SOUTHWICK — The Select Board this month endorsed restrictions on parking and beach access at the North Pond Conservation Area.
Board members on Oct. 7 adopted the recommendations made in September by the North Pond Conservation Area Task Force, including reducing the size of the parking lot for the property on South Longyard Road to four spaces, with one designated for handicap use, and to open the parking lot only between dawn to dusk. There will also be permanent “no parking” signs along South Longyard Road and the side streets of Granaudo Circle, Cody Lane and Liquori Drive, for one mile in each direction from the North Pond Conservation Area parking lot.
The parking area has been closed since mid-July, after a street brawl between visitors to the property and residents along South Longyard Road that started with a complaint about visitors playing music too loud.
That incident forced town officials to address several ongoing behaviors that violate the state’s conservation restriction on the property, including littering, openly drinking alcoholic beverages, grilling food, starting campfires, camping, destroying vegetation, and using the shore known as King’s Beach for swimming. All of those activities are prohibited under the restriction placed on the 61-acre property by the state when it contributed to the purchase, along with the Franklin Land Trust, private donors and the town government, in 2019.
Select Board member Diane Gale, who served on the task force, noted that the town Conservation Commission has approved closing one of the three approved trails on the property, monitoring plant growth and possibly planting native species to revegetate those areas. It also agreed to use snow fencing to close six “unapproved” trails, created by visitors to the property, that lead to alternative entrances and to King’s Beach. Select Board member Douglas Moglin said their board doesn’t need to vote on the trail closures, but should support the Conservation Commission in its efforts.
Despite earlier meetings on revegetating the eroded areas of the property that included new native plantings, Gale said the commission now plans to close those trails for two years, “to let Mother Nature revegetate it.”
She then turned to the task force recommendation to install a buoy line on the shore where boats often beach to access the property.
“People can tie off [their boat] at the water’s edge, but they do not have the right to beach their boats and set up shop on the shore,” Moglin said.
Moglin mentioned that the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation had gone so far as to propose installing a fence along the shore, to keep people from misusing the beach, back when the property was first acquired. Gale said that during a walk through the property in September by state and town officials, the state officials also suggested using utility poles to prevent boaters from beaching there. The three Select Board members — including Chair Jason Perron — agreed to start by purchasing and installing a buoy line only.
“This is a fair trial to see if [boaters] will use their best judgment, because [a fence] is exactly what the state wants, and no one wants that,” Moglin said.
The task force also recommended placing a barrier on the southern edge of the property that abuts Babb Road. Officials believe a nearby resident, whom they did not identify by name, is responsible for the cutting of an illegal trail on the property and clearing the beach of vegetation using a skid steer in 2021, along with other unauthorized acts of land management on the town-owned property.
“Can’t we just serve that gentleman with a notice of trespassing now?” Moglin asked.
Gale said the town has yet to get “physical evidence” of the individual conducting the prohibited activities. After the meeting, she said that if any property owner along the North Pond has a photograph of the individual, it can be sent anonymously to the Police Department, which can act. She also said the Conservation Commission needs to install a camera in that area to monitor the property.
The task force also recommended the town adopt a new bylaw that would establish rules and regulations for all town-owned properties. That would give police the authority to enforce the rules and levy fines.
Gale suggested having a vote on the bylaw at a proposed Special Town Meeting in December, saying that every town commission and committee that has been sent a draft of it approved “99%” of its language and purpose.
Moglin disagreed, as did Perron, and suggested that a bylaw of that importance should be decided by residents at the better-attended Annual Town Meeting in May. Gale reluctantly agreed.
Moglin suggested public hearings on the proposed bylaw begin in January.
