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Managing Editor CHICOPEE It was once a place where ice was harvested to cool food on warm summer days. And it was once a swimming area and a neighborhood resort. If city officials were able to see their current plan for Robert Pond become a reality, Chicopee would gain an additional park. Mayor Michael Bissonnette has started a conversation about Roberts Pond with Commissioner Richard Sullivan of the Department of Conservation and Recreation. In a letter sent July 30, Bissonnette told Sullivan he is exploring what options the city has to turn the currently privately owned property into a park. "The city recognizes that the only solution to the Roberts Pond dilemma to acquire the property and eliminate the dam," Bissonnette wrote Sullivan. "The city further recognizes that its former use as a recreational facility was its highest and best use and that Roberts Pond should be redeveloped as a public park." City Planner Kate Brown told The Chicopee Herald the process would be difficult, but the project should interest state officials whose priorities include removal of unused dams, pollution and erosion control and the re-establishment of open spaces. "It's very complicated, but very cool," she said. Bissonnette estimated in his letter the cost to redevelop Roberts Pond into a park "could easily exceed $3 million and the city is not in a position to absorb the entire cost of repairs and redevelopment." In the 1920s Roberts Pond, also known as Mountain Lake, was created when the owners of the property built an earthen dam to control the Willimansett Brook, which flows to the Connecticut River. Over the years, the 24-acre site was the home to a series of privately owned beaches and restaurants. In the 1990s, the property went into receivership and it was sold to JHJH, Inc. One of the principals is Jay Hebert, the owner of Paper City Brewery, said Brown. By this time, the dam had deteriorated and in 2005 the spillway collapsed. The State Office of Dam Safety ordered the pond to be drawn down. The owners compiled with the order, and fitted the outlet control structure with a trash rack, which if blocked could trap water behind the dam recreating the lake. The property is now in tax title with over $225,000 owed to the city. There is only one acre that could be developed into a non-park use, but a sewer line hinders the development. This is where the former restuarant now is located a burnt-out shell. Currently the brook is cutting through the property as it did prior to the 1920s and Brown remarked that if you walk the property you forget one is in the middle of a residential neighborhood and near the busy Memorial Drive. The brook has cut a new path through the property and the banks of the one-time lake are covered with plants. The Willimansett Brook supplies a relaxing natural sound of running water and dragonflies buzz overhead. Brown explained it would be difficult and costly to remove the dam because a city sewer line runs through it. She said to neutralize the dam and its potential to collect water; the strategy would be to increase the size of the currently small outlet at the base of the dam. Clearing up the issue of the back taxes would be the first step in the park's development, Brown said. State and federal funding would be necessary to complete the project within the next five years. In his letter, Bissonnette wrote, "The city is confident that some of the cost can be defrayed by incorporating the pond area into an innovative storm water and erosion control management project followed by seeking urban Self Help Grant funding to phase in the park development." | ||||||
