As West Windsor officials continue to discuss plans for developing Duck Pond Park, an agreement with the Princeton Presbyterian Church may make it possible for the park to live up to its namesake and feature a pond for fishing.##M:[more]##
During the Township Council’s November 24 meeting, officials discussed a draft memorandum of understanding proposed by township professionals that would use the stormwater generated on the church’s property to fill a proposed man-made pond in the park that would bring more recreational fishing opportunities for residents.
Dan Dobromilsky, the township’s landscape architect, told the council that officials have been discussing the idea with church officials over the last year, and that the agreement would also allow the two entities to share facilities.
He presented what he referred to as the “beginning of a conceptual idea for a memorandum of understanding” that would eventually lead to an agreement. The idea would be that the township would develop a retention pond to hold water. “In order to do that, we need more stormwater,” he said. “The park does not produce enough stormwater to have a pond. So if Duck Pond Park is really going to have a pond and we need more water, and the church has pervious surfaces with stormwater they’re producing that they’re not going to use, we would build a wet retention basin, a stormwater basin, and we would take the stormwater from the church and make it such so that we could create a fishing pond.”
In turn, the township would also get the ability to use the church’s parking lot at off-peak times. For example, the WW-P soccer association will be using the park, and there may be times when they need an “extravagant” amount of parking, as they currently do in other parks around the township. During these tournaments, people park on the grass when space runs out, which is not the most optimal solution, he said.
Likewise, the church needs additional parking for heavily-attended religious celebrations, like Christmas and Easter, in which the township would allow churchgoers to park their vehicles at Duck Pond Park and walk to services at the church.
“We envision the possibility that there will be some funding from them to help build the basin [at Duck Pond Park], but we don’t know yet,” Dobromilsky added. “Right now, the idea is that we’re going to bring the stormwater to a point in the park where we tell them, and then at that point, we’ll take the stormwater to the basin.” He said officials do not yet know the extent to which the pipes within the park have to be larger to accommodate the stormwater.
Councilman Will Anklowitz asked whether, by building the pond, the township would be adding to wetlands or creating wetlands that otherwise do not exist, and whether it could be done in such a way that the township could designate that area as wetlands in exchange for other projects that may be developed elsewhere around town that impact the wetlands. Dobromilsky said this would not be the case because it is simply a stormwater retention basin.
The pond, as officials envision it, will be about the size of a soccer field, Dobromilsky said. “This is not going to be something where we’re going to have people on boats doing fishing,” he said. “This is fishing from a pier. The idea would be that it would look like a natural pond with a vegetative edge. It would probably have a small pier.”
Anklowitz asked whether the pond would attract more geese, and Dobromilsky said that the pond would bring some geese, but that the vegetative ledge around the pond would deter the geese from hanging around.
Dobromilsky said that recreational surveys have indicated that residents want to see more fishing opportunities around town.
As discussions with the church are ongoing, and as officials take a closer look at the design and engineering, Business Administrator Chris Marion said he will be scheduling a site tour of the park with the council members, and that the measure would be discussed again sometime in January.
