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Hayward Street Rezoning Meeting with Marguerite Concrete

Mar­guerite Con­crete invit­ed the Lake Maspenock neigh­bor­hood to a meet­ing on 3/25 where they pre­sent­ed their new zon­ing map and plan for a three-floor build­ing on a par­cel on 70 South Street with an entrance and exit on Hay­ward Street. This is the cor­ner of South Street and Hayward. 

Neigh­bors raised sev­er­al con­cerns relat­ed to traf­fic vol­umes, res­i­dent safe­ty, dark night com­pli­ance, neighborhood/home pri­va­cy, and stormwa­ter management. 

The sum­ma­ry was pro­vid­ed by a res­i­dent who attend­ed the meet­ing and lives direct­ly across from the prop­er­ty in ques­tion. Thank you Vik and Rustem for your efforts to cre­ate this sum­ma­ry and peti­tion for those that could not attend.

While we appre­ci­ate the efforts of Mar­guerite Con­crete to attempt to work with the neigh­bor­hood to make their project amenable to our major con­cerns, the LMPA Exec­u­tive Board con­tin­ues to not sup­port the rezon­ing to rur­al busi­ness for mul­ti­ple rea­sons. It is impor­tant for any­one with per­son­al issues with the pro­pos­al to speak with their neigh­bors and oth­er town res­i­dents and encour­age them to sign the peti­tion and come out to the town meet­ing on May 1st to Vote No. 

See you around the lake!

LMPA Exec­u­tive Board

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LMPA Spring Cleanup — Please Read!

We are keep­ing an eye on the weath­er and will make a deci­sion by Fri­day morn­ing, if we will move Lake Cleanup to Sun­day, April 2nd from 9:00 am to 12:00pm. STAY TUNED!!!

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Informational Meeting — March 25th — HCA

The pro­po­nents of the rezon­ing of the cor­ner of Hay­ward and South Street are hold­ing an infor­ma­tion­al meet­ing for the pub­lic on Sat­ur­day March 25th from 9:00 am to 10:30 am at the Barn Loft of the Hop­kin­ton Cen­ter for the Arts.

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Hayward Street Rezoning — Meeting March 20th!

Hap­py first day of spring! 

The LMPA E‑Board just want­ed to remind every­one that tonight, March 20th, the Hop­kin­ton Plan­ning Board will be hold­ing its sec­ond meet­ing to dis­cuss the rezon­ing of a por­tion of Hay­ward and South Street. The meet­ing will be held via Zoom only start­ing at 7:00 pm. 

Here’s a link to the agen­da.  (The Zoom meet­ing login is on the top of the agenda):

Plan­ning Board Agen­da 03–20-23 (googlegroups.com)

The LMPA Exec­u­tive Board

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State of the Lake 2023

Dear LMPA Members, 

2022 was a year of change for our lake com­mu­ni­ty. The econ­o­my was front and cen­ter in many of our lives. Gas prices sky­rock­et­ed result­ing in many of us opt­ing for more slow cruis­es ver­sus high speed runs down the lake. The weath­er was beau­ti­ful all sum­mer long and with it came a  drought. Thank­ful­ly, the fall brought sig­nif­i­cant rain­fall to end the drought, how­ev­er it unfor­tu­nate­ly ham­pered the attempt at an extend­ed draw down — more on that lat­er. We also saw many new hous­es built around the lake this year, which inspired us to re-launch our Wel­come Pails in an effort to wel­come all those new to the lake area and hope they become mem­bers of the LMPA! Please con­sid­er reach­ing out to those new to the lake com­mu­ni­ty and help them learn about the won­der­ful facets of the lake and  how we can pro­tect its beauty.

