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On Tuesday February 6 the Park and Recreation Commission voted unanimously to support separation of the Athletic Fields Needs Assessment from the Open Space and Recreation Plan. The vote came at the request of Adam Burney, Sudbury’s Director of Planning and Community Development. In separating the two planning projects, Burney felt the Fields Needs Assessment could get started sooner.
Burney informed the Park and Recreation Commission that there are ownership and jurisdictional questions related to town land. Certain parcels are mislabeled in the Town mapping system, and someone needs to go back through Town Meeting proceedings and other legal documentation to determine exactly which parcels are under the jurisdiction of which local authorities. For context, some parcels, like Liberty Ledge (commonly known as Sewataro) are controlled by the Select Board, while other Town-owned land gets oversight from the Park and Recreation Commission, the Conservation Commission, and so on. Once those questions are settled, they will be able to put the Open Space and Recreation Plan out to bid.
The Fields Needs Assessment can go out to bid imminently, and doesn’t hinge on the ownership issues getting sorted out. The assessment was specifically envisioned to forecast future needs for fields in addition to evaluating the current state of Sudbury’s fields. According to the Community Preservation Committee report in the warrant article from Annual Town Meeting in 2022:
“The original Athletic Fields Needs Assessment & Master Plan was a fields use survey. It was essentially a supply and demand analysis for field use and users, completed in 2012. The Needs Assessment described the current state of the athletic fields, and provided an assessment of unmet needs, demand from users, and expected future demand. In updating this document, the Town would also want to know about the trends of field users in general and what that would indicate for the Town’s future athletic field needs.”
2022 Annual Town Meeting Warrant (Page 49)
While the Fields Needs Assessment is now separated from the Open Space and Recreation Plan, it could still be consequential on its own. According to comments in the meeting, it could offer solutions to several longstanding areas of confusion, such as the jurisdiction over the playing fields at Sudbury Public Schools (SPS). During the meeting the fields were described as being in such poor shape that it would be a waste of money to maintain them, and that they could probably just be pulled out of the inventory altogether.
Both the Fields Needs Assessment and Open Space and Recreation Plan are woefully delayed, which continues to be a concern of the Park and Recreation Commission. When Town Meeting voted to approve the article in 2022, the timeline for completion was listed as approximately one year. Nearly two years later, neither planning project has gone out to bid. That’s due, in part, to prolonged vacancies in the Sudbury Planning Department. Burney joined to lead the department mere months ago, and an Assistant Planning Director position is still being advertised on the Town website. With the support of the Park and Recreation Commission, Burney appears to have found a way to at least get one ball rolling.
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