Share This Article
Or How Songbirds May Influence and Symbolize Town-Owned Land Planning in Sudbury…
The bobolink bird is a small, migratory bird that likes to nest in meadows, often in tall grass. Their numbers have been in decline in recent years, which the Audubon Society attributes to a decline in habitat. More frequent mowing of tall grass fields for hay takes away their preferred habitat in tall grass meadows. They’re also long-distance migrants, traveling about 12,500 miles round-trip each year.
So what does that have to do with Sudbury?
Davis Field is a recreational field in north Sudbury that has been used for a variety of recreational purposes over the years. It’s surrounded by conservation land and farm land, and a portion of the recreation parcel has some tall grass meadows where bobolinks have made themselves at home. At the June 3 meeting of the Park and Recreation Commission, the Park and Recreation Department Director told the commissioner that there’s only one user group actively using Davis Field, indicating that this parcel of recreation land is underutilized, even if the bobolinks make great use of it.
The Town of Sudbury Conservation Department requested approval from the Park and Recreation Commission to post a sign at Davis Field encouraging dog owners to keep their dogs on the recreational fields and maintained paths, so as to avoid disturbing the nesting bobolink birds. Davis Field has a reputation of being the unofficial off-leash dog park in Sudbury. All that dog activity is apparently a threat to the bobolink birds. A sign might inform dog owners of the presence of the birds, even if it’s uncertain how many would or could comply.
It seemed like an innocuous request for a sign to be posted, but it sparked some debate among the Park and Recreation Commissioners, and aggravated some old wounds.
Death by a Thousand Cuts
Davis Field was once, until a thoroughly debated Annual Town Meeting article failed, destined to become a complex of little league baseball fields. Over the course of a number of years, the Park and Recreation Commission had worked with Town staff and consultants to conduct an Athletic Field Needs Assessment and Master Plan Update. That was completed in 2012, which led to years of planning for a little league complex at Davis Field. The idea was to meet growing field needs, as identified in the aforementioned assessment. Fields at Sudbury Public Schools properties were in disrepair, and considered to be poor options for renovation and ongoing maintenance, since they were also used as playgrounds. Davis Field had been acquired by the Town for recreational purposes, and was deemed an obvious location for such a complex.
Next, an application was submitted to the Community Preservation Committee in 2014, requesting $1,000,000 in Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds. The initial project proposal was for a total of over $3,000,000 and included private funding. Eventually, that was squeezed down to a bit more than $1,000,000, mostly in the form of CPA funds, with the Town expected to do the work itself. That’s what went before Town Meeting in 2015 (page 52). But the downward budget pressure early in the process foreshadowed far greater opposition to the project.
Annual Town Meeting in 2015 had no shortfall of major items on the docket. But the Davis Field article garnered considerable debate. Opponents ranged from dog owners to conservation-minded individuals who wanted the land (which had been acquired for recreational uses) to be treated more like conservation land or open space, citing the wildlife (hello bobolinks!) on the property.
Others questioned the Athletic Fields Needs Assessment itself, citing the declining enrollment in Sudbury’s school districts, and wondering how more fields could be needed when there were less students in the schools. And then came those two words that often spell doom for suburban projects: traffic study. Some opponents disliked the installation of a parking lot, and the hypothetical increase in traffic on Route 117 during peak use.
An initial motion to call the question was defeated. Debate continued from there. Eventually Town Meeting got to the vote on the article, which was conducted by holding up a card at the time, and the article was defeated. The vote was challenged, and eventually a counted vote was requested. But some residents had already left the hall. Upon completion of the counted vote, they confirmed the article had been defeated 213-281. Full summary in the Town Proceedings for 2015 (Page 76)
Plans, Planning and More Planning
The following budget cycle, starting in late 2015, the town saw a revised proposal for Davis Field go before the Community Preservation Committee. The plan eliminated the little league fields and focused on much less expensive work to level and improve the existing playing surfaces. But even that modest proposal was set aside to prioritize rebuilding the Featherland Park tennis courts at the corner of Concord Road and Morse Road. The Featherland Park article was successful at Town Meeting in 2016, and the work was later completed. Davis field remains largely unchanged.
In the June 3, 2024 Park and Recreation Commission meeting, the conversation went all the way back to square one after being presented with the proposed sign for the bobolink birds. Commissioner Bobby Beagan, who had a front-row seat as a commissioner in 2015, objected to the sign for the bobolink birds, noting that it felt like going a step closer to officially designating Davis Field as conservation land, rather than its legal designation as land for recreational uses. (1:52:50)
We have to make a decision as to what Davis Field is. I feel like we’re relinquishing what its intention was. Originally, Davis Field was intended to be playing fields, and I get that a lot of that hasn’t happened just due to how wet it is and the cost and everything. But I think we as a commission have to decide where we’re going with this.”
