Draft Open Space Plan for Conservation

 

After months of work by consultants, Town staff, and the Ad Hoc Open Space Committee, a draft of the Town’s Open Space Plan is available for the public to review. The public is invited to review the draft plan and provide feedback until January 15, 2025.

The Open Space Plan is a document that provides the Town with a comprehensive set of strategies to ensure the Town’s approach to land conservation is done in a way that serves the whole community and protects important natural resources. The planning process started last spring with the assistance of Viewshed, a Maine-based landscape architecture, GIS, and planning firm. It was developed with public input from online surveys, a July workshop, and outreach at community events this summer. The public was asked to prioritize important resource categories, including clean water, wildlife habitat, agriculture and forestry, recreation, environmental hazards, and sea level rise.

Based on this public input and resource mapping, Viewshed created a conservation focus areas map, which is a central component of the Plan. The map does not identify specific parcels for conservation, but rather, the information appears as a “heat map” that shows the general areas that should be prioritized. The focus area map is meant to guide conservation decisions, but there may be areas not captured on the map that provide value to the community and should be considered if there is an opportunity to protect them. 

Given Scarborough’s rapid growth over the past 20 years, the Town hopes to preserve its unique seashores, salt marshes, wetlands, forests, uplands, tidal rivers, and streams. These landscapes also provide critical habitat for wildlife. The Plan outlines a set of conservation priorities and strategies for the Town to achieve its 30x30 goal, which was set by the Town Council in June 2023. 30x30 refers to conserving at least 30% of Scarborough’s land by 2030. Through the planning process, Viewshed inventoried existing protected lands to determine the 30x30 baseline and help the Town better understand additional conservation that needs to happen to achieve its goal. Based on Viewshed’s analysis, 7,120 acres of land in Scarborough is protected, which is approximately 23% of the town. An additional 2,000 acres of land need to be conserved in order for Scarborough to meet the 30x30 goal. 

Public input on the draft plan will be collected through January 15, 2025. Once feedback is received, Viewshed will work with Town staff and the Ad Hoc Open Space Committee to make revisions. A revised plan will be presented to the Town Council at a workshop in February. Workshop information will be posted on the Town website when it’s available. 

 

VIEW PLAN

Please direct questions on the Open Space Plan to Jami Fitch, Sustainability Manager, at jfitch@scarboroughmaine.org or (207) 730-4035.