Open Space Panel Reviews New Parks Story Map

Other Committee · Meeting of July 1, 2026

NEWINGTON — The Newington Open Space Committee previewed a new interactive "story map" meant to showcase town parks and trails to the public. Staff members Charlie Nevers and Monique presented the ArcGIS-based "Discover Newington's Open Space" site, which features drone footage of Deming Young Farm, trail guides and a planned feature letting residents geotag favorite spots. Members, including Chair Pasquarelli and members Chen, Budrako and Gonzalez, asked for added icons marking dog-friendly areas, ADA access and rentable pavilions, plus inclusion of a dog park and an unmaintained bike trail.

Nevers said the site "we're happy to run in whatever direction" before it goes to the Town Council. Separately, staff reported their town-owned parcel and easement inventory remains "a very, very rough" spreadsheet. The committee also said it has no new update on Cedar Mountain remediation, with one member noting "it's been a couple weeks, so it shouldn't take this long." The committee approved its April 1 minutes and adjourned, both by unanimous voice vote.

In the full story:

• Roll Call, Agenda and Minutes
• Discover Newington's Open Space: the Public Story Map
• Town-Owned Parcel Inventory and Easement Mapping
• Cedar Mountain Remediation Status
• Adjournment
• Who Was There
• Organizations And Documents Referenced
• The complete report: 2,046 words

Source: the Other Committee meeting of July 1, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.

Checked against the record: before publication this article was automatically compared with the meeting transcript.

The Full Article

Roll Call, Agenda and Minutes

The meeting opened with a roll call establishing a quorum of four: Chair Pasquarelli and members Chen, Budrako and Gonzalez. Members Conway and Dalbino were excused, and member Huell did not appear online. The committee made no changes to the agenda, found no members of the public online to comment, and approved the minutes of its April 1 meeting on a unanimous voice vote with no discussion. This was purely procedural and consumed less than two minutes of the meeting.

Discover Newington's Open Space: the Public Story Map

Background and stakes: At the committee's prior meeting, members had asked staff for two things: a way to publicize the town's open space to residents and a more rigorous internal inventory of what the town actually owns. Charlie Nevers, who introduced himself as the incoming staff liaison to the Open Space Committee, and a town GIS staff member identified in the meeting only as Monique, returned with a draft response to both requests.

The question before the body: whether the draft "story map," built on ArcGIS StoryMap software, matches what the committee wants before staff refine it and bring it to the Town Council for public release.

Substantive content: The draft site, titled "Discover Newington's Open Space," opens with drone footage of Deming Young Farm supplied by the fire marshal's office, followed by a historic map that overlays onto a current open-space map as the user scrolls. It then moves through a trails section, listing each town-recognized trail with photos taken during a staff "field work day," length and elevation information, and a link to a PDF trail guide. Nevers noted the trails included are limited to those the Parks and Grounds division formally recognizes as town-maintained, which excludes some informally used paths. One trail connecting the senior center to a nearby neighborhood and the high school has no official name; staff is calling it "the path" for now, a name members said matches longtime local usage.

The parks section follows the same format, park by park, with amenity lists, hours, addresses and an embedded version of a "park finder" app that Nevers said he built the previous fall as a side project but that was never well publicized. The draft also previews a planned public-submission feature: residents would be able to drop a pin on the map, upload a photo and describe a favorite spot, subject to town moderation before the entry is published to an embedded dashboard. Nevers used Mill Pond Park as a working example.

The deliberation: Members pushed for the site to communicate more practical, filterable information rather than just photos. One member suggested the site use icons to flag whether a park is dog-friendly, ADA accessible or has rentable features such as pavilions, noting that Churchill Park has three rentable gazebos with grills. Nevers agreed the information exists in the underlying park-finder data and said it can be pulled into the icon system. Another member flagged that the dog park near the Hartford HealthCare property is missing from the map because that land falls outside the town-maintained parcels staff used to define the project's scope; Nevers said staff would look at adding it regardless. Members also asked that the multi-use "fast track" bike and walking trail, which the town does not maintain, be included with a note on its maintenance status.

Nevers said the project is intentionally built as a "living website" that can be updated seasonally, for instance flagging when a trail is not plowed in winter. He raised the idea of a future community "walk audit," where the committee could document a favorite local route, such as a loop from downtown around the pond and up to "the path," and publish it on the site to encourage locals-only routes to surface for residents using fitness-tracking apps.

"This we're happy to run in whatever direction. If you want to keep it as is, we'll add icons, we'll go to council, get some public feedback on it, and then we'll move from there."Charlie Nevers, incoming staff liaison to the Open Space Committee 00:16:48

A member who said they previously worked in IT raised a structural concern: that scrolling through every park and trail in one long story map could cause users to lose interest before reaching the end. Monique responded that the software allows the team to reorganize into separate sections with a clickable table of contents, similar to a story map the town built for a special legislative session on public-act housing, without losing the "brochure" format. Members also asked that the embedded park-finder app be enlarged and given a more visible icon, since it currently reads as easy to overlook.

Procedural steps and outcome: No formal vote was taken on the story map. The committee directed staff to add requested icons and the dog park and fast-track trail entries, continue refining layout options, and bring a revised version to the Town Council for public feedback before wider release. No date was set for that council presentation.

Implications and what is next: The story map will become the town's primary public tool for displaying open space and, per staff, the reference point for future acquisition discussions with landowners or conservation organizations. Its release to the public awaits further staff revisions and a Town Council review with no confirmed date.