Weeds, weeds, and more weeds

The exces­sive weed growth con­tin­ued to be a prob­lem through­out the lake, espe­cial­ly in the North basin. Many lake res­i­dents have told us that this past year was some of the worst they’ve ever seen. The LMPA con­tin­ues  to work close­ly with the Town of Hop­kin­ton Lake Maspenock Aquat­ic Veg­e­ta­tion Con­trol Cit­i­zens Input Group (CIG).  They report direct­ly to the Direc­tor of the Depart­ment of Pub­lic Works (DPW).  The CIG has devel­oped a two prong approach to the weed sit­u­a­tion. First, they have imple­ment­ed an extend­ed draw­down in an effort to expose the weed roots to freez­ing tem­per­a­tures. This involves drop­ping the water lev­el to approx­i­mate­ly 8’ below the nor­mal lev­el and expos­ing the lake bot­tom to suf­fi­cient­ly cold tem­per­a­tures that the weed beds freeze.  Sec­ond, they have pro­posed that her­bi­cides be used in cer­tain areas that con­tin­ue to have an inor­di­nate amount of weeds. If approved, the her­bi­cides would like­ly be applied in late May or ear­ly June.  The actu­al loca­tions, dates and times of appli­ca­tion is depen­dent on the annu­al spring sur­vey con­duct­ed by the CIG and town con­sul­tant lim­nol­o­gist. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it appears that the mild win­ter tem­per­a­tures and high water lev­el will not be suf­fi­cient to retard the expect­ed weed growth this spring. We are hope­ful that the her­bi­cide appli­ca­tion will be approved so we can mit­i­gate the over­abun­dance of weeds and move in the direc­tion of restor­ing bal­ance to the lake. For more infor­ma­tion on the weed sit­u­a­tion and the exten­sive research and plan­ning that the vol­un­teers on the CIG have worked tire­less­ly on over the last sev­er­al years, we encour­age you to review the doc­u­ments and infor­ma­tion on the town of Hopkinton’s website. 

Anoth­er sum­mer of fun on the water

As you would expect with the beau­ti­ful weath­er, the lake saw a high vol­ume of boat and jet ski traf­fic, par­tic­u­lar­ly on week­ends. In an effort to keep every­one safe, the LMPA con­tin­ued to pro­vide edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties for safe boat­ing. Per usu­al, we pro­mot­ed the boater safe­ty class­es put on by the Mass­a­chu­setts Envi­ron­men­tal Police and will do so again in 2023. We also brought in the US Coast Guard Aux­il­iary (USCGA) again to pro­vide free cour­tesy boat safe­ty inspec­tions. These inspec­tions are com­plete­ly vol­un­tary and there are no reper­cus­sions if you do not have all that is required to pass. These inspec­tions are designed to ensure that all the nec­es­sary safe­ty equip­ment required is on board and ready to go and if you are miss­ing any­thing then you know what you need to get. All types of ves­sels were checked – every­thing from power­boats to kayaks! The inspec­tions only take about 10 min­utes and each pass­ing ves­sel was issued a stick­er for the year. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, high winds that day kept many boats at their dock, but every­one will get anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty to get that cov­et­ed USCGA stick­er this sum­mer. Keep an eye on our web­site for the dates and times for boater safe­ty class­es and boat inspec­tions for 2023. The LMPA did receive a num­ber of com­ments and com­plaints about unsafe boat­ing through­out the sum­mer. While we appre­ci­ate peo­ple let­ting us know what’s hap­pen­ing on the lake, if you observe some­one oper­at­ing in an unsafe man­ner, please con­tact the Hop­kin­ton Police (508–497-3401) and the Mass­a­chu­setts Envi­ron­men­tal Police (800–632-8075). 

Just play­ing in the sand

With approx­i­mate­ly 540 beach pass­es pur­chased from Parks and Rec, Sandy Beach con­tin­ued to see large crowds on week­ends com­ing out to enjoy the sun, sand, and cool water. The LMPA con­tin­ues to work with the town of Hop­kin­ton Parks and Recre­ation Depart­ment (P&R) on the use and upkeep of Sandy Beach, the park­ing lot and the boat ramp. The Ad-Hoc com­mit­tee (a sub­com­mit­tee of P&R), also pro­vides input and assis­tance to P&R for main­tain­ing the beach and all its sur­round­ing facil­i­ties.  Safe­ty is a num­ber 1 pri­or­i­ty for all involved. Cur­rent projects in the works are an entrance and exit gate sys­tem, as well as a poten­tial dock installed near the boat ramp.  This would allow boaters to safe­ly and effi­cient­ly launch and retrieve their ves­sels. Future plans involve a com­plete makeover of the park­ing lot and boat ramp. As always, we will pro­vide updates to the mem­ber­ship regard­ing the planned improve­ments. If any­one is inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing on the Sandy Beach Ad-Hoc Com­mit­tee, it is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to have input into these improve­ments and to help move them forward. 

