Lynnfield selectmen reveal plan for new recreation field

LYNNFIELD – A plan revealed at the Lynnfield Board of Selectmen meeting Monday night outlined the preliminary planning and funding for a recreation field expansion project on land owned by the Lynnfield Center Water District that would alleviate the problem of a lack of field space in town.The 98.5-acre plot of land, of which 67 acres is usable for fields and not a no-build wetlands zone, is west of the Middleton line and will have an entry point off of Main Street.Board Chairman Arthur Bourque led a presentation to a crowd of fewer than 10 people at the Lynnfield High School media center, and said that the land for proposed field use will not be transferred to the town and “remains in the care, control and custody of the Lynnfield Center Water District.”The next step in the process, Bourque said, is having residents approve an article on the warrant at the April 30 town meeting that would move $100,000 out of the town?s sale of real estate account to pay for a planning consultant and engineering services.The independent consultant, he said, would assess the usage of the town?s current fields to plan for the types of sports fields that would be needed in the new complex.The engineering services would cover laying out the point of access to the fields, defining a perimeter to the complex, identifying wetlands, building a layout of the specific fields based on the planning assessment and estimating the cost of design and construction, Bourque said.There would also be a reasonable buffer zone, he said, between the property of town residents and the proposed field land.Bourque also detailed potential funding sources that would take the fields project out of the concept stage, including private contributions, additional money from the sale of real estate account and a promised $1 million from the upcoming Market Street Lynnfield development.The board will appoint a five-member planning advisory committee on April 9 that will make planning and development suggestions to the board as well as oversee fundraising for the project. There will then be incremental steps in the project that culminate in a tentative April 1, 2015 opening date for the field complex.?We?re looking to just make sure that every sport that wants field space has access to adequate field space to conduct their sports,” Bourque said.Sarah Mupo can be reached at [email protected].