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Vol. 2, No. 6
Monday, September 17, 2001
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Over the summer, it proved to be more difficult to get plans done and hearings on Dolan Pond held. However, now that the city designer has drawn up some plans based on the previous presentations, hearings, and comments, there will be two important meetings at City Hall on Thursday evening regarding Dolan Pond. The first will be another public hearing before the Newton Conservation Commission. They meet on the second floor of City Hall in Room 209 starting around 7:30 PM. The Dolan Pond plans will be one of the items on their docket. Ideally, it would be one of the earlier items to be considered and should be completed by 8:30 PM. Following this will be a meeting of the West Newton CDBG Advisory Committee downstairs in the City Hall Cafeteria where the plans will be available for additional scrutiny and comment. Both meetings are required to fulfill various regulations and it was thought to be more convenient to hold them in conjunction with each other due to time and convenience factors for those who wanted to attend.
The preliminary notice and some of the plans and drawings have been obtained from Martha Horn and copies made. These copies and documents have been copied and will be posted shortly on the clipboards at the three major entrances to Dolan Pond (Auburndale Ave., Cumberland Road (South), and Webster Park. You are invited to peruse these (20 some page) documents prior to the meeting. In addition Public Notices about the meeting have been placed around the Dolan Pond area. It is hoped to post this information on our website in the near future by scanning them in and uploading them (but this takes time to do).
The actual plan is still a bit under revision and is somewhat larger in size. It is available for inspection before the meeting at the Engineering Department in City Hall. Among the items to be modified on it are the positioning of the overlooks. In particular, the Quinn Pond overlook needs to be sited in the field at a more optimal location than may be shown on the early plan.
At the CDBG portion of the meeting, sample materials for the boardwalk, stabilized surface, and bench materials will be available for inspection and possibly choices of colors. The content of the Public Notice sign is reproduced below. In addition, there is the wording of the Notice of Intent provided by Martha Horn.
Welcome to Dee Spiro, a new community development planner, who is taking over for Tania Dobrowolski. Thanks very much to Tania for her CDBG leadership on this project. She has been working closely with Dee bringing her up to date on the project. Dee was able to attend the previous Conservation Committee meeting (even before she officially started working). Her contact information is provided below.
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Meeting Regarding the Final Plans for Improvements to the Dolan Pond Conservation
Area
Presentation and Discussion of the Final Plans for Dolan Pond
Thursday, September 20 - 8:30 PM,
Following the Conservation Commission Meeting
City Hall Cafeteria
Basement Level
The Dolan Pond Conservation Area is slated to receive $150,000 in Fiscal Year 2002 Federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Funds for site improvements. The public meeting on Thursday, September 20 will allow the City to present the final plans and receive public comment.
For questions about the meeting or the Dolan Pond project, please contact Dee Spiro at (617) 552-7136 x 18 or at dspiro@ci.newton.ma.us.
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Narrative Description
9/4/01
The Dolan Pond Conservation Area is an 8-acre parcel of wetland in a basin surrounded by residential development. It is bounded by properties on Auburndale Avenue, Webster Park, Cumberland Road, Larkin Road, and Stratford Road. The wetlands present include: open water, marsh, shrub swamp, wooded swamp, and a brook. Upland areas exist at the entrances. The birding at Dolan is the best in the City and the area sustains the usual complement of small mammals and a coyote family.
The existing pathways come from each of the streets mentioned and meet in the center of the area. The pathways consist primarily of wood chipped paths through upland and wetland areas, several small boardwalks through the wetter portions of the wetland and beaten paths in upland areas. Due to the substantial number of regular visitors, we find we are putting down wood chips on a regular basis. Some visitors leave the pathways and are disturbing wildlife.
For those reasons, we have decided that the best approach s to have a boardwalk system through the wettest areas and stabilized pathways in the uplands linking the boardwalks to Webster Park and Auburndale Avenue. All boardwalks and pathways will follow the existing pathway system. We will also include a new 2-van parking area so that handicapped access is provided in the areas which can be made accessible. The main path between the center of the area out to Cumberland Road will remain wood chips as it is predominantly upland and has a substantial rise which cannot accommodate wheelchairs without a major re-routing and wetland disturbance.
We also plan two observation decks, one HP accessible at Quinn Pond and one at Dolan Pond. We also intend to place several sitting boulders at the end of Stratford Road on a level area adjacent to the wetland. In making these special areas available, we hope to maintain the interest of the students who visit from nearby Burr School while keeping them from wandering.
Signage will be erected at the main entrances, with an informational kiosk in the center of the area where the pathways intersect. New fencing and plantings will be installed in the upland area at the Auburndale Avenue entrance once all the construction has been completed.
The boardwalks and observation platforms will be constructed of plastic compound decking atop pressure-treated wood on helical pier foundations. The design calls for the drilled foundations and underpinnings to be installed from the existing pathway, with the actual decking sections being fabricated off-site and brought in for installation. By requiring the contractor to work in this way, and by requiring him to work during the dry season, we hope to minimize disruption to the wetland and wildlife.
The limits of the Bordering Vegetated Wetland (BVW) at the pathway system are so obvious that they have not been flagged for purposes of this Notice of Intent. Where there are boardwalks and observation decks, they will be installed in the BVW over an existing pathway. In the bid documents and at the time of construction, the exact limits will be flagged to keep the contractor in bounds.
- Martha J. Horn, Senior Environmental Planner
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Welcome to the Dolan Pond News, a publication of Friends of Dolan Pond, a local organization that promotes the protection and preservation of the Dolan Pond Conservation Area in West Newton, MA. This rather loose organization has a website, www.dolanpond.org and an email address, "info@dolapond.org". If you are interested in the organization, please contact Ted Kuklinski at 617-969-6222, write to Friends of Dolan Pond, 24 Henshaw Terrace, West Newton, MA 02465, or send email to info@dolanpond.org.
This newsletter is primarily published and distributed by email. If you wish to receive the newsletter or request to discontinue receiving the newsletter by email, please contact us as above. It is also posted in paper form on clipboards at the major entrances to the area. If you have any information, material, photos, poems, writings, etc. concerning Dolan Pond that you would like to share, please send them along. Please forward the email version along to anyone you know who might be interested in receiving it or ask them to send us an email to join our subscription list.
Contents | Dolan Pond News | Home
Contents | Dolan Pond News | Home
Hope to see you at Dolan Pond soon!