Water qual­i­ty maintenance 

The water qual­i­ty of our lake con­tin­ues to be excel­lent. Mark Sex­ton (LMPA Exec. Board mem­ber) con­ducts the water qual­i­ty checks three times a year in mul­ti­ple loca­tions around the lake.  The results, which are updat­ed on a reg­u­lar basis on our web­site, demon­strate con­sis­ten­cy with the num­bers and as res­i­dents of the lake, we play a major role in main­tain­ing the qual­i­ty of our water. Please take the time to read the enclosed fly­er with some help­ful reminders on Lake Friend­ly Prac­tices. Whether you are water­front, off a side street, and/or launch and pull your boat/canoe/kayak on a reg­u­lar basis, all the lit­tle things on this fly­er add up to make a big dif­fer­ence. We appre­ci­ate your efforts. 

Part of hav­ing clean water is keep­ing trash out of the lake. We had our annu­al lake cleanup this past spring and returned to our reg­u­lar for­mat of meet­ing at the beach park­ing lot.  We col­lect­ed a full dump­ster load of trash and debris for dis­pos­al.  We will be hold­ing anoth­er lake area cleanup this com­ing April.  Take a look at the cal­en­dar on our web­site for the date and time. 

Fun times

The LMPA held many enjoy­able social events this past year, thanks to the efforts of our Com­mu­ni­ty Build­ing Com­mit­tee. All of our events are such an amaz­ing way to bring our com­mu­ni­ty togeth­er and we couldn’t do it with­out our fab­u­lous vol­un­teers. We kicked off the sea­son with one of our biggest events, our annu­al Spring Fling.  The Hop­kin­ton Coun­try Club staff did an excel­lent job as always pro­vid­ing fine food and drink and a great time was had by all! Our sec­ond big event was Fam­i­ly Fun Day at Sandy Beach. It was a won­der­ful June day of fam­i­ly-friend­ly activ­i­ties like sand cas­tle build­ing and swim­ming but the high­light was most def­i­nite­ly the vis­it from Ani­mal Adven­tures. They pro­vid­ed enter­tain­ment and edu­ca­tion with some adorable rep­tiles. Next came Light Up The Lake on July 3rd.  Many lake­front res­i­dents dec­o­rat­ed their water­fronts — and even boats. It was amaz­ing to see all the dif­fer­ent lights and dec­o­ra­tions! This was a great pre­am­ble to the 4th of July Boat Parade.  We had over 40 boats par­tic­i­pate with cre­ative themes and cos­tumes. Con­grat­u­la­tions to Colleen Mar­tin and Don Doucette for win­ning the cov­et­ed Prop Tro­phy with their Ronald McDon­ald themed boat! The high­light of the sum­mer was the 5th annu­al Corn­hole Tour­na­ment. Corn­hole Budz, Steve Ken­ney and Bri­an Delisle beat out the rest of the field to win the big prize — brag­ging rights on the lake!  A big shoutout to all those who vol­un­teered and made the day a suc­cess! Final­ly, we fin­ished out the sea­son with a fun Chili Cookoff as we watched the Patri­ots lose to Green Bay. While the Patri­ots didn’t win, Ryan Jones won with a great tast­ing “grilled” chili. 

Annu­al gen­er­al meeting

We had a full agen­da for our annu­al meet­ing on June 6th this past year with about 30 mem­bers in atten­dance at Ko out of the 152 house­holds with a cur­rent mem­ber­ship. Typ­i­cal­ly at our gen­er­al meet­ings, the board reports on the past year’s finances, cur­rent projects, reviews past and future events, as well as con­ducts  elec­tions for open board posi­tions. At this par­tic­u­lar meet­ing, the board pro­posed two amend­ments to the bylaws which were vot­ed in. The first amend­ment allows the gen­er­al meet­ing to be held ear­li­er in the year, which will be May 8th, one month ear­li­er than in the past. The sec­ond bylaw amend­ment allows the removal of an Exec­u­tive Board mem­ber from the board fol­low­ing an affir­ma­tive vote by a major­i­ty of the Exec­u­tive Board. These amend­ments were pro­posed after receiv­ing feed­back from asso­ci­a­tion mem­bers and as part of our year­ly review of the bylaws by mem­bers of the Exec­u­tive Board. The annu­al gen­er­al meet­ing is a great way for you and your fam­i­ly to learn more about the asso­ci­a­tion and as well as pro­vide an oppor­tu­ni­ty for mem­bers like you to share feed­back and ideas that help sup­port the mis­sion of the association. 

