NAHANT — A draft of the town of Nahant Open Space and Recreation Plan (OSRP) that will guide the town’s decisions on open space and recreation activities for the next seven years is available for public comment until May 3.
The new plan is an updated version of the town’s 2008 OSRP.
“The old plan expired and it needed to be updated,” said Town Administrator Antonio Barletta.
He said the OSRP is needed to essentially establish priorities for the town’s open spaces and its relevant long-term planning.
“They worked really hard with the volunteers,” said Barletta.
He also mentioned that the plan went through a lot of public meetings, and the town spent a lot of time identifying its needs and priorities for these spaces.
Barletta said the OSRP Plan Committee received about $30,000 through the Community Preservation Act to renew the town’s open-space plan. The Community Preservation Act helps small communities address housing, open-space, recreation, and historical-preservation needs, he said.
The committee reached out to the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) to help with the process of developing the updated plan.
The new plan development featured looking at the town’s old OSRP, as well as other towns’ master plans, and then included a working-group process and public input through the form of public meetings and survey questions, said Barletta.
Last summer, the OSRP Committee released a community survey to gauge what town residents would like to see for open spaces and parks.
“This survey was a very important step in the plan to better understand the needs and wants of our community,” said a survey description on the town website.
The questions in the survey were about the use of open space, preferences for the open spaces, and priorities of the public, said Barletta. A total of 420 people responded to the survey, and 327 respondents answered all questions.
The survey found that 65 percent of residents were satisfied with the overall condition of the town’s parks and open spaces.
Nineteen percent of respondents were very satisfied with local open space. Only 17 percent said that they were dissatisfied with the town’s recreational facilities.
The survey also showed that the residents mostly cared for Nahant’s beaches (91 percent) and scenic areas (79 percent), while ice skating concerned only 13 percent of the residents.
According to the town website, the OSRP Committee was appointed in late May 2019, and has been meeting as needed to review the open spaces and recreation areas in Nahant.
The committee is charged with drafting and implementing an updated OSRP that includes an inventory of open spaces and recreation areas in town.
The Community Preservation Act (CPA) is a “smart-growth” tool that helps communities preserve open spaces and historic sites, create affordable housing, and develop outdoor-recreational facilities, according to the Community Preservation Coalition’s website.
The CPA also helps to strengthen local economies by expanding housing opportunities and construction jobs, and by supporting the tourism industry through preservation of the Commonwealth’s historic and natural resources.
A draft of the Nahant Open Space and Recreation Plan is available for review at https://mapc-org.sharefile.com/share/view/se6bdbe3c55734cbebf2f4c55956bddd8.
