblat, 291 Drummond Road. Um, first of all, I want to thank the Fred Wolf Park Committee chaired by John Corangelo who's here and also Dominic and Josh and Derek. all the work BNL has put into this plan that we see here tonight. And that's what it is. It's a plan. And I could come up here and give you plenty of comments up and down about what would be best if we're looking at a site plan, which we're not quite doing yet. And I think there's a lot of questions have come up that have to be deferred to that time. Overall, um I think the access to meeting house lane is overdue and we've needed it for a long time and to keep everything coming through Hollow Road is unfair. Uh not just because of Hollow Road not being built to such specifications to get through that way, but expanding this park the way it is. To have all the traffic going through one access is not fair and is not going to be conducive to making it work properly. Now that we have the second um access, that does take some of the burden off a hollow road. And I think we need the third um for this size of a park and it's just going to help spread the traffic out so that no one neighborhood is burdened with more than quote unquote their fair share and it helps the park overall. So, as far as the master plan goes, I do endorse the three entrances and I endorse the park itself as as being proposed as a master plan and I would ask this uh town plan zoning commission to uh grant a favorable recommendation on what you see tonight. Thank you.

Thanks.

Oh, hey there everybody. Hello,

Dan Fitz Morris, 831 College Road. Uh, thanks for the chance to speak tonight. It is appreciated. Thanks for everybody for being here. And I really do want to thank Tom and so many other people who have taken care and advocated for this park for generations. Uh, and I also want to thank the committee of course and be all companies. I'll put an exclamation mark on lots of things Dom said because I strongly support the plan. I've got a young lacrosse player at home so I could answer any questions you have about visiting that park. several days a week and the challenges, you know, you face just getting in and parking. Uh I also visit a lot of other parks in the course of being a lacrosse parent and so I can tell you what other towns have which are incredible facilities that everybody in their community can enjoy. Um but I did want to say three things from this committee's perspective. I think the proposed town road that loops around the park is a very smart idea. Um, it is unsafe right now to have your kids playing and enjoying the different features around the park. It would be unsafe for an adult uh to cross around the different features. Uh, and I do think that that separation between vehicles and recreation areas is going to make it so much safer. It makes it better for first responders than the police as has been noted. Second, I do want to highlight that I've I've read the plan of conservation and development. My favorite part is that the end with the survey questions. There was a survey question in there where you asked which community facilities and programming would you most support public spending for? And the top response was improvements to existing parks and open spaces, which is exactly what you're looking at in this master plan. Improving the existing fields, adding a couple of extra things so that the park uh is a little bit better to use for all ages, not just kids who play soccer, lacrosse, and maybe someday football.

[snorts] And then lastly, I do want to highlight um most of the park remains open space and woodlands. Um while a lot of those areas, as I've appreciated learning, have invasive species in them, they are native habitats for all kinds of critters and plant life, um I appreciate that the plan stewards those lands properly and takes care of them, which is I think consistent with the history and culture of our town. So, I think this is the kind of project that generations oop sorry that generations of folks in our town have already enjoyed and and will enjoy in the future should we take care of it. So, thanks for your thoughtful review and as we've learned ongoing support for the project. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Don't want to play the next slide.

All right. Any anyone else? All right. Well, I didn't write a whole speech because I wasn't sure if I was going to speak, but my name is Melissa Johnston. I live at 451 Herbert Street. I've raised my family in town for the last 14 years. I have a young one at Turkey Hill and one that just started Amity High School. Um, and I just wanted to say that I was able to participate in the workshops that BNL companies had. um and really appreciated the intricate detail they went into. This is like the third or fourth time that I've heard this plan presented. Um but now I I bought into the vision of the park and what it could be for our town and all our kids and all all not only all our kids but also the adults as well um to embrace the outdoors in a world that's increasingly digital. Um, so you know, I I would like to ask the the the committee here tonight to help buy into the vision um of what it could be. Um, what I tell my kids and what I've taught them is, you know, nothing worthwhile uh is ever easy, right? Um, so I don't expect that it'll be easy, but we can we can commit to the vision and and see it through. So I really look forward to seeing um this as a as a shining star for our town. And I thank BNL companies. I thank the Fred Wolf Park Committee um for all your due diligence and all your time and effort into making this um plan master plan um a reality. So, thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening committee. I'm Lauren Gray. I live at 205 Wilson Road. Um I don't know how many other families have three children under six years old in here, but I do and we happen to go to the park every single week in the summer. My kids love going to Fred Wolf Park. They love the playground. It really is great. Um for my kids, um I would love to request a canopy or something because if you go in August, you are getting hot and sunburned out there. Um but that's for a different day. Um, I really want to thank the um, committee here for having this open discussion. Thank you for putting this plan together. I've also seen it a couple of times now. It gets better every time. Um, thank you to the board of selectmen for their feedback and voting to move this forward. Um, I don't see it as a sales brochure. I really see it as an opportunity for our town. Um, I think there's so many different generations that can enjoy the park. Um, there's so many things that we can see in this plan that can improve our town for the better. Um, I just asked and was reminded the last master plan was in 2013 and that was 13 years ago and I really don't want to see this go that way as well. I really don't want to see this take another 13, 15, 20 years to um, even get started or come to completion. This is a real opportunity for us. Um, having a almost six-year-old, a four-year-old, and a 2-year-old. We also go to a lot of other parks. Um, and this could really make our town special. Bring in businesses, bring in visitors. This could really be a shining beacon for us. Um, I know there's a lot of input and questions that are very valid about parking, security, roads, and all of that, but I think we do have a lot of opinions um, in this town. But I do think we can all come together to really make this the

best thing that it can be for Orange. And I really hope the committee um, and the commission here, the um, votes to move this forward. and I really hope you'll consider this as the plan um that it really could be for our town. So, thank you for your time. Thank you. I have a couple of letters uh that were submitted. Maybe I could read those now. Sure. I was going to say read them into the record, but there's no record, right?

