NORTHBOROUGH – Voters will decide whether to fund a series of projects through the Community Preservation Act (CPA) at Northborough’s Town Meeting next week.
A total of 10 articles related to requests for CPA funds are on the warrant for the April 25 Town Meeting.
These articles include funding for trails projects as well as the first phase of a dog park project.
Additionally, voters will decide whether to appropriate $137,500 in CPA funds for the beautification of the Brigham Street Burial Ground in town. This would include removing dead trees, installing a sign post and fencing as well as making roadside improvements.
A separate article would fund the purchase and installation of two signs for the Kizer section of the Northborough Cemetery, while another would pay to replace and renovate shutters at the Northborough Historical Society building at 52 Main St.
Remaining articles include debt service funds for White Cliffs and money to administer the CPA itself.
One article would help the Northborough Housing Authority construct eight low-income rental units.
A separate article would, alternatively, place funds in the Community Preservation Affordable Housing Reserve Fund, if that article related to the rental units fails.
Dog park
The dog park article specifically seeks $35,500 from the Community Preservation Unreserved Fund to go to Northborough’s Recreation Department and the Department of Public Works (DPW) for the initial assessment and site survey of up to five locations for a potential dog park.
During his presentation to the Board of Selectmen on March 14, Community Preservation Committee Chair John Campbell said these funds would not pay to build the dog park itself.
“A popular topic in town, people [have been] looking for it for many years, and it’s a priority both of the CPA to support it and also the town’s master plan,” Campbell said of a dog park.
This particular project was presented to the CPC back in January.
At that time, Recreation Director Allie Lane said the town was working with a group in town called Northborough Unleashed trying to bring a dog park into town.
“We’ve been talking about it for over 10 years,” Lane said at the time. “We now want to really move forward and make sure we do it the correct way so that what happened with the Yellick project doesn’t happen again.”
She referenced a situation back in 2020, where plans for a dog park at the Michael P. Yellick Conservation area were canceled following criticism from members of the Yellick family and others who felt the park would be too close to the Assabet River.
There were also concerns as to whether the state Department of Conservation and Recreation had control over the property.
Though those plans stalled, town leaders said at the time that the idea for a dog park wasn’t ending.
Speaking this year, Lane said the community would be engaged in the search for an ideal park location in this new project.
The next phase after an initial, CPA-funded search would come after a site is chosen. Lane said the town would come back to the CPC to purchase the land, if it isn’t already owned by the town.
Step three would involve actually constructing the park, she said.
Trail projects
A separate Town Meeting article is requesting $28,500 allocated to the Trails Committee and DPW for the design of an Americans with Disabilities Act-accessible, paved trail at the Northborough Senior Center.
As Campbell explained it, there is an existing trail at the Senior Center. This project would upgrade it, though, so that the surface would be sufficient for use by wheelchairs and other means of mobility.
“It’s a beautiful layout,” Campbell said. “It would be very convenient for anyone visiting the Senior Center or attending the Senior Center to walk on it.”
Trails Committee member Brian Belfer told the CPC in January that this would be the first accessible woods trail in Northborough.
The trail would extend around the two ponds, run adjacent to nearby railroad tracks, connect to an existing trail in the Edmund Hill Woods Trails area and head back toward the Senior Center, where it would loop around the parking lot.
People would be able to enter the trail from two locations in the Senior Center parking lot, Belfer said.
A second trails article is requesting a total of $133,658 for the preliminary design of pedestrian access of the Assabet River Aqueduct Bridge.
Campbell said this is the first phase of a design study to move this project forward.
Work would involve structural inspection of the bridge, the evaluation of the relocation of utilities and preliminary design of both pedestrian access and safety measures.
Trails Committee Chair Bob Mihalek told the CPC in January the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority gave the town permission to open the 4.2-mile Wachusett Aqueduct corridor that goes along Northborough’s eastern edge to pedestrians several years ago. That work would be done in phases.
“The nice thing about the aqueduct, once we have it fully open, will be we can connect the Crane Swamp area, up the aqueduct, under Route 20, over the Assabet and then all the way up to Mount Pisgah,” Mihalek said.
Town Meeting will take place at Algonquin Regional High School beginning at 6 p.m.
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