Remedy proposed for conservation parking headache

A two-pronged proposal from the Traffic and Sidewalk Committee and the Conservation Commission seeks to alleviate parking headaches for Indian Hill Road and Winthrop Circle residents.

Residents in the neighborhood said street parking for visitors to Cat Rock/80 Acres conservation land has spiraled out of control for years, leading to vehicles being parked on both sides of the road, as well as loose dogs and other incidents.

Scott Wu, whose property abuts the park, said people can arrive at the park as early as 5 or 6 a.m. in the summer, and he had to build a chicken coop after a loose dog ate one of his birds.

“It’s just getting really crowded during the weekends, especially,” Wu said in an interview. “On weekends, sometimes the cars line up all the way around this entire block, all the way to Winthrop circle.”

To address the issues, the Traffic and Sidewalk Committee and the Conservation Commission put forward a dual proposal: install signs limiting parking to residents from the park entrance to Bay State Road and construct a gravel parking area for six to eight vehicles for visitors.

“There are generally eight or more cars parked along the road all day long, in good weather and on weekends often numbering above 20 by extending around a corner beyond an intersection and up a hill,” Traffic and Sidewalk Committee Chair Ann Wiedie wrote in an email. “Having some on-conservation-land parking will give an opportunity for visitors to park freely, and the restrictions on the streets will reduce the volume overall.”

The $65,300 funding request will come before voters at the May 4 Town Meeting, while the Select Board will consider the parking restrictions at a future meeting. The matter was originally going to be considered at the March 24 meeting, but the Traffic and Sidewalk Committee will need to submit a memo to the Select Board before it grants its approval.

A similar parking restriction was instituted on Drabbington Way in 2018 with great success in the neighborhood; however, some of the vehicles that may have parked there prior to the restriction instead moved to other neighborhoods, including Indian Hill Road.

“Similar to the period after restrictions were made on Drabbington Way, policy will make periodic visits to issue tickets if there are visitors not abiding by the new signs,” Wiedie said. “This will take adjustment but since Drabbington Way settled into a more peaceful area, we anticipate the same here.”

At least a few neighborhood residents, several of whom have been advocating for the project at recent meetings, support the solution.

“There are a couple of serious safety incidents that have already taken place,” Tricia Liu, a neighborhood resident, said in an email. “The change is long-awaited and welcomed by the local residents, including veterans, seniors and children.”

Wu added he is in support of “this pretty creative solution.”

“I don’t know 100%, but I think most of the people who park here are from out of town,” Wu said. “If they can be pushed up to be within the park rather than on the street, I think that will help.”

Weston Police Capt. Thomas Kelly, the department’s liaison to the Traffic and Sidewalk Committee, said the proposal is a “reasonable response,” but there are concerns about moving the problem.

Conservation Administrator Jordan McCarron, in a March 12 presentation to the Finance Committee, said the gravel lot plans were designed by the town’s engineering department, and the project would move the parks’ gate further into the park and place the lot on the conservation land. State law permits small “appropriate in size” gravel parking areas on conservation land, according to McCarron.

“This would really be dedicated to users of the conservation land,” he said, emphasizing the project goal is to “minimize the displacement of vehicles.”

The Finance Committee unanimously supported the parking lot proposal.