Stay updat­ed and get involved (*see below  for updat­ing your con­tact information)

We work hard to keep our mem­bers informed via our web­site (www.lmpa.org), FB page and email. If you are a cur­rent mem­ber and are not receiv­ing our emails, please send us an email at info@lmpa.org with your pre­ferred email address. We are also hap­py to answer any ques­tions you may have as well.

We hope you come on out and help us cel­e­brate the kick­off of the spring/summer sea­son around the lake at the Spring Fling. We can promise deli­cious food, groovy tunes and over­all a good time. It real­ly is a nice way to recon­nect with the lake com­mu­ni­ty after a long win­ter. We sin­cere­ly hope you come out to enjoy and even learn about ways you get involved in the association! 

We thank you for your con­tin­ued sup­port of the LMPA and look for­ward to a great 2023! Please stay safe, respect the envi­ron­ment and we’ll see you around the lake. 

The Exec­u­tive Board and Offi­cers of the LMPA 

2023 Cal­en­dar of EVENTS

4/1 Lake Clean-Up, Sandy Beach

4/28 Spring Fling, Hop­kin­ton Coun­try Club

5/8  Annu­al Meet­ing, Ko Restaurant

6/11 Fam­i­ly Fun Day, Sandy Beach 

6/17 Coast Guard Ves­sel “Inspec­tions”

7/3 Light Up the Lake (and boats)

7/4 Boat Parade

7/29 Corn­hole 

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Rezoning Proposal — Email your Town Officials

For res­i­dents who can­not make it to the Plan­ning Board Zoom meet­ing on March 6th, but would like to voice their opin­ion on the Rezon­ing pro­pos­al for the Hayward/South Street prop­er­ties, please email your com­ments BY SUNDAY March 5th, with your name and address, to:

1. Gary Tren­del — planningboardchair@hopkintonma.gov

2. John Gel­ci­ch — jgelcich@hopkintonma.gov

3. Con­nor Degan — cdegan@hopkintonma.gov

FYI- Arti­cle from 2008 on the first attempt to rezone the same area:

Hop­kin­ton devel­op­er still seek­ing zon­ing change (metrowestdailynews.com)

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LMPA What’s News — Winter 2023

It cer­tain­ly has been an inter­est­ing win­ter! An onslaught of rain over the last sev­er­al months off­set the drought sit­u­a­tion and, unfor­tu­nate­ly, com­bined with the unsea­son­ably warm tem­per­a­tures means that the extend­ed draw­down was unsuc­cess­ful. The dam was closed in mid-Jan­u­ary and as you can see, the lake lev­el is start­ing to rise. The town Weed Advi­so­ry board con­tin­ues to work with DPW with regard to con­cerns around exces­sive weed growth this sum­mer. They will be meet­ing with the Con­ser­va­tion Com­mis­sion in March to rec­om­mend addi­tion­al tools from the tool­box to hope­ful­ly be imple­ment­ed in late spring/early sum­mer. We will share addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion as we receive it.
 
The LMPA exec­u­tive board takes advan­tage of the slow­er win­ter months to con­tin­ue to meet month­ly to dis­cuss ways to ful­fill our mis­sion of preser­va­tion, safe­ty, and com­mu­ni­ty. We have an excit­ing cal­en­dar of upcom­ing events, Sandy Beach employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and beach/boating pass­es, vol­un­teer oppor­tu­ni­ties as well as some help­ful tips on prepar­ing your yards for spring in a safe, lake-friend­ly way.  Also keep an eye out for the infor­ma­tion-packed State of the Lake let­ter from LMPA Pres­i­dent, Jaime Gonsalves.

~~ LMPA EVENTS ~~

Lake Cleanup

Spring means lake cleanup time! This is a kid-friend­ly event and every­one is wel­come to help! Meet us on Sandy Beach on April 1st! 
More details

Spring Fling 2023

Mark your cal­en­dars! Fri­day, April 28th at the Hop­kin­ton Coun­try Club. This is a fun, relaxed, adult-only evening where we min­gle and dance to cel­e­brate the start of our busy sea­son. Heavy appe­tiz­ers will be served. Cash bar.
Add To Your Calendar

