Planning Board Weighs Importance Of More Open Space

The Planning Board usually meets to hear about building projects. On Wednesday night, it heard instead about the open space in town, both  passive (i.e. Frenchtown Park) and active (playgrounds, ball fields). And it heard that East Greenwich active recreation space is very active.

“The fields are used heavily; scheduling is a problem,” said planning consultant Samuel Shamoon, who was hired to update the town’s Comprehensive Plan. “We’re recommending that the town pursue acquiring more land for recreation space.”

Shamoon said he’d met with Parks and Recreation Director Cathy Bradley, who told him that her department was finding it difficult to both maintain the town’s fields and make a schedule to satisfy all the different recreation groups that want to use the fields.

The town had sought to deal with this issue through the fields construction project at East Greenwich High School two years ago. Carcieri Field, which is artificial turf, can be used more heavily and has lighting, so it can be used at night, but other than that, the fields project didn’t yield additional fields. Although there is additional land beyond the baseball fields (what’s known as the McHale property), there was not enough money to develop it. In addition, access and possible wetlands issues remain problems.

Planning Board members debated whether or not the town really needed to invest in additional land for fields space. Chairman Brad Bishop wondered why the addition of lights at certain fields shouldn’t be considered to increase the number of playing-time hours.

“Can’t we light some fields?” Bishop asked. “From the standpoint of the town economy, let’s light the fields,” he continued, making the argument that adding lighting to already-existing fields would be cheaper than buying new field space.

“If lit fields is a way to do it, I’m happy to do it,” said Shamoon. But according to town officials, he said, “there were attempts to light fields [before] and there was tremendous neighborhood opposition.”

Planning Board member Chuck Newton wanted to know how recreation space in East Greenwich measured up against that in other towns. Shamoon said that East Greenwich, on paper, was “very well endowed” and that he would try to get some comparisons, but that such comparisions didn't always tell the whole story.

Member Stephen Brusini expressed a different point of view from his board colleagues. “Open space enhances life,” he said. “I think this is one of those rare occasions when more is better. I think they are very inexpensive dollars,” he continued, referring to the cost of adding recreational open space. “The lighting … that to me is not a substitute for acquiring more land.”

Shamoon will take the comments and suggestions from the Planning Board and rework the section. There is just one more part of the comp plan to be vetted in draft form by the Planning Board (on land use) and that’s to happen next month.

After that, Shamoon told members Wednesday night, the plan would be presented in total (all seven parts) to the Planning Board and the Town Council and it’s at that time that additional public comment could be heard.

The Planning Board next meets on Sept. 7.