ATHOL – Heather Gould, Director of Planning for BSC Group, met with Athol’s Selectboard Tuesday night and presented results of a community survey regarding the 100-acre Bidwell property on South Athol Road, as well as the site planning process undertaken by the consulting firm. BSC was hired by the town with funds from the Community Compact Program overseen by the state’s Executive Office of Administration and Finance.

Gould updated the board on the conditions on the property, describing as being mainly evergreen and deciduous forest land, with wetlands comprising about a quarter of the site. The USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service recognizes the parcel as being “Farmland of Statewide Importance.” In addition, she said, the property is zoned Rural Single-Family with an Adaptive Reuse Overlay District. Topographically, the site rises 230 feet from its lowest to its highest elevation, from 538 to 768 feet above sea level.

Before getting into recommendations for potential use of the site, Gould discussed results of a survey done to gauge community opinion on what should be done with the town-owned parcel. The survey, she said, attracted 427 responses. By far, most want to see the Bidwell site used for open space and recreation purposes or retained as conservation land. Uses which saw the least support included residential development and commercial/industrial use with over 300 of respondents opposed. Housing development and the establishment of a community center did attract some support, but nowhere near that of recreation and conservation.

One feature on the property which could prove a point of contention between officials and historic preservationists, 369 of those that responded want to preserve the Bidwell barn, while 58 want to see it torn down.

“We were looking at utilizing the area along South Athol Road as gathering space and active recreation space; looking at amenities such as playgrounds and a pavilion, and having parking along that area,” Gould said. “We were looking further into the site as that being more passive recreation – trails, bird watching, cross country skiing, snowshoeing and the like.”

Gould added that BSC Group also looked at the feasibility of putting some housing on the site.

“In this concept,” she said, “we have about 28 townhouses that could go in that northern corner of the site. That is looking at the slope of the site and how development could be incorporated into it, along with the other components of the open space we had put into the original concept.”

All members of the Selectboard expressed some concern with the potential costs of developing the site and preserving the barn.

“You just heard DPW say we should look into saving part of that (site) for an aquifer for a town well,” said board member Brian Dodge. “You have some people who want a bike path or a walking path, and it’s probably a good idea if we’re going to save the barn – I don’t know if it is a good idea or not – how are we going to pay for all that? Well, I think if there’s enough land down there we could sell some of it off.”

Dodge pointed to the cost of redoing the roof of the barn at $50,000 or more, as well as the cost of replacing or upgrading the windows.

“If we’re going to bring people into our community to take the jobs we have open,” said board member Rebecca Bialecki, “they have to have a place to live. So, we can take a piece for housing and sell that off for development – to get that developed into housing – and still have all this preserved community space.”

Board chair Andy Sujdak said that the barn is in rough shape and that nothing gets worse faster than an empty building.

“The beautiful slate roof on that building has exceeded its lifetime. We couldn’t possibly afford to re-slate that,” Sujdak said. “We’ve got broken windows. If we’re going to keep that building, we need to keep the outside elements out of it.

“We need to find some funding. If that means we do some logging, or harvest some gravel, or we need to sell some lots – it would be nice if we could save it and not put the burden on everybody else.”

It was decided that the town should proceed with a full assessment of the barn using funds approved at Town Meeting earlier this year. The board said that once the assessment is complete, a meeting will be held to get public feedback on the options for the property presented by BSC as well as the future of the barn.

Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.