The Wellesley Natural Resources Commission (NRC) this past week voted in favor of a redesigned Morses Pond beach front with a new bath house located on the south side rather than the north, where the 1930s building now stands (see Wellesley Media recording of Oct. 22 meeting about 24 minutes in).

It wasn’t clear the NRC would go in this direction based on its Oct. 9 meeting during which it received an update from the Morses Pond Beach Advisory Committee and its consultancy. NRC members at that meeting digested a re-envisioned—as in much smaller—bath house design for both the south and north ends of the beach, plus a new bonus version of the north side setup. The Morses Pond Beach Advisory Committee at its Sept. 29 meeting voted 4-3 to recommend a north side location.

But in the end, the NRC voted in favor of the south side option, a larger version of which had woven its way through a couple of Town Meetings until a much more modest design resulted from the Morses Pond Beach Advisory Committee process and a supplemental feasibility study for which funding was approved at Annual Town Meeting to look at environmental and other concerns.

The NRC’s decision came on the heels of the Recreation Commission the day before at its meeting (see Wellesley Media recording) sticking with its support for a south side facility as it has for years. (Some members expressed frustration and even anger about the direction the project has taken since Rec began talking about it in 2017, and Rec Chair Paul Cramer said it’s possible that Town Meeting and the Community Preservation Committee could even rethink their support for a very different project than they originally weighed in on.)

The NRC discussion and vote on Oct. 22 took less than 20 minutes, after many more minutes spent in recent years on this topic. Since discussions started, Morses Pond has made it through a pandemic that upended operations and the possibility of pickleball courts in the parking lot.

NRC member Steve Park said “What I saw in the supplemental study was that they said in either of these A or B locations with the scaling down of the project we can minimize the impacts on the area…” Based on that, what the Recreation Commission endorsed, and feedback from the public that they prefer a more open and accessible configuration, Park said he supported the south location.

Fellow member Michael D’Ortenzio also supported the south side, though said he thought the revamp could work on either end of the beach. “I look at this as choosing between all good options,” he said. D’Ortenzio went on to acknowledge that the current building on the north side does act as a wall. “I think having that open space, that vista, the area where the town can do programming there… is probably going to lead to the best outcome,” he said.

Members Tom Hammond and Bea Bezmalinovic also backed the south side location.

NRC Chair Jay McHale, who also chairs the Morses Pond Beach Advisory Committee, said the committee provided a valuable service with its findings and recommendations. He pointed to the south side location footprint being knocked down from 118,000 feet of disturbance to 32,000, a big change that aligns with the NRC’s goal to have as light a touch as possible on the environment. McHale said any of the approaches could have worked, and that he preferred the north side location, but that he would support the rest of his NRC colleagues in going with the side side in the interest of  making a decision and moving the long-running project forward.

McHale said the Morses Pond Beach