Members of Westport Community Gardens on Thursday toured the site on town-owned Baron’s South property, near the Westport Center for Senior Activities, where First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker has proposed the gardens be relocated. / Photos by Gretchen Webster
The Long Lots School Building Committee met at Town Hall with members of the Westport Community Gardens prior to their field trip to Baron’s South. The panel heard gardeners’ requests regarding possibly replanting the gardens on school property after the new building is constructed.

By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — The fate of Westport Community Gardens, a thorny issue debated for more than a year as plans for a new Long Lots Elementary School took shape, was discussed again Thursday at a Town Hall meeting and a field trip to the Baron’s South open space property.

But the gatherings, attended by about 40 gardeners, yielded no final decisions on how to proceed, while the current site of the two-decade-old gardens is poised to be part of a construction zone for the new Long Lots next year.

The first meeting at Town Hall with the Long Lots School Building Committee was convened to discuss what the gardeners need if they decide to return to a not-yet-determined site on the Hyde Lane property after the new Long Lots is completed, likely not until the 2028 growing season.

The second gathering was a tour of the site on town-owned Baron’s South to discuss the proposal by First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker to instead replant the community gardens there.

On Thursday, there was no clear agreement among the gardeners on either option.

Some were concerned that, in the end, there would no suitable land left for gardening on the 24-acre Long Lots property after the new school is built, the old building is demolished and a new multipurpose athletic field is added. The gardens cannot grow without adequate sunlight, they said, but the exact location of the “restored” gardens will not be determined until final architectural plans for the new school are adopted and possibly not even until after it is built.

The land proposed for the relocated gardens on Baron’s South, however, contains what Public Works Director Peter Ratkiewich called “natural arsenic.” The soil — fill that was excavated when the Westport Center for Senior Activities was built — has been tested and retested, he said, and is safe for gardening. 

Public Works Director Peter Ratkiewich points to site of proposed relocation of the community gardens on Baron’s South, which he said is safe despite questions about whether fill dumped there was contaminated.

Some gardeners want to return to the Long Lots property, while others were happier with Tooker’s recommendation, which could be available years earlier and allows more accessible hours. Because of school security rules, the existing gardens can be visited only when classes are not in session.

Given the difference of opinions, several gardeners suggested there be two smaller gardens, one in each location. That is impossible, Tooker told them.

“This is not in addition to the gardens on Hyde Lane,” she said of the Baron’s South plan. “It’s a replacement.”

At the first meeting with the gardeners, two members of the Long Lots Building Committee, Chairman Jay Keenan and Srikanth Puttagunta, listened to gardeners’ “wish lists” of what would be required to rebuild the gardens on the Long Lots property. “Sunshine — lots of sun,” was noted by several gardeners as the top priority for re-establishing gardens on the school property.

Other needs called out by the gardeners included water lines, good soil, wood chips, planter boxes, electricity and a portable toilet. Fencing to keep out deer, groundhogs and rabbits is also needed, and a separate entrance from the school property would be welcome, they said.

The site “needs to be level,” one gardener said, and “The land needs to be remediated after construction,” said another.

One request — “I’d like to go back to my plot in the exact same place” — is likely impossible, Keenan said. The Long Lots property is going to be a construction site for several years, he noted.

During the Town Hall meeting, many gardeners appeared to favor returning to the Long Lots property. But when they gathered at Baron’s South for the field trip with Tooker, the fact that they could start gardening again as early as next spring and would have more access to their plots made that alternative more palatable to some.

Concerns about the quality of the soil remained, however, with some worried about the possibility that the soil contained other toxins, in addition to the arsenic. Ratkiewich said the soil is safe, according to the testing results in the 2020 “Thunderbird Report” posted on the town’s website.

If the gardens are relocated to Baron’s South, an 8-24 land-use report must be approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission, Tooker explained. An application for an appropriation would also have to be made by the Westport Community Gardens to the Board of Finance, several Representative Town Meeting committees and the full RTM to pay for leveling out the property and adding amenities such as water lines, she said.

But first, the gardeners need to make a choice. A meeting of the group’s steering committee is planned Friday, Nov. 1, according to Sally Kleinman, a committee member.

The gardens on Hyde Lane will be accessible, except during school hours, until Dec. 31. It may be possible to extend the closing date for a few months, Keenan said, so that plants can be moved during winter when they are dormant, as some gardeners have requested.

Anyone with additional comments or concerns about the gardens may email Keenan at jkeenanllsbc@gmail.com or Susan Chipouras, the project manager for the building committee, at smchipouras@vinmas.com.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman and has taught journalism at New York and Southern Connecticut State universities.

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