Ashby Open Space & Recreation Plan
return to Table of Contents
email comments

SECTION 8 - GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

GOAL 1: Preserve Rural Character

Through Zoning and Other Regulation

•  
• Analyze the impact of existing zoning on rural character. Use more creative approaches to ensure that development occurs in ways compatible with the rural character.
•  
• Locate and rate scenic views.
•  
• Investigate and implement a scenic roads bylaw to protect the areas immediately adjacent to roadways.
•  
• Protect fields and ensure they are kept open wherever possible.
•  
• Establish a site plan review district around the Ashby Historic District to maintain the scale and form of the area.
•  
• Consider other historic sites for preservation.
•  
• Use building envelopes to protect views, areas of significant vegetation, or historic importance.
•  
• Identify and map the town's historic resources.
•  
• Keep rate of growth moderate through growth rate controls and land acquisition.

Through Education:

•  
• Encourage agriculture by assisting farmers to take advantage federal and State Department of Agriculture programs that are designed to help maintain family farms.
•  
• Encourage agricultural preservation zoning to allow farmers to preserve prime agricultural land while they continue to get value from their land.
•  
• Campaign on the value of wetlands and surface waters.

GOAL 2: Protect Natural Resources

Through Land Acquisition and Protection:

•  
• Analyze and rate parcels for potential acquisition with emphasis toward providing the Selectmen and the townspeople the information they need to make reasoned decisions.
•  
• Support the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife in their efforts to acquire rights to Mount Watatic.
•  
• Establish links and wildlife corridors between protected parcels.
•  
• Work with the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife in the Gilchrist property purchase.
•  
• Pursue an effort to acquire the Western Middlesex Stock Farm, which is currently for sale.
•  
• Maintain an active status log of all land under Chapter 61, Chapter 61A and Chapter 61B and be aware of when land comes up for chapter renewal.
•  
• Develop sources for funding for acquisition of land.
•  
• Identify and contact land trusts and other organizations whose purpose is to preserve open space to make them aware of land in town that may meet their criteria.
•  
• Assist owners of large parcels to explore the possibilities available to them for limiting development in sensitive areas of their property.
•  
• Consider creative zoning tools such as reduced frontage, large-acreage lots, open space zoning and others to manage overall development in town.
•  
• Assist landowners who have already come forward wanting to protect their land.

Through Water Resource Protection

•  
• Establish and coordinate policies and information between regulatory boards with respect to work to be performed in or near wetland buffer districts.
•  
• Consider a wetland protection bylaw.
•  
• Consider reduced development along brooks to provide wildlife corridors.
•  
• Identify and protect known or potential aquifer areas for future use.
•  
• Preserve large areas around the headwaters of major streams.
•  
• Preserve buffer zones along perennial streams through strict enforcement of the Rivers Protection Act.
•  
• Restrict development on steep slopes through changes in zoning bylaws.
•  
• Create a policy to require that natural vegetation be left intact within buffer zones through special language on Orders of Condition.
•  
• Develop a program of stream monitoring, combined with a completed inventory of all streams and tributaries in Ashby.

Through the Protection of Strategic Habitats

•  
• Identify and certify vernal pools.
•  
• Identify existing wildlife corridors.
•  
• Preserve and protect habitat boundary zones such as woodland to water or field to maximize biodiversity.

Through Maintenance and Stewardship

•  
• Work with state and local authorities to oversee logging operations.
•  
• Encourage increased state maintenance of the three bridges along Valley Road.
•  
• Establish a fund to support stewardship efforts.

Active Recreation

•  
• Establish a maintenance schedule for existing recreation facilities and a capital plan for increasing facilities as Ashby’s population increases.
•  
• Refurbish the tennis and basketball courts.
•  
• Add winter sports facilities to existing summer facilities, especially low cost facilities such as outdoor ice-skating and cross-country skiing.
•  
• Coordinate recreation programs with school programs to gain greater synergy.
•  
• Renovate Allen Field
•  
• Acquire flat land for future active recreation needs.

Passive Recreation

•  
• Develop a trail system that will connect protected parcels of land and existing trails.
•  
• Investigate the feasibility of using old town road rights of way for winter and summer trails.
•  
• Encourage developers to set aside land for parks, playgrounds, and open space.
•  
• Work with developers to provide easements for trails.
•  
• Publicize, map, and use signs to identify existing trails.
•  
• Work with existing organizations to maintain trails and construct new trails.
•  
• Improve public access to waterways.

•  
• Stress the financial value to residents and the town of open space preservation.
•  
• Identify conservation easements - what they are, how they work, why use them.
•  
• Explain the advantages of the Chapter 61 laws.
•  
• Explore land use options and alternatives to selling land to developers.
•  
• Coordinate with regional agencies and work with the school system to spread the information.

•  
• Coordinate with Department of Fish and Wildlife as well as the Department of Environmental Management to provide wildlife corridors and contiguous protected parcels
•  
• Protect parcels abutting Valley Road.
•  
• Work with the Nashua River and Souhegan River Watershed Associations to improve communications and protect streams in the watershed.
•  
• Work with the Montachusett Regional Planning Commission and abutting towns to coordinate land use and protection.
•  
• Work with the Department of Environmental Management and other state agencies to gain expertise to assist in achieving goals.
•  
• Promote inter-town collaboration for trail systems.

Current Land Acquisition or Protection Priorities

In our survey, the two specific places most often mentioned for protection were Mount Watatic and the Western Middlesex Stock Farm. The first task of the Open Space and Recreation Committee after completing this draft plan is to systematically rank specific parcels for protection. We expect to have this information included in the final document. In the meantime, four areas stand out as top priorities for protection or acquisition.

•  
• We should support the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife in their efforts to acquire rights to Mount Watatic.

•  
• We should make an effort to acquire the Western Middlesex Stock Farm and the parcels adjacent to it as they become available. In many ways the Stock Farm represents the heart of rural Ashby. The parcel is the largest single open space parcel in the center of town. This piece of property was once part of a large holding extending from the Piper Road farm to the New Hampshire border. Many residents remember picking strawberries and blueberries at the farm. The easy hike up Caton Hill has been a favorite picnic destination for families for many years.

•  
• Its historic town center and the open fields surrounding it define much of the character of Ashby. The town center is zoned as residential with smaller lot size and frontage requirements, allowing a higher density of housing than in the residential/agricultural zone. Residents in the center are already experiencing problems with water and septic. Protecting land through easements or acquisition in this area of town should be a priority.
•  
• A number of residents have approached members of the Open Space and Recreation Committee about donating land to the town or to a private conservation organization, or they have expressed the desire to work with the town to protect their land from unwanted development. Working with these interested landowners is a high priority.

Ashby Open Space & Recreation Plan
return to Table of Contents