The town has begun work on an Open Space Conservation Plan to guide and prioritize land conservation efforts is Scarborough. The community is invited to participate in a fun and interactive workshop on July 25 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Public Safety building as part of the planning process. The workshop will be an opportunity to weigh in on factors that are most important when it comes to conservation and to provide input into areas that should be conserved in Scarborough. The project team members will share participants’ feedback in real time during the workshop.
Other engagement events are planned throughout the summer as well. Project team members will attend Concerts in the Park on July 11, July 18 and Aug. 1 to collect feedback from the community. They will also be at Scarborough Summerfest on Aug 16. An online engagement tool is also in development to virtually collect input from the community. The online tool will be live as of July 11 and will be accessed through the Open Space Plan project page in the “What’s Happening” section of the town’s website.
The Open Space Conservation Plan aims to provide 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. 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 provide critical habitat for birds, shellfish, mammals, reptiles and amphibians. The town has hired Viewshed, a Maine-based landscape architecture, GIS and planning firm, to assist with the development of the plan.
The plan will also provide the town with a set of conservation priorities to achieve its 30×30 goal, which was set by the Town Council in June 2023. The name, 30×30, refers to the town’s effort to conserve at least 30% of Scarborough’s land by 2030. The Open Space Plan will inventory existing conserved lands to set a 30×30 baseline and help the town better understand additional conservation that needs to happen to achieve this goal.
The Town Council appointed the ad-hoc Open Space Committee, made up of representatives from several of Scarborough’s advisory committees and community organizations, to guide the planning process. The ad-hoc committee provides valuable input into the plan and will support the many public engagement events that are scheduled for this summer. The plan will be complete by February 2025.
The plan will approach open space conservation through both prioritization mapping and strategy recommendations. A map of Scarborough will identify areas classified as either high, medium or low priority for open space conservation. The map will not identify specific parcels for conservation. Instead, the information will appear as a “heat map” that shows the general areas that should be prioritized. The mapping process will use data from six resource categories, including habitat, agriculture and forestry, recreation, water quality, environmental hazards and sea level rise. The Scarborough community will rank the resource categories, and the most valued resources will receive a higher prioritization status in the map.
The plan will also include recommendations to guide conservation efforts in Scarborough. Recommended strategies will cover topics such as potential funding sources to support conservation efforts, potential ordinance revisions, ways to expand recreational resources and trail networks, and programs to protect existing undeveloped land in conservation.
More information about the Open Space Conservation Plan is available in the “What’s Happening” section of the town’s website. Please direct questions to Jami Fitch, sustainability manager, at jfitch@scarboroughmaine.org or (207) 730-4035.