Town-Owned Parcel Inventory and Easement Mapping

Background and stakes: Separate from the public story map, staff are compiling an internal inventory of every town-owned parcel designated as open space, including parcels not open to public access, as a foundation for future prioritization of conservation work.

The question before the body: what criteria the committee wants staff to apply when the inventory moves from a basic parcel list to a weighted analysis identifying priority parcels.

Substantive content: Nevers described the inventory as currently "a very, very rough" spreadsheet of addresses with limited context, distinct from the public-facing wish list of undeveloped, non-town-owned vacant parcels the committee has also discussed. Staff said the next phase involves identifying easements attached to each parcel, including Department of Energy and Environmental Protection restrictions and developer-imposed conservation easements created through open-space subdivision approvals. Staff cited the Rockville subdivision as an example, where a conservation easement runs behind three private backyards with posted signage, filed on the land records and transferred with the deed, but not granting public access. Staff said an existing GIS easement layer already shows some of this information and is used when residents apply for shed or fence permits to flag restricted areas, though the town does not run a deed search for every small permit.

The deliberation: One member asked whether the inventory's weighting should prioritize parcels isolated from other open space versus parcels adjoining existing open space that could be connected into a larger network, and whether species or resource protection should factor into the weighting. Staff said environmental resource value and connectivity are the leading candidates for weighted criteria but that the committee will set final weights once the parcel list and easement research are complete.

A member also raised a specific site along Brookside Road, near a brook path used informally as a trail to the Elmwood post office, asking who owns it. Staff pulled up the parcel on GIS live during the meeting and found ownership split among a private individual, Connecticut Light and Power, a condominium association and the state, with the town owning none of it in that stretch. Staff said the town engineer coordinates with DEP on walkthroughs of the area tied to an Army Corps of Engineers project, but formalizing public access would require a future trail project involving rights-of-way acquisition from multiple private owners.

"I think that might be useful too, to digest the things that are beyond the list that Monique has given to me and we're going to look at, but there might be things that we're not seeing."Charlie Nevers, incoming staff liaison to the Open Space Committee 00:44:40

Procedural steps and outcome: No vote was taken. Staff proposed, and members did not object to, the idea of a future working session where the committee and GIS staff would review the map together to identify town-owned or informally used parcels not yet captured on the inventory list.

Implications and what is next: The parcel inventory and easement layer will inform which open-space parcels the committee eventually prioritizes for conservation or connectivity projects, and the easement data has an immediate practical use for permit review on private property near documented easements. No date was set for the proposed joint working session.

Cedar Mountain Remediation Status

Background and stakes: A committee member asked for an update on remediation or other action regarding a situation atop Cedar Mountain, a matter members said residents outside the committee have also raised.

The question before the body: whether there is any new information on the town's response to the Cedar Mountain issue.

Substantive content and deliberation: Nevers said he has not been involved in or part of any discussions on the matter since taking over the liaison role. Members said a staff member identified only as Jonathan had previously updated the committee that the town planned to contact legal counsel, and that legal had apparently been contacted once already with contact expected again. One member said "it's been a couple weeks, so I mean it shouldn't take this long," and the committee discussed reaching out directly once the relevant staff member returns from being away, expected the following week. A member also noted a prior conversation in which someone suggested avoiding action because it "would be a bad idea," prompting a question of whether the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has actually weighed in or whether that characterization was assumed. A member asked that the committee's inquiry be reflected in the minutes.

Procedural steps and outcome: No vote or formal action was taken. The committee agreed to follow up once the staff member who has been coordinating with legal returns.

Implications and what is next: The remediation question remains unresolved, with the committee planning informal follow-up rather than a scheduled agenda item.

Adjournment

With no old business and no further committee comments, Chair Pasquarelli reflected on the broader open-space awareness goal of the evening's presentations before the committee voted unanimously to adjourn.

WHO WAS THERE

• Chair Pasquarelli, Open Space Committee, present and presiding.
• Member Chen, present.
• Member Budrako, present.
• Member Gonzalez, present.
• Member Conway, excused.
• Member Dalbino, excused.
• Member Huell, absent, did not appear online.
• Charlie Nevers, incoming staff liaison to the Open Space Committee, presented the story map and parcel inventory update.
• Monique, town GIS staff member (surname not given), co-presented the story map and parcel/easement mapping.
• No members of the public were in attendance online; no public comment was offered.

ORGANIZATIONS AND DOCUMENTS REFERENCED

• ArcGIS StoryMap software: the platform used to build the "Discover Newington's Open Space" public site discussed throughout the meeting.
• Fire Marshal's Office: supplied drone footage of Deming Young Farm used in the story map's opening section.
• Parks and Recreation Department: maintains the town parks and trails cataloged in the story map; staff noted the department's own website holds detailed amenity and rental information that the story map will link to rather than duplicate.
• Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEP): cited regarding conservation easement restrictions and as the agency the town's legal team has been contacting about the Cedar Mountain remediation issue.
• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: cited in connection with a cleanup project along the Piper Brook area near Brookside Road that involves coordination with the town engineer and DEP.
• Connecticut Light and Power: identified as a partial landowner of brook-adjacent parcels along Brookside Road discussed during the parcel-ownership review.
• Hartford HealthCare: identified as the landowner of property near a dog park area that falls outside the story map's current town-maintained parcel scope.
• Rockville subdivision: cited as an example of a developer-imposed conservation easement restricting construction behind three private backyards, created through a prior Town Plan and Zoning open-space subdivision approval.
• April 1, 2026 Open Space Committee minutes: approved without discussion at the start of this meeting.