General Meeting

The Annu­al LMPA Gen­er­al Meet­ing will be held on May 8th at Ko on Hay­ward Street. The agen­da and Exec­u­tive Board vot­ing and open seats will be avail­able on our web­site.
Add To Your Calendar

Family FUN Day

June 11th @ Sandy Beach. Bring your pic­nic lunch and get ready for a great time! Beach pass­es are also on sale! 
Add To Your Calendar

Vessel Safety Check

On June 17th, take ten min­utes from your day and get your boats, jet skis, kayaks, and even pad­dle­boards checked for the prop­er equip­ment to ensure you have a safe boat­ing sea­son by the USCG.10:00am — 2:00pm at the Logan’s dock at 30 Lakeshore.
Add to Your Calendar

Light up the Lake & Boat Parade

Always a favorite! Light up the Lake is on July 3rd, 8:00 pm and the Boat Parade starts at 2:00 pm on the 4th in front of Sandy Beach. Please vis­it our Face­book page, clos­er to the event, for more infor­ma­tion.
LMPA Face­book Page

Cornhole Tournament

Who’s ready to take on the 2022 champs? That’s right, Corn­hole is back on! July 29th (rain date July 30th). Please con­tact us if you would like to be a spon­sor house or host the after-par­ty, or be on the com­mit­tee.  
Email the Committee

~~ Other Community Information ~~

Get Your Beach Pass

Parks and Rec man­ages Sandy Beach and the boat ramp. Pass­es are now avail­able on their web­site. Pre-sea­son pur­chase is high­ly encour­aged. If you pre­fer to pay at the entrance, cred­it cards are pre­ferred.
Order Here

Jobs @ Sandy Beach!

Parks & Rec are look­ing for sea­son­al employ­ees, Pro­gram Super­vi­sor, Park­ing Lot Atten­dant, and Life­guards.
Apply Now

Volunteer with Us

We are always look­ing for vol­un­teers for our events, board posi­tions, and edu­ca­tion­al pro­mo­tions sur­round­ing our mis­sion of preser­va­tion and safe­ty. If you would like to vol­un­teer in any capac­i­ty or have sug­ges­tions for events or edu­ca­tion­al com­po­nents, please com­plete the form, below. We would love to hear from you.
Com­plete this form. 

Please help minimize weed growth, it’s the little things that count

Min­i­mize Runoff
Pol­lu­tion is per­haps the most direct threat to a lake ecosys­tem. In the absence of indus­tri­al waste dis­charge, much of the pol­lu­tants come from rain­fall runoff. Per­haps the sin­gle most impor­tant step to pre­vent water pol­lu­tion is to con­trol the amount of pol­lu­tant that gets into the lake washed in by rain­fall. This can be accom­plished through sev­er­al approaches:

  • Main­tain­ing a grass lawn is often thought to mean the appli­ca­tion of fer­til­iz­ers and it is very dif­fi­cult to dose them pre­cise­ly. Rain will trans­port excess fer­til­iz­er into the lake, which will stim­u­late smelly, unsight­ly, and poten­tial­ly tox­ic algal blooms. Con­sid­er skip­ping the fer­til­iz­er, and learn to live with an imper­fect lawn. (or use phos­pho­rous-free fer­til­iz­ers and fol­low the man­u­fac­tur­er’s direc­tions for application)
  • Cap­ture runoff from imper­vi­ous sur­faces. Rooftops and dri­ve­ways are exam­ples of imper­vi­ous sur­faces, which do not allow water to per­co­late into the soil. Instead, rain­wa­ter col­lects pol­lu­tants and speeds off, con­tribut­ing to soil ero­sion. These soil par­ti­cles end up in lakes, cre­at­ing sed­i­men­ta­tion prob­lems. Roof runoff can be cap­tured with rain bar­rels, and lat­er used to water flower beds. Road runoff can be rout­ed into a rain gar­den made of water-lov­ing plants. The ener­gy of the mov­ing water will be absorbed, slow­ing down ero­sion, and the sus­pend­ed par­ti­cles will get deposit­ed in the gar­den, instead of in the lake. 

See you around the lake!!

We appre­ci­ate all the small things we can each do that have a big impact on pro­tect­ing and pre­serv­ing the qual­i­ty of our lake and its sur­round­ings. We hope you all enjoy what seems to be the lit­tle that is left of win­ter and we look for­ward to the busy sea­son ahead! 

