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Voters at Annual Town Meeting in May will not have an opportunity to vote on a proposed project to widen the driveway and renovate the parking lot at Parkinson Field in Sudbury. While the project qualified for Community Preservation Act funding, Sudbury’s Community Preservation Committee (CPC) voted unanimously against a motion to recommend the project to Town Meeting during their January 14 meeting.
The Parkinson parcel is one of the access points to the Bruce Freeman Rail Trial and the field area is used by ultimate frisbee groups from the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. It has a narrow driveway to an unpaved parking lot adjacent to a local business, which has limited use of the land for years. The parcel is also on a list of near-term field improvements for the Park and Recreation Commission.
The CPC had previously supported, in their 2023/2024 cycle, an application for $100,000 in funding for design of the driveway. That design work is currently underway, but the committee was unwilling to support funding for construction until they got more answers regarding the driveway design. Multiple members voiced concerns about the uncertainty surrounding the viability of a widened driveway. The driveway is boxed in by resource areas for much of its length.
According to comments during the meeting, nearly half of the design funds have been expended, and the design work will be completed even though the committee voted down the application for the construction funds.
While the field improvements envisioned for the parcel were included in a multi-year Park and Recreation Commission plan produced based on a recent Fields Needs Assessment, the Park and Recreation Commission representative on the CPC, Granger Atkeson, joined the rest of the CPC members to vote against the project.
The vote does not block the possibility of future projects on the parcel, but it delays the phased approach that has been in development since 2024. It also raises question as to the wisdom of spending $100,000 on design for a project that was thoroughly and unanimously rejected by the very committee that supported spending $100,000 on its design.
The delay may also throw a wrench into the planning process that has been underway in the Park and Recreation Commission. The Parkinson parcel field was among the three top field projects prioritized by the commission in a five-year outlook presented by Atkeson at the meeting.
The questions regarding the driveway design will likely be sorted out by the middle of 2026. That provides an opportunity for the Town to return to the CPC in their next application cycle. However, the robust opposition to the project was based on an expectation of design certainty that hasn’t been applied to other projects. The CPC supported another trail-related project in the same meeting despite similar concerns about the design and feasibility… albeit at a much lower cost than the project at Parkinson.
For now, the parcel will remain as-is while driveway designs are developed. Where those designs go after that is completely unknown. All that is certain is that significant funds from the Community Preservation Act surcharge are being spent on designs for a project that failed to get a single vote from the Community Preservation Committee.
