HomeMy WebLinkAboutBarnstable Land Trust Comments on Open Space and Recreation Plan update
1540 Main Street West Barnstable, MA 02668 E-mail: janet@blt.org Phone: 508-771-2585
September 18, 2025
Kyle Pedicini, Assistant Director
Planning and Development
Town of Barnstable
367 Main Street
Hyannis, MA 02601
Dear Kyle,
We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the Town of Barnstable Open Space and Recreation Plan
update. This document plays a vital role in guiding how our community protects natural resources,
expands recreational opportunities, and strengthens resilience in the years ahead.
As the main non-profit organization working to conserve open space in the Town of Barnstable, Barnstable
Land Trust is keenly aware of critical landscapes lost to development, sea level rise, and other impacts of
climate change. As land prices rise exorbitantly, it becomes harder and harder for organizations like ours
to raise the funds to meet land protection needs. The Cape Cod Commission notes that only 14% of the
Cape’s land area remains available for conservation or development, and most of that land is ecologically
important for habitat and climate resilience. So, the need for open space is more pressing but it is harder
to accomplish.
And yet, access to nature and open space remain top priorities for the residents of our town and Cape
Cod, as evidenced by recent surveys from the Local Comprehensive Plan Committee and the Cape Cod
Commission. A strong town role in open space protection is more important than ever.
Overall, we commend the Town of Barnstable for its thoughtful work in identifying priorities and strategies
that balance conservation, recreation, and community needs. As the updated plan is drafted, we would
recommend the Town consider ways to improve future implementation of the plan. It should clearly
articulate the community benefits of conserving open space by describing how it can help address water
quality issues for both fresh and coastal waters, advance biodiversity goals, and build climate resiliency.
It should connect natural resource protection goals with land acquisition goals, aim for expanded and
equitable access to open space, and improve stewardship of existing open space.
Details on each of these areas are outlined below.
1. Implementation and Funding
While the plan lays out ambitious goals, its impact will depend on a clear path to implementation.
Identifying potential funding sources, prioritizing projects, assigning responsibilities, and scheduling
regular status check-ins will help ensure that the plan’s vision becomes reality. As detailed below and
in the attached, the progress on the current OSRP is uneven and in many cases, quite limited. How
will future implementation be improved?
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In the attached OSRP Goals and Actions document we have made comments on the existing OSRP
Section 9 Action Plan, with suggestions to be incorporated into the updated plan.
2. Benefits of Conservation and Recreation
It is important that the OSRP strongly and clearly describe the benefits of conservation and recreation
open space. These benefits include:
Protecting open space improves quality of life for residents by:
• Allowing for and encouraging recreational use. Local recreational access is important because
most recreational activities are conducted within five miles of home.
• Providing numerous health benefits. Research indicates that people with access to the outdoors
show long term health improvement.
• Improving air quality, helping to avoid the costs associated with pollution.
• Keeping temperatures cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, avoiding a range of health
problems and reducing energy bills.
• Helping to address disparities in access to nearby open space.
Protecting open space generates local jobs and bolsters businesses by:
• Supporting tourism-related businesses.
• Recruiting new residents who may be business owners, entrepreneurs, or workers, supporting
growth in earnings per job across the community.
• Protecting working landscapes and improving water quality and habitat that are vital to the
commercial fishing and shellfishing industries.
Protecting open space benefits municipalities by:
• Avoiding increased costs of public services that would have been required if the conserved
property had been developed, such as increased school, public works, and public safety services.
• Positively impacting local employment outcomes and economic growth thereby improving the
commercial tax base.
• Enhancing nearby property values by creating an amenity value, increasing tax revenue collected
as assessments are adjusted.
• Protecting clean drinking water from contamination, filtering and cleaning drinking water, and
enhancing infiltration and replenishment of groundwater resources, reducing treatment costs.
• Naturally infiltrating and managing stormwater, lowering the levels of phosphorus, nitrogen, and
total suspended solids that end up in waterbodies, and thereby lowering management costs.
• Storing and slowing runoff from storms, thereby reducing the frequency and magnitude of floods;
preventing development in flood-prone areas where property damage is most likely during flood
events.
(Source: How Conserving Open Space Provides Economic Benefits to Massachusetts Communities, Primrose
Research Group for the Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition, March 2022)
3. Addressing Water Quality Issues Through Open Space
Clean water is central to the health of our natural ecosystems and clean drinking water is critically
important for human health. According to the Association to Preserve Cape Cod (APCC) 2024 State of
the Waters Report, within the Town of Barnstable 74% of our measured coastal embayments, and
50% of our monitored ponds have water quality considered unacceptable, meaning that these water
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bodies are suffering from excess nutrients and need immediate restoration to improve water quality.
In addition, the Cape Cod Commission reports that the quality of Cape Cod’s community public
drinking water supply is generally very good, but over the past 15 years there has been a trend toward
some degradation. Nitrate levels in public supply wells have slowly increased over time, due to
increased loading from septic systems, stormwater, and other nitrogen sources, and PFAS6 is a
growing concern.
The 2018 OSRP identified threats to public water supply and fresh and marine surface water bodies,
made recommendations for addressing these threats, and created action items for implementation.
However, our water quality continues to decline.
We encourage the Town to strengthen land use policies and strategies for open space acquisition and
management to better protect the Town’s drinking water quality and fresh and marine surface waters,
including implementation of existing OSRP and LCP action items aimed at protecting existing water
supply protection land and increasing the pace of open space acquisition of priority parcels.
4. Supporting Biodiversity Conservation Through Open Space
The 2018 OSRP emphasizes the importance of protecting wetlands, forests, and open spaces to
protect wildlife habitat and biodiversity. Biodiversity continues to decline at an unprecedented rate.
According to the 2025 Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game report
Biodiversity Conservation Goals for the Commonwealth, in just one generation we have lost over 3
billion birds in North America, seen the decline of iconic species like Atlantic cod, and rarely see
fireflies in our backyards in summer. Our biodiversity plays a vital role in our economy and makes
Barnstable an attractive place to live, work and visit.
We encourage the Town to include biodiversity conservation goals that:
• Protect the most important habitats for species and climate resilience, including BioMap
designated lands, key wildlife migration corridors, locally identified important biodiversity, and
key connecting parcels that reduce habitat fragmentation.
• Restore the most important habitats for species and climate resilience by assisting in the
recovery and renewal of ecosystems that have been degraded, through both passive monitoring
and active restoration practices.
• Connect people and nature to empower people to take action in their own backyards and
communities by partnering with organizations to improve nature literacy, support
neighborhood initiatives, and promote community programs.
5. Improving Climate Resilience Through Open Space
Climate change is expected to have significant impacts to woodlands, coastal areas, and wildlife
habitat across the town. Intense rainstorms are likely to occur more frequently causing more flooding,
especially where existing paved and developed areas increase storm flows. Summer drought
conditions will strain our public water supplies, invasive plants and insects will also expand in the
changing landscape, and mosquito-borne diseases may become more prevalent. Our community will
need to make major investments to combat and accommodate rising temperatures and sea levels and
the increased frequency of flooding and severe storms.
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We encourage the Town to more explicitly connect open space protection with climate adaptation—
such as flood mitigation, carbon sequestration, and heat island reduction. Strengthening these
linkages could help attract state and federal funding opportunities.
We also encourage the town to adopt the above biodiversity conservation goals to protect and restore
important habitats to build climate resiliency and to align with goals within the Local Comprehensive
Plan update to identify and protect coastal areas with the potential for inland migration of coastal
wetlands.
6. Meeting Natural Resource Protection Goals
The 2023 report by Association to Preserve Cape Cod, Hanging in the Balance – An Urgent Call for
Protecting Cape Cod’s Natural Resources, states that of the approximately 14 percent of the Cape that
remains undeveloped and unprotected, approximately 80 percent of what’s left is located within the
highest value natural resource areas. These natural areas on which human health and our quality of
life depend must be protected before they are lost. The APCC report provides suggested actions that
local town governments can take to protect, preserve, restore, and enhance their natural resources.
We encourage the Town to consider these action items that include continuing to advance open space
acquisitions, continuing investments in nutrient reduction techniques, expanding the use of
innovative planning strategies to protect natural resources, and increasing restoration of natural
resource areas.
7. Emphasize Equitable Access to Open Space
Access to parks, natural areas, and trails should be expanded in underserved neighborhoods. The plan
could include more specific strategies—such as acquisition of smaller pocket park open space areas,
safe walking/biking routes, multilingual signage, and outreach programs—that ensure all residents
can enjoy these resources. Specifically, we encourage the Town to support the proposed publicly
accessible protected open space area at the old Twin Brooks golf course property, now owned by
Riverview School. Partnering with Riverview School and BLT on protecting and improving this 20+ acre
open space area will provide important new opportunities for passive recreation in the underserved
Hyannis community.
8. Strengthen Land Stewardship and Community Engagement
Protecting and managing open spaces requires strong partnerships. We suggest that the updated plan
include more details on fostering collaboration with local nonprofits, volunteer groups, and schools
to build stewardship and educational opportunities.
We recommend following additional action items:
• Improve signage, kiosks, and trail markers at town-owned properties.
• Provide information to the community on who to contact with open space questions and
concerns.
• Increase staff resources for land stewardship activities or consider contracting out stewardship
activities.
• Monitor impacts from illegal use of open space property and increase enforcement. For
example, illegal dirt bike and ATV use and illegal dumping. Consider providing designated areas
for these activities in appropriate spaces.
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BLT is a willing partner in advancing the goals of the OSRP, including as an open space acquisition partner,
as a fee-for-service land stewardship provider that can leverage a team of almost 70 local volunteers, and
as a community programming partner welcoming people to the land and connecting them with the natural
world through over 120 free programs each year.
Barnstable Land Trust supports the Town’s efforts to update the Open Space and Recreation Plan and
believes that by considering these recommendations when updating the Plan, it will provide an even
stronger framework for protecting our natural resources and enhancing quality of life for all residents.
Thank you for your efforts and for the opportunity to contribute feedback.
Sincerely,
Janet Milkman
Executive Director