LMPA Exec­u­tive Board

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HAYWARD STREET REZONING PROPOSAL

LMPA Hop­kin­ton Residents

We would like to make you aware that an arti­cle was put on the 2023 annu­al Town Meet­ing war­rant to rezone the north side of Hay­ward Street from South Street to direct­ly across 33 and 35 Hay­ward Street. The “Rur­al Busi­ness zone” would extend approx­i­mate­ly 350 feet down Hay­ward street. Includ­ed in the pro­pos­al is a new road on Hay­ward Street that would allow access the rear of those prop­er­ties. This would result in increased traf­fic, addi­tion­al runoff from paved sur­faces, and addi­tion­al pol­lu­tion from storm-water that can direct­ly impact the lake and sur­round­ing neigh­bor­hoods. A sim­i­lar pro­pos­al was sub­mit­ted a num­ber of years ago that was suc­cess­ful­ly defeat­ed at town meet­ing. We would encour­age the res­i­dents of the area to voice their opin­ions to the Plan­ning Board (March 6th at 7 pm)and at Town Meet­ing in May.

Please see the attached let­ter of appeal by those neigh­bors direct­ly impact­ed… Not only does this impact these neigh­bors direct­ly but is also a con­cern for those in and around this area.

https://docs.google.com/…/1FIU0schsY4syawpd…/mobilebasic

Pic.1 The pro­posed zon­ing change. Green is “Lake­Front Res­i­den­tial”, Blue is Rur­al Busi­ness (BR)

Plan­ning Board Zoom meet­ing, March 6, 7pm

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83168206579?pwd=WmJXZThJZmJuTVVFdzJsdWZuR0M2Zz09

Meet­ing ID: 831 6820 6579

Pass­code: 395060

Dial by your

loca­tion.

    +1 646 931 3860 US

    +1 646 876 9923 US

Pic2 Pro­posed zon­ing change from google view with lot lines. The hous­es from right to left and down are 33,35,37 Hay­ward st.

To Respect­ed Hop­kin­ton Town Residents,

A Group of 24 town res­i­dents pro­posed a peti­tion to change the zon­ing of the lots (see pic1) from Lake­Front Res­i­den­tial (RFL) to Rur­al busi­ness (BR) on Jan 31st, 2023, the last day to be added to the town warrant.

While cit­i­zens can peti­tion the town gov­ern­ment, this case bypass­es the nor­mal zon­ing amend­ment process through the zon­ing advi­so­ry board (ZAC) and plan­ning board meet­ings. The peti­tion was sub­mit­ted on the evening (3.45 pm) of the last day (Jan 31, 2023) peti­tion can be added to the town meet­ing war­rant. This delib­er­ate and last-minute sub­mis­sion left no time for the impact­ed street res­i­dents of Hay­ward St to make a counter-peti­tion, which they have the right to do.

Zon­ing was estab­lished to pro­tect adja­cent res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hoods from neg­a­tive impacts from future con­struc­tions and cre­ate a safe envi­ron­ment for fam­i­lies to raise their kids. This devel­op­ment cre­ates very big con­cerns for the safe­ty and qual­i­ty of liv­ing for the Hay­ward St res­i­dents. Please see the Pic2, show­ing the pro­posed change and the neigh­bor­hood hous­es lots.

The zon­ing amend­ment includes a pri­vate road (Pine Grove Lane) and a part of Hay­ward St. These two roads will be used for busi­ness traf­fic. How­ev­er, the pri­vate road starts right in front of the 33 Hay­ward St house dri­ve­way! This severe­ly impacts the safe­ty and pri­va­cy of the house­holds (33 & 35 Hay­ward St) as well as dimin­ish­es their prop­er­ties’ value.

We are appeal­ing to all respect­ed Hop­kin­ton res­i­dents – to please review the maps with the pro­posed zon­ing change, put your­self in the shoes of the 33 and 35 Hay­ward St res­i­dents, and think if such a pro­pos­al were to be devel­oped right next to your homes! We sin­cere­ly request that you join the Plan­ning Board meet­ing on March 6th at 7pm and sup­port the neigh­bors so the Board could make an infor­mant decision.

Please join the 2023 Annu­al Town Meet­ing on May 1st to vote against the pro­posed zon­ing change.

