LEVERETT — A conservation restriction is being placed on 27 acres of a Two Mile Road parcel, ensuring that the Robert Frost Trail that passes through it will continue to be maintained and publicly accessible.
The Select Board Tuesday approved Kestrel Land Trust holding the conservation restriction on the land that is owned by Gay Hapgood.
Lee Halasz, a conservation manager for Kestrel, explained that protecting the land in this way means the trail, which extends about 26 miles from Hadley to Wendell, can be kept passable.
The protected land also includes a large wetlands area with heron habitat, Halasz said.
Aside from the trail, the property remains private and off limits for public use. Hapgood can do farming, forestry and other recreational activities on the protected land, but development, including any housing subdivisions or solar arrays, is not allowed.
Another 12 to 14 acres of the property is not part of the conservation restriction.
The Select Board also agreed that the First Congregational Church at 4 Montague Road can make a series of landscaping improvements to both church and public property.
Ralph Tiner, who chairs the church council, said the church will be putting in flowery plants, shrubs and herbs along one area in front of the building, leaving a crabapple tree intact, and in another section will remove wildflowers and grasses to make a stone wall more visible.
“It’s an improvement in downtown Leverett, no doubt about it,” Select Board member Tom Hankinson said.
This work will not impede possible development of sidewalks that could be coming to Leverett center in the future. Though the work will be visible from the nearby Leverett Crafts and Arts, the landscaping is set back from where the sidewalk would be located.
In other business, the board:
- approved spending $383,125 to buy a new road grader from Milton CAT of Chicopee using $250,000 from a recent state grant that assists communities in caring for their gravel roads. The grader will be built and delivered later this year;
- established a hiring committee for a full-time police sergeant, though it’s uncertain if the members will need to meet as only one of four applicants for the open position was qualified;
- hired Gregory Massa as a full-time building custodian, a 19-hour a week position that pays $20.81 per hour.
