MARION — Bill Napolitano, a regional watershed coordinator, thinks that Marion will make great use of an Open Space and Recreation Plan.

“You have a beautiful community with all of the open space that you have,” he said, during a meeting of the Marion Stewards of Community Open Space on Thursday, Feb. 16. “The land on the water, inland forest land. You have everything and it’s well worth protecting.”

Napolitano is a rivers, trails and watershed coordinator with the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District, or SRPEDD. 

On Thursday, Feb. 16, Napolitano and a team from SRPEDD presented “stage nine” of Marion’s Open Space and Recreation Plan which has been in development since 2017.

An Open Space and Recreation Plan is a tool that a community can use to plan for the future of its conservation and recreation resources. According to Napolitano, the plan relies heavily on public input. 

In stage nine, an “action plan” is developed using input from a “rigorous public survey process.” The action plan outlines a number of different projects that the town can take on.

Action items include developing a plan to install or upgrade shared use pathways for pedestrians or bicycles, installing new crosswalks on Route 6 and Front Street, upgrading tennis courts at Sippican School, or completing a town-wide bike path. 

Items like these are designed to let the public make better use of the town’s open space.

Other items aim to protect Marion’s natural land by “addressing the need for beach nourishment at the Planting Island causeway” and encouraging the protection of land through sound forestry practices and conservation restrictions. 

If approved by the town and the state, the plan allows Marion to apply for state, federal and non-profit grant funding for these projects and to work with outside organizations. 

The action items act as a roadmap for open space and recreation projects that the town can pursue — but the plan is not a strict guide. 

“Some action points are already in the process of being addressed while others are just there as opportunities as those grants become available,” said Rhiannon Dugan, a senior environmental planner with SRPEDD.

Napolitano pointed to pickleball courts and other forms of recreation as examples of what isn’t on the action plan but could be built with grant funding. 

According to Napolitano, Marion has “a lot of older people but a lot of active people” who are well suited to make use of their town’s open space. 

Aging populations “want to be connected to the community but they don't want to have to hop in the car,” he said. “They want to get out and walk, run, jog and ride.” 

Napolitano said that he has seen open space plans for other communities be approved in “as quickly as a couple of months.”

Marion’s Open Space and Recreation Plan is available to read online on the SRPEDD website. The action plan begins on page 119 of the document. 

“If you haven’t seen it, it’s 250 pages, it passes the weight test,” joked Marion Select Board member Norm Hills. 

The public can weigh in on the Open Space Recreation Plan until Tuesday, Feb. 28 by sending any comments to SRPEDD Environmental Planner Lauren Carpenter at lcarpenter@srpedd.org.