Sin­cere­ly,

Vik­a­sith Pratty

33 Hay­ward St

Rustem Rafikov

35 Hay­ward St

Please reach us if you have any questions/concerns at rustem.rafikov@gmail.com (508–333-3288) and vikasith@yahoo.com (616–406-5035)

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Parks & Rec endorses capital request for manual security gates at Sandy Beach

The Parks & Recre­ation Com­mis­sion at its 80-minute meet­ing Thurs­day evening vot­ed 4–0 to endorse a cap­i­tal grant pro­pos­al to fund man­u­al gates at Sandy Beach in order to increase secu­ri­ty there.

Com­mis­sion­er Cyn­thia Esthimer has been serv­ing as a mem­ber of an ad hoc com­mit­tee that pre­vi­ous­ly ana­lyzed the beach for safe­ty con­cerns regard­ing park­ing and the con­di­tion of the dock. The biggest issue over the past cou­ple of sum­mers has been the lack of secu­ri­ty gates, she noted.

The com­mit­tee had been delib­er­at­ing over whether elec­tric or man­u­al gates would be prefer­able, Esthimer said. She men­tioned a “$25,000 oppor­tu­ni­ty put for­ward by the town man­ag­er” where res­i­dents or groups could apply for fund­ing for a project “that falls in the align­ment and goals of the town vision.” The appli­ca­tion, she not­ed, is due by Jan. 30.

Gates are need­ed at the entrance and exit to Sandy Beach’s park­ing lots because “we have quite a cir­cus in the sum­mer,” Esthimer said.

Parks & Recre­ation Direc­tor Jay Guelfi said he observed peo­ple last sum­mer drop­ping peo­ple off at the entrance. They would then be loi­ter­ing around the gate and wait­ing until the atten­dant was occu­pied and “just kind of shuf­fle in.”

The ini­tial option pro­posed was for elec­tron­ic gates with a token or sim­i­lar sys­tem, but this idea has been put aside for now, Esthimer explained. This would allow the com­mit­tee time to draft a pro­pos­al for fund­ing from the Com­mu­ni­ty Preser­va­tion Com­mit­tee that would not only incor­po­rate these gates but also include ren­o­va­tions to the park­ing lot.

Guelfi explained that a CPC request would have to go before Town Meet­ing in 2024 if approved. The gate sys­tem may not be able to be imple­ment­ed by that Memo­r­i­al Day because there is only a two-week win­dow between Town Meet­ing and the hol­i­day. The park­ing lot most like­ly would need to be regrad­ed and resur­faced after an engi­neer­ing study, he noted.

Anoth­er idea Esthimer sug­gest­ed doing now is request­ing $5,000 for two 20-foot-long man­u­al-lift gates. They could either be oper­at­ed by park­ing lot atten­dants or raised and low­ered by beachgoers.

Sabine St. Pierre of the Lake Maspenock Preser­va­tion Asso­ci­a­tion told the com­mis­sion that the biggest con­cern is at the exit. While atten­dants have been occu­pied sell­ing and ver­i­fy­ing the beach park­ing pass­es, peo­ple have been park­ing down the street and sneak­ing into the exit area, she explained.

“A lot of peo­ple are bypass­ing hav­ing to pay,” she said, not­ing that some peo­ple are non-res­i­dents at the res­i­dent-only beach.

St. Pierre said an elec­tron­ic gate would make sense at the exit because no one would have to man it.

“At least it’s deter­ring all this traf­fic from com­ing in,” she said. “I think the more offi­cial we start look­ing down there, the more we can deter it.”

Com­mis­sion chair Dan Ter­ry not­ed that gate mon­i­tors would be need­ed pri­mar­i­ly on week­ends and hol­i­days. Guelfi explained that a new posi­tion that had not been bud­get­ed for this year would have to be cre­at­ed. The cost would be about $1,920 for the summer.

“We need to get incre­men­tal improve­ments down there,” Ter­ry said.

Com­mis­sion­er Amy O’Donnell said “the best route now” would be a man­u­al sys­tem for $5,000. This would allow the depart­ment and com­mis­sion time to bet­ter ana­lyze what would be the most effec­tive system.

St. Pierre vol­un­teered to sub­mit to the request to the Town Hall, not­ing that she would be sub­mit­ting it as a res­i­dent. She also is an LMPA offi­cer and a mem­ber of the ad hoc com­mit­tee. The com­mit­tee vot­ed to endorse St. Pierre’s request 4–0.

Said Ter­ry: “It’s some­where between a baby step and a big­ger step.”