Groton — In a 5-3 vote, the Groton Town Council supported a long-term vision for the Noank School property that calls for a community garden, rain garden, walking trails, arboretum, Christmas tree grove, playground and youth soccer and lacrosse playing field.

After a lengthy and at times contentious discussion during Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole meeting, Councilors Aundré Bumgardner, Juliette Parker, Conrad Heede, Juan Melendez and Patrice Granatosky supported the conceptual master plan for the Groton/Noank Community Park and Garden, while Rachael Franco, Lian Obrey and Portia Bordelon opposed it.

Melendez said the council reached this point after a lot of discussion and compromise. At the beginning, the council was faced with three paths it could have pursued for the 6-acre property at 42 Smith Lane: development, open space or playing fields.

“I think this is a compromise between the open space and the fields,” he said.

The decision comes after the council voted last year to terminate an agreement with the Noank Gardens Task Force managing the community garden on the property and directed town staff to review potential uses of the property. The town had demolished the former elementary school on the site in 2014.

The Town Council decided last month to keep the property as green space and not sell it, but had not yet determined exact plans for it.

The councilors voted on another idea Tuesday, with Franco, Bordelon and Melendez in favor, but the motion failed. Franco had proposed a regulation-sized sports field for organized sports, with the town’s Athletic Fields Task Force, Parks and Recreation and the school system to recommend which type of field would be best. The remaining space would be filled with park amenities as recommended by Parks and Recreation.

Franco said the town received an enormous number of emails from residents in support of the sports field idea after she raised it to address the town’s shortage of such facilities at the June 23 meeting. She noted that a full-sized baseball field would take up 3 acres, a soccer field, 1.73 acres, and a softball field, about 2.5 acres.

Meanwhile, Obrey said she favored referring the disposition of the property to the Economic Development Department, as the town has with other properties.

The conceptual master plan that the council chose Tuesday represents an updated version of a plan for the Groton-Noank Community Park and Garden developed by Kent + Frost.

Bordelon said she didn’t receive the updated plan until 3:23 p.m. Tuesday and called for the council to postpone the discussion to give Councilors an opportunity to collaborate on new ideas, such as a small amphitheater, and to give the public an opportunity to comment. She also voiced support of a regulation-sized field, saying the field hockey girls could benefit from such a field.

But Bumgardner said the only change was to remove items, such as replacing a healing garden with an arboretum, and the council has had plenty of opportunities to deliberate on the plan. He also said there were discussions at a recent Athletic Fields Task Force meeting that the town is interested in a potential athletic complex at Claude Chester Elementary School, when the school is closed and turned over to the town.

Granatosky, who has noted that the property is constrained by Noank zoning regulations rather than town zoning and that the Conservation Commission said open space on the site would bring both environmental and financial benefits, called the master plan a “compromise plan.” She said it will benefit the whole town with a field for youths to practice sports and a plan to work toward a forested area for carbon sequestration. She foresees that improvements will be done gradually as donations and grants are received and that only the playscape and field should be funded by the town.

Options considered

In a May 21 report, town staff had outlined potential uses for the property, appraised at $719,000, but did not make a specific recommendation.

One option was to sell the property for development of single-family homes. The town found the property suitable for 26 lots, while the Noank Fire District said up to eight lots could be created there, according to the report.

Another option was development of the property by the Groton Housing Authority. Nancy Codeanne, chair of the Board of Commissioners, said the housing authority had proposed working with the groups interested in gardens and open space, while creating a pocket neighborhood with small, energy-efficient homes. She said the proposal would have created tax income for the town while the town retained ownership of the land, and the housing authority would develop open space, gardens, plant trees, and create a "town green" for recreation and concerts.

The town also listed the potential sale or lease of the property to the Noank Fire District, which has a long-term lease for a town property next to the fire house that it uses as a park. The report stated that "it could be said that a precedent is being set for other school properties, with the counter-argument being that there was formerly an agreement in place for development of a park at the site, while there has not been one at other sites."

The fourth potential use listed was for the town to keep the property as open space, with options including a park, wood lot, arboretum or sports field site.

The report noted that the site “at best is believed to be large enough to host one full sized field and one smaller field .... Parks and Recreation staff have reservations about locating a sporting field at this location due to the distance from it to other existing fields creating difficulties in maintenance due to transport of equipment." The report also mentioned that “this area of town is not in as much of a need of more open space or recreation amenities” as other areas.

However, the Conservation Commission did an economic analysis of the property and recommended in a memo that the town keep the property as open space and a neighborhood park: “This recommendation is based on an analysis of the economic benefit to the Town across the options as well as providing the intangible benefits a neighborhood park brings.”

The matter is slated to go before the council for a final vote at its regular meeting on Aug. 4.

k.drelich@theday.com