Kathleen A. Shaw; TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
SUNDAY TELEGRAM (Massachusetts)
January 17, 2005
Bovenzi Park opens in city; Leominster man donates acreage
WORCESTER
An environmentally important area in the northern part of the city, once slated for development of more than 500 housing units, has been donated to the Greater Worcester Land Trust and Massachusetts Audubon Society's Broad Meadow Brook Conservation Center and Wildlife Sanctuary for conservation.
Leominster developer Peter E. Bovenzi, who has been active with the Leominster Land Trust, donated 80 acres, including Laurel Mountain, to the land trust and sanctuary.
The park consists of the donated 80 acres and about 40 acres acquired in anticipation of an endowment. The land is between Interstate 190 and the Holden line, directly across the highway from Showcase Cinemas.
The city's newest conservation land, to be called Bovenzi Park, was officially opened at a public ceremony yesterday morning. At the public event, held at the end of Maravista Road off West Mountain Street, aerial photos of the land were on display and hiking maps and other information were available from 10 a.m. to noon. The event was the culmination of more than 11 years of work to preserve the land as open space, according to Colin M.J. Novick, project coordinator.
The alarm about diminishing open space in Worcester was raised in the 1980s, when the area was the subject of bitter battles among developers, neighbors, city boards and commissions, and environmental activists. Mr. Bovenzi said he bought the land at auction from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 1992.
Another developer previously had proposed a project called Foxridge, 532 clustered-housing units. The size and potential impact upset many in the community. Another developer scaled the plans back to 254 single-family homes, to be called High Meadow, but it was never built.
Mr. Bovenzi finally built about 40 homes on some of the property, while preserving the rest as a conservation area. Mr. Bovenzi said it is possible for a developer to profit from his venture while preserving open land. "You need a reasonable balance," he said.
Mr. Bovenzi has been involved in development and land conservation for 20 years and has worked with the Massachusetts Audubon Society. He called Deborah D. Cary, executive director of Mass. Audubon's Broad Meadow Brook, "a phenomenal person" and said he is impressed with the work of the Worcester Land Trust.
"They are dedicated people," he said.
His involvement with the Worcester groups led him to help found the Leominster Land Trust to preserve open space in the Fitchburg-Leominster area. The Worcester groups provided guidance and technical assistance for the Leominster organization, he said. Mr. Bovenzi said he is working on a Fitchburg development project of more than 100 acres, where 75 percent of the land will remain open space.
He has other projects under way in Sturbridge and New Hampshire.
The Laurel Mountain preservation project is the second-largest land conservation area in Worcester, Mr. Novick said. The largest is the Audubon sanctuary.
"We're excited. It's big, and it's visual," Mr. Novick said.
The new conservation area is one of the few remaining hilltops in Worcester in their natural state, he said, and it is the largest open space in the northern part of the city.
Weasel Brook runs through this property. Mr. Novick said keeping this water clean is important because it eventually feeds into Salisbury Pond, which is the beginning of the Blackstone Canal.
Mr. Novick said the preservation effort will enable the conservation of four state-certified vernal pools; protect more than a mile of Weasel Brook and other streams; and, protect about 95 acres of upland forest and about 25 acres of vegetated wetland. In the past year, the city Conservation Commission requested and received a 0.414-acre tax title lot abutting the project, which will add
to this collaborative effort. A $40,000 endowment has been donated to protect and keep up the land, Mr. Novick said.
Mr. Bovenzi was formally recognized at yesterday's ceremony. The park is dedicated in memory of his grandparents, the late Frank J. and Anna Bovenzi, who settled in Worcester before moving to Leominster. The 120 acres will be owned by the trust while Mass. Audubon will permanently hold the development rights through a conservation restriction. The Bovenzis once lived in the Plantation Street area, Mr. Bovenzi said.
The Laurel Mountain area was originally identified in Worcester's 1987 open space inventory as among the "top 10" priorities for the city.
"This is a terrific example of a community with a good plan that made good land protection possible," Ms. Cary said. "This is a real collaborative effort, where the Greater Worcester Land Trust stuck with it and worked with the developer. It takes a long time to pull everything together in land protection."
"It's a wonderful thing," said Allen Fletcher, trust president. "Bottom line, this never would have happened without Peter's interest, imagination and desire to do something good. It's like a Christmas present at the end of the year."
The previously acquired parcel of land was a cow pasture owned for generations by the Nichols family. It was sold to the trust in 1994 by the husband of Margaret Nichols, who had died, Mr. Novick said. Her husband died two years after the sale.
The land donated by Mr. Bovenzi was owned by Norton Co. before I-190, which passes close to the property, was built, Mr. Novick said.
