WILMINGTON, MA — The Town of Wilmington received some good news and some bad news regarding grant funding from the state and federal government at Monday’s Board of Selectmen Meeting.
GOOD NEWS: In a memo to Town Manager Jeff Hull, Wilmington Planning Director Valerie Gingrich announced that the town’s Open Space and Recreation Plan was recently approved by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA).
The Open Space Plan, which can be read HERE, now makes the Town eligible to receive state grant funding for open space projects.
Some of the plan’s goals and action items include:
- Providing opportunities for mobility locally and regionally with walking and biking trails
- Construction of the Yentile Farm Recreational Facility
- Construction of a Dog Park at Town Park
- ADA access improvements at Wilmington parks
- Through a conservation subdivision design special permit on Chestnut Street, new public open space was created that will provide new trails to link the Mill Road subdivision trails to the north and Town of Burlington trails to the west, creating a larger public trail network
BAD NEWS: The town has withdrawn its application to the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs to receive a $250,000 grant from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund.
The town learned that grant funding decisions would not come down from the federal level until AFTER the completion of the Yentile project.
Rather than significantly delay construction, the town believes it is in the project’s best interest in to maintain its current plan and timeline, with a groundbreaking ceremony already in the works for the coming weeks.
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