Parks, Open Space, and Natural Resources Manager James McGrath, left, and Seth Jenkins, senior planner at BRPC, go over the city's Open Space and Recreation Plan at a public meeting in October.

PITTSFIELD, Mass.— The city's Open Space and Recreation Plan is due for an update to guide the next five years.

Parks, Open Space, and Natural Resources Manager James McGrath and Seth Jenkins, senior planner at the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, have worked on the effort over the past year so that the city remains eligible for state grant funding. The last approved plan ran from 2019 to 2024.

"We want to make certain that our strategies are attainable and that we have a clear path of funding to get them implemented," McGrath told the Parks Commission on last week.

"Because there's nothing worse than sort of creating this excitement over something and then not having the resources to implement or not having the funding."

Open space and recreation plans are a tool communities use to plan for conservation and recreation needs and are reviewed by the Division of Conservation Services. Open spaces go beyond city parks, as preserves and land trusts, waterbodies, farms, forests, and more fall under that category.

A survey garnered nearly 300 responses last summer and results were presented during a public forum in October.  At the meeting last year, the most popular words attendees used to describe Pittsfield parks were "clean" and "beautiful" and nearly 60 percent of survey respondents want to see bathroom improvements.

"We heard a lot from folks in terms of satisfaction with the city's parks but also maybe some desires to see," Jenkins said.

"Some bathroom improvements, some security and lighting improvements, maybe some additional programming but for the most part, people sounded like they were happy. So now we're looking at the old plan, the 2017 plan, to say, 'Where are we with these goals that were in that plan? Are some of them maybe no longer necessary? Are some of them requiring an update? Are some of them needing a complete revision?"

The five goals enunciated in the 2017 OSRP and objectives were reviewed with the commission:

1. Protect natural resources to maintain biodiversity.
2. Ensure adequate opportunities for recreation and consideration uses for residents of all ages and abilities.
3. Ensure adequate funding for maintaining and upgrading existing city parks.
4. Preserve traditional land use patterns, decrease sprawl, and protect open spaces.
5. Partner with residents, the state, and other groups to enhance open space facilities.

"We're sort of chipping away at all these and trying to understand what makes sense to carry forward," McGrath said.

He explained they are not at the point of revisiting the plan's goals and objectives to see if they need tweaking.  He then wants to use the commission and the public's feedback to craft action items that will help the city meet its goals and bring them back in a month or two.

"I will preface that this goal four and these objectives have been reviewed by our city planner,"  he clarified about the goal related to preserving traditional use patterns and decreasing sprawl.

"And there's a lot of conversation that he's having right now around the current goals for the city around future development, how we should be developing as a community into the future."

Commissioner Anthony DeMartino feels the goals "almost can just kind of keep going on because you wrote them so well."

"It speaks to the land, the maintenance, the financing," he said. "But that is the work each time we review this plan that has to get customized, chipped."

McGrath said the strategies really are "where the rubber meets the road" and the team is working on that now.  Commissioners will review a marked-up draft and provide any comments they see fit.

"And we'll sort of put it all up in a sifter and we'll sort of see what shakes out," he explained.

"And there's really no right or wrong way to do this but it's really just critically important that if there's something we feel really strongly about as a commission, that we make certain that we get it in here."

Chair Paula Albro commented that this is a place where the Wahconah Park restoration should be and was met with "absolutely."

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