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01/13/10
Agreement improves boat storage, definition of access easements to Great Pond
An update to the Sprague Corp.'s public-access easements to Great Pond,
approved by the Town Council Jan. 11, 2010, includes provisions for a
boat storage rack to be located a comfortable distance from the
shoreline.
The Town Council unanimously approved the updated easements at their
regular January meeting, with gratitude to the Sprague Corp. and to the
members of the town's Conservation Commission.
The easements update those first granted the town in 1983, and now
include metes and bounds descriptions of areas where the
public may legally walk to and along side parts of Great Pond. Instead
of pin-pointing existing paths, the corporation agreed to give
triangular areas to allow for natural movement of the paths.
The council's action follows a set of 2004 recommendations from the
Conservation Commission calling for, among other things, clarification
of the Sprague
easements.
Another recommendation, made good at the Jan. 11 council meeting,
concerns boat storage.
"The path that extends to the waters of Great Pond typically has a
dozen boats stored along it. This path is on Sprague Corporation land
and the corporation has expressed concerns about this casual storage of
boats so close to the edge of the pond," says a memo from the
Conservation Commission to the Town Council, dated Jan. 23, 2004.
At last count, boats left along the path numbered 31, according to a
memo from the Conservation Commission. "What has happened is
there are many many boats, mostly canoes, some kayaks, that have been
stored in the reeds, in the trees, in an area which the Sprague Corp.
is concerned should
be left as a vegetative buffer that's undisturbed for the protection of
Great Pond as a resource," Town Planner Maureen O'Meara told members of
the council.
Many of the boats appear to have been abandoned.
As part of the easement agreement, the Town will remove abandoned boats
and canoes from the launch area and construct a storage rack to be kept
on the sandy area nearby. A total of 30 permits would be available for
storing boats or canoes for a season. Conservation Commission
volunteers would be responsible for building and monitoring the rack.
Councilors were grateful to the Sprague Corp., the town's largest
landowner, for its generosity in granting the easements. Corporation
president Seth Sprague said he was also grateful to the town,
particularly for agreeing to help police and alleviate the boat-storage
problem.
"We've spent a long time on this project, and it's been a cooperative
project that I think is going to turn out well for everyone." Sprague
said.
Town Councilor Jessica Sullivan, whose family
owned property along Fowler Road near the pond when she was a child, said she was particularly dismayed
to see so many abandoned boats in what was once a pristine area.. She too thanked the
Spragues for the easements. "I just think it's a tremendous gift to the
town," she said. "It's just a lovely, lovely area and maintaining it as naturally
as possible is huge in my book," Sullivan said, supporting a fee system for boat storage.
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