So, this is from Kim Hawk and uh sent to the uh zoning commission offices. Hi Jack. Uh unfortunat unfortunately we will not be able to attend the Fred Wolf Park meeting tomorrow night, but we wanted to express our ongoing concerns with the traffic and speeding in the Ridge Hollow area. Over the past five or so years, my husband has attended many town meetings, including one with the traffic commission at the police department to voice our concerns about the rate of speed people turn off of Ridge Road and Down Hollow. During this time, ideas have been proposed, but nothing has come to fruition. We are thankful for the speed bumps that were installed. However, they do not stop cars from accelerating going down the road. The speed was a problem before the playground was built, but as the amount of sporting events and families visiting the parking increase, the problem has become worse. On multiple occasions, we have seen cars parked in the road due to the due to cars parked car car parts in the road due the due to the rate of speed. We want to state that we're [clears throat] not opposed to the expansion as we have an elementary age child who could benefit from these amenities, but we are very concerned about the this ongoing issue. We appreciate your time and attention to this matter, Kim and Don Hawk. And one other letter uh from uh Jamie Duel to uh the zoning enforcement officer. Hello. I am unable to attend the meeting tonight, but wanted to email my thoughts briefly. We are a younger family who is new to town with children. Being new, I was surprised to learn that a new playground was only recently installed for the children of Orange. That said, I strongly support continued upgrades to Fred Wolf Park and would love to be able to enjoy what our town has has to offer rather than traveling to other parks, which we often find ourselves doing now.

It would be wonderful if the park could include an actual restroom, accessible roads, and fields that are truly uh usable. I also love the idea of adding pickle ball and basketball courts as they would provide a safe and fun space for additional recreation for families and community members of all ages. This would ensure that we spend more time in our town than traveling to other towns and would add value that everyone would appreciate. Thank you, Jamie. All right. Do we have anything else from the audience? Just

Yeah. Good evening. I'm John Corangelo and I'm here in the capacity of being the uh chairman of the Fred Wolf Park Committee. First and foremost, I want to thank each and every one of you for being here this evening. Um it's it's not an easy task to undergo being a volunteer and doing all these things for this town that we love so much. I want to thank BNL. Uh you guys have been amazing. Um, I want to thank the residents and more importantly I want to thank the committee itself. Um, we've been doing this for well over two and a half years. We've had a lot of good input [snorts] from the public. Again, this is a plan, a vision, something we can look forward to, but this plan, this vision may need to be tweaked. So we ask the residents of this town to continue to voice your opinion, to continue to come to these meetings. Very rarely do we have a group of this size except for maybe the last board of selectment meeting or our last meeting when we did this in October when I think half the town came. It's exciting to have your input. We're not perfect, but with your help, we can make this a perfect park for all of us. So thank you so much. I appreciate your time. Oh, and one last thing, Tom. We're not getting rid of volunteers. That's not what was said. What was said during the two and a half years of getting input from the residents of this town was that they were concerned about the fact that, for instance, the lacrosse team, they have their own LLC. They maintain their fields. The girls lacrosse team has an LLC. They make some revisions themselves.

The Orange Soccer Association has their own. That's great. They do wonderful jobs for their kids. Without a doubt, my kids are part of it. What the residents of this town raised to our engineers was that there's a concern that we need to have uniformity. We need to be able to have scheduling, not replacing volunteers. No one is ever going to replace replace volunteers in this town. That's what makes our town so great. So, I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you all. Thank you. Thanks, Jen. Okay. Any anyone else?

All right, then. I think that's uh that's all very helpful comment. I mean, I think uh the direction is clear to me on what we need to do at this point.

Any further comments from the commissioners? Well, you know, the it it's clearly always been a town amenity as long as we've been here. Uh, and through the work of volunteers like Tom and others, it has been something we could enjoy. But this is uh even though it's going to happen incrementally, just implementing phase one, getting bathrooms and safe parking and reasonable circulation and traffic control, you know, is a is a great step forward.

Yeah. Um you know but all uh you know change has impact that is unfortunately not shared evenly across the entire population. You know if I live two miles away I don't have to absorb the impact but the impact that the neighborhood on uh o orchard what was it oak has had to put up with for 25 years. Yeah. now. Yeah. Yeah. Um well, you know, spreading it out's got to help. That just tells me that we're going to do have to do the best we can to make the buffers, you know, to make it as right

as uh you know, as as good as possible, right? You know, but it is uh definitely a a project worthy of a a town like this. I agree. All right. Any any further comment, Jay, Tom? All right, then. Uh, I'll consider a motion. Is it a formal Is it a formal motion that we make? Well, it's a motion for a uh Okay. You know, a positive referral. I assume that we're all on the same page with that.

I certainly am. I'll make a motion that we approve or make a positive referral uh for an 824 municipal improvement referral requested by BL Companies. on behalf of the orange border selectman which is to review and provide recommendation regarding the Fred Wolf Park concept plan. All right, we have a a motion uh second and it's been seconded asking for a uh that we do give a positive referral to the board of selectmen. It's been uh it's let's see it's been um we have the motion it's been seconded. All those in favor I I Okay, that's it.

Go get the money. Show me the money. All right. So, that uh concludes our agenda. Oh. Oh, okay. Good. Um move to adjurnn. We have a motion to adjurnn. It's been seconded. All those in favor? I I Who seconded? Tom Taranti, commissioner. [laughter]