— Bobby Beagan, Park and Recreation Commissioner
He went on to add “I’m a little worried about this. I think that once you take a step in this direction, you’re starting to treat this property as if it’s more conservation than it is playing fields.”
Other commissioners acknowledged his concerns, but conveyed less fear of setting a precedent that could not be undone. The commission approved the sign, pending specific edits and any additional changes that will be hashed out by Vice-Chair Laurie Eliason with the Conservation Department.
All the commissioners agreed that they needed a comprehensive plan for fields. Indeed, yet another Field Needs Assessment is expected to get started sometime this year. The funding for that plan was appropriated by Town Meeting in 2022. (Article 51) It was coupled with a higher-level Open Space and Recreation Plan, but timing is still to-be-determined on that project. As of today, neither is officially underway over two years after Town Meeting approved the article.
Planning delays are not uncommon in Sudbury, particularly when it comes to land acquisitions. The Davis Field land was acquired in the 1970’s according to the Park and Recreation Commission’s CPC applications in 2014 and 2015, passing through decades upon decades without any meaningful action being taken on the original intent of the acquisition. By comparison, the much more recent acquisitions of Liberty Ledge (Camp Sewataro) and Broadacres Farm are spring chickens in the grand scheme of land planning in Sudbury. While some residents have questioned why those properties have no long-term plan in place, Davis Field has been a mostly-unmodified, acquired asset for approximately ten times longer.
While Davis Field may not be a good comparison in terms of timespan, the planning processes seem to have the same fits and starts. Broadacres Farm was the subject of a design “charrette” in 2019, but the process froze there. Even the summary report of that event has been archived on the Town of Sudbury website. As for Liberty Ledge, a Select Board article that would fund a land use consultant was defeated at Annual Town Meeting in May of 2022; the very same Town Meeting that passed the article funding the Open Space and Recreation Plan and Athletic Field Needs Assessment.
The planning cycles don’t appear to be attributable to the usual scapegoat of “government bureaucracy.” In the case of Sudbury’s acquired land, every registered voter in Sudbury had the opportunity to vote on the acquisitions themselves. And Town Meeting, where all registered voters can participate, had a say in many planning and land-use decisions for these parcels over the years. In some cases, like Broadacres Farm, the planning process began and fizzled out, perhaps because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In others, like Davis Field, a plan was created decades after the acquisition, then a proposed project failed on the floor of Town Meeting. And yet others, like Liberty Ledge/Camp Sewataro, Town Meeting opted not entertain the idea of making a plan, or at least to delay it.
The results of the Broadacres Farm Charrette might shine a light on what’s happening. Preferred uses for the Broadacres parcels varied significantly across residents who attended the interactive meeting. While parcel 1 (adjacent to Featherland Park along Morse Road) was designated for active recreation, the two most frequent desired uses that were voiced at the charrette were for passive recreation, including conservation and walking trails. The third and fourth most common responses were for a playground and, go figure, a dog park. “Parking” got six “votes” from residents at the meeting, and today a parking lot is under construction on the parcel to serve users of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail.
The report stated: “Participants at the Parcel 1 Station were interested primarily in passive recreation and trails connecting nearby open spaces and to the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail. Participants generally liked the idea of conserving the open space, allowing access with trails, and carving out small areas for a playground or dog park.” But that understated how little consensus there was in the data, and how a significant portion of the resident input at the charrette ran counter to the designated use for the parcel:
The phrase “death by a thousand cuts,” comes to mind. When opinions vary across a variety of interests and factions, any proposed use of town land can be voted down by a de-facto coalition comprised of advocates for all the other possible uses. Then it’s back to the drawing board to make a new plan, rinse and repeat.
Beware the Bobolink Bird
The bobolink birds at Davis Field won’t be voting at Town Meeting anytime soon. However, they could animate opposition to future recreational field development on the property. And they may be just the vulnerable mascot that open space advocates will need if a recreation proposal is put before the town in the future.
But it’s not just recreation advocates that will need to deal with these birds. Might the mighty bobolink force the issue of regulation of dogs in Sudbury; leading to stricter leash laws and penalties? That topic was alluded to in the Park and Recreation Commission meeting. Coincidentally, regulation of dogs was a bylaw update article that passed at the very same 2015 Annual Town Meeting that voted down the Davis Field little league project. (Page 37)
Alternatively, might bobolink protection be perceived as “a bridge too far” for field users who are frustrated with ever-deteriorating field conditions? Might that animate a conservation backlash in a town that values open space?
It’s impossible to predict what specific impact the bobolinks may have on future discussions about Davis Field. But it’s clear after the June 3, 2024 Park and Recreation Commission meeting that these songbirds could activate a significant number of factions if Davis Field is the subject of another proposed recreation project.
As the town endeavors to identify field needs and eventually creates yet another plan for Open Space and Recreation, one thing is clear: Beware the bobolink. They’re just birds, but the planning cycles for town-owned land in Sudbury are starting to look quite similar to the bobolink’s 12,500-mile annual round trips.