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Date: 9/26/2023
HATFIELD — During their meeting on Sept. 19, the Hatfield Select Board discussed the first draft of a Memorandum of Understanding between the town and the city of Northampton for a shared-use path between the two communities.
The path, which has already been endorsed by the Northampton City Council and through Hatfield Town Meeting, would link Hatfield to the MassCentral Trail and New Haven and Northampton Canal Greenway.
“This will provide what will soon be a continuous link from Boston to Northampton and down to New Haven,” said Northampton Assistant Planner Sarah LaValley, during a City Council meeting back in the winter.
The Northampton to Hatfield multi-use trail was first detailed in 2008 and supported by officials in 2010, but there was no funding source at the time.
The majority of the trail will be part of conservation land that Northampton owns. Only a little over 750 feet will run through Hatfield.
According to Richard Abbott, the chair of Hatfield’s Open Space Committee, residents at Town Meeting voted in support of Hatfield working with Northampton to obtain funding and eventual construction of the trail, which will extend along the Connecticut River beginning at the River Run Apartments on Damon Road in Northampton and ending at Elm Court in Hatfield. The new trail will be 1.3 miles long, and at times, will follow the existing railroad tracks.
Now, both Hatfield and Northampton are looking to agree to a memorandum of understanding involving the swapping of land between the two communities.
According to the initial draft of the MOU, read by Hatfield Open Space member Mark Gelotte during the Sept. 19 Select Board meeting, Northampton will directly pay for the project design and right-of-way plans provided that the city is able to access a $300,000 legislative earmark.
The initial MOU also states that Northampton will donate 11.5 acres of land off of the southeastern side of Hatfield Road in Northampton, Elm Court in Hatfield, and the westerly side of Little Neponset Road in Hatfield.
“This land, up until the time it will be donated, is owned completely by the city of Northampton,” said Gelotte, who added that the land was previously owned by Skibiski Realty LLC and a conservation group known as Valley Land Fund. “The piece of property is wholly in the town of Hatfield.”
Gelotte said this donation of land is necessary because a piece of the trail will run through a small slice of that land.
The MOU also states that Hatfield will donate 1.2 acres of land on Elm Court that it owns to the city of Northampton.
During the meeting, Diana Syznal, the Select Board chair, expressed some concerns about the lack of detailed language on Hatfield’s side of the MOU, including land description and plans around parking.
“My concern with the way that this is brought up is that the discussion about what Northampton will do is very specific in detail…the parts about what Hatfield will do is not identified quite as clearly,” Syznal said. “I think that the description of what Hatfield will do should be as descriptive as the Northampton piece so that there’s no question today or 20 years from now about what we intended with this agreement.”
LaValley responded by saying the city of Northampton is only at the 10% design phase on the project, which means nothing is finalized yet. Any specifics around parking will not be delineated until the 25% design phase, which is a year out from now.
The plan now is for the MOU with more specified language to be reviewed by the Select Board for their Oct. 5 meeting. Syznal said subsequent MOUs will need to be discussed as the design phase continues to evolve.
LaValley stated that a public hearing will occur at the 25 % design phase so the public can also weigh in on the entire project.