By Anne Paulsen
Belmont is a small town and space is limited. Land use planning is key to maintaining a town that is walkable and bikeable with shopping, services, recreation, educational opportunities, and open space close at hand. The key is how to make the best use of this limited space.
The town is now planning the completion of the high and middle schools, and plans are underway for a new skating rink and library. Parking is a big part of the plans. For the last 50 years, off-street surface parking in the area west of Harris Field has been limited, but the facilities have worked with what has been available.
And for 50 years, 10 tennis courts were available at the high school. They served as a home for the high school tennis team and were well used by the community at large. But as plans developed for the new school complex, the use of valuable space for tennis courts was eliminated. Tennis courts are not scheduled to be rebuilt at the high school. Tennis will be the only high school sport where the varsity games will not be played on the campus.
Map of the tennis courts previously found near the old Belmont High School.
The alternative for the high school tennis team is to use the four recreational courts at the Winn Brook playground for their practices and games. A fifth court at the Winn Brook is scheduled to be added to accommodate Middlesex League matches and tournaments, but there are no facilities for the players except for a portable toilet parked next to the courts. The fifth court further reduces green space at the playground, and these courts are no longer available to the community when the high school is using them. The loss of these courts for many afternoons creates further pressure on the remaining eight courts around the town, and with the advent of pickleball, there is a premium on the availability of courts in Belmont.
Beyond the loss of tennis courts, other spaces at the high school have also been reconfigured. Despite the goal to encourage students to walk and ride bikes to the new school, automobile accessibility has been emphasized with a two-lane road circling the campus to allow for drop-offs at the door of each school. Faculty and staff parking will be along the back of the building. Plans approved by the Planning Board include student parking on Concord Avenue and in a 110-space student parking lot (90 spaces for the students and 20 for the rink) to be constructed in front of the proposed rink and available to others when school is not in session.
This past year, students have parked along Concord Avenue and in the curved parking lot known as “the jug handle” near the rink. Overflow student parking moved into the surrounding neighborhoods, impeding access for emergency vehicles and creating other dangerous situations with violations of intersection and driveway setbacks.
To respond to these concerns as well as concerns about increased neighborhood traffic and pedestrian and bicycle safety, the High and Middle School Traffic Working Group has partnered with the police department to limit the hours of parking on certain neighborhood streets and to advise parents to drop off and pick up students in designated areas. While partially successful, not all problems have been eliminated. Myrtle Street, which is near the school, has alternate side-of-the-street parking at all times; parking is prohibited on one side of the street for half its length, then parking is prohibited on the other side.
This arrangement seems to work most of the time. Naturally, there are times when students and others do not obey parking laws, which creates neighborhood opposition to on-street parking.
A third factor in planning for the high school has been the advent of the Belmont Community Path. When the underpass at Alexander Avenue is built, the Winn Brook neighborhood will have easy access to the new middle and high school as well as the library, the pool, and the skating rink. The need for automobile drop-offs will diminish because walking and biking will be safe and easy.
What good news to hear the chair of the Belmont Middle and High School Building Committee tell the Planning Board last month that with Concord Avenue and the jug handle available for student parking and an emphasis on biking and walking, there is no need for a student parking lot in front of the rink!
Is the planned parking lot still necessary for the future, or would other uses be more beneficial for the town? As I stated earlier, the library, the pool, and the rink have prospered with existing limited parking all these years, and with the community path and tunnel in the offing, as well as more emphasis on safe biking and walking, fewer cars should be accessing this area in the future.
Without the large parking lot, there is plenty of room for tennis courts and some open space as well. According to my research, each car space averages 20 by 8 feet, but counting space between cars and access to the spaces, each space consumes almost 300 square feet. A tennis court is 2,106 square feet. Five tennis courts will require just under 11,000 square feet and the 35 spaces in the jug handle about 10,000 square feet. This leaves additional space open for other uses or open space.
Changes in the way we value the limited space in our town require buy-in by community members. While there are many advantages to living near many of the town facilities, there are disadvantages as well. Proximity to the town’s center, the library, the pool, the schools, and the athletic fields means walking is easy and children can be more independent. I always appreciate being able to hear the band as it practices and the cheers from the softball and football games as well as having neighborhood activity during much of the year.
The inconvenience is that other residents who live further away want to park close to their activities. The question becomes, “Is it more important to use space for activities or for parking?” The School Committee oversees the land west of Harris Field. I and hundreds more Belmont residents hope that the School Committee looks to the future and champions the better use of this area by abandoning the planned parking lot and supporting the inclusion of tennis courts west of Harris Field.
Anne Paulsen is a long-time resident of Belmont and served on the School Committee, the Belmont Select Board, and as the representative from the 24th Middlesex District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
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