By Patrick Adrian
[email protected]
WINDSOR, Vt. — Regional planners released a two-year study this week with recommendations to establish a multi-community recreation region in southern Windsor County through development of multi-use recreational trails and river accesses.
The Southern Windsor County Regional Planning Commission (SWCRPC), along with consulting organization SE Group, released a 60-page plan and appendices on Friday to create a “multi-jurisdictional outdoor regional plan” in the Mount Ascutney area.
The authors state the plan aims to identify ways to strengthen recreational and economic opportunities, connect the surrounding villages to recreation areas and collaboratively market the region as a recreational destination.
In 2018, the towns of Weathersfield, Windsor and West Windsor formed a consortium to fund this study through a municipal grant. The consortium hired the SWCRPC, SE Group and Doug Kennedy Advisors to assist in the plan’s development.
The plan developers collected information through a survey conducted throughout 2018 and 2019 and several meetings with community stakeholders.
The plan finds “a significant amount of recreational opportunities within the [three] towns,” with a number of existing natural and recreational assets. Existing resources include Ascutney Outdoors, a growing outdoors center in West Windsor; Mill Pond, a small Windsor-owned recreational pond for boating, swimming and fishing; and Mount Ascutney State Park, a multi-use recreation area featuring camping, trails and views of the Vermont and New Hampshire landscapes atop its summit.
The total project area also holds cycling and equestrian trails, river activities, recreation centers and athletic fields, camping and wildlife management areas.
A central theme behind many of the plan’s goals involves creating new trails and connecting paths, combining new trail building with utilizing former roads and existing but undeveloped paths.
“There are many miles of existing trails that are commonly used by residents but public access is not formally allowed nor are the trail locations located on generally available maps,” the plan states. “Many of these trails are on private property and/or follow along forest roads, discontinued roads or former snowmobile trails.”
This issue pertains, for example, to Weathersfield’s plan to develop a multi-use recreational trail system in its Town Forest. However, the Town Forest remains landlocked, without a public access to it. Three years ago, the town made a land swap agreement with a private landowner Emily Abbott to swap a three-acre lot and additional easement to forgive Abbott’s debt of $86,000 in back taxes. Weathersfield aimed to use the lot to construct a parking area and trailhead, and the easement was a key component to the town plan to develop a trail to the Town Forest. But at a selectboard meeting in November, Town Attorney Nathan Stearns said the effort to finalize that agreement remained stalled.
The plan also discusses a Windsor plan to develop a path connecting downtown Windsor to Artisans Park, a commercial home to eight Vermont businesses, including Harpoon Brewery, Simon Pearce, SILO Distillery, Great River Outfitters and Vermont Farmstead Cheese Company Market. That plan includes an extensive redevelopment plan of the riverfront area and railyards. Windsor Town Manager Tom Marsh and Zoning Administrator Bob Haight have filmed several video installments in a series titled “The Right Side of the Tracks,” where they tour and discuss different sections of the property contained in the project. Viewers may find those videos on public access website Windsor on Air.
Viewers interested in reading the plan may find it online at https://swcrpc.org/mount-ascutney-recreation-plan/.
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