Minutes 2006

Royalston Open Space Committee

Meeting Date: September 14, 2006
Members Present: Aaron Ellison, Kim MacPhee, Patty Carrier, Tom Musco
Chair: Aaron Ellison
Clerk: Aaron Ellison (acting)

The meeting convened at 7:30 p.m. at town hall.

Minutes:
The committee unanimously approved the minutes of July 13, 2006.
(The committee met but had no quorum on August 10, 2006.)

Regional Issues:
Discussion with Jay Rasku, from North Quabbin Regional Landscape Partnership (NQRLP):
Jay outlined what NQRLP does: It is a voluntary collboration to help conservation happen in a larger, regional way. It provides support for town boards to help with issues such as Chapter 61,
the Community Preservation Act, Conservation Restrictions, etc. It can assist towns with projects
involving open space protection. It has a small grants program to help towns with transaction fees
(up to $4000). Next deadline will be March/April 2007

NQRLP upcoming events:
10/18, 6:30pm,Harvard Forest: Community meeting to discuss how to evaluate parcels, and to decide on next steps for priority parcels in each of the NQRLP towns

10/26, 7:00pm, Orange (Town Hall): Invitation-only meeting for large-lot land-owners, with a focus on the new tax incentives for donating conservation restrictions.

Discussion with Dan LaRoche, from Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust (MGLCT) on how to do a protection project:
For pro-active projects, plan/process for how to proceed and how to pay for it. Dan distributed a MGLCT hand-out.

MGLCT can help with approaching land-owners (often works better than town boards or governments).

Provided an outline/form to evaluate land protection projects to help prioritize activities.

Suggests honing in on a single project to focus on for first year or two of Open Space Committee activities. This project could be the one identified by the NQRLP prioritization.

The meeting adjourned at 9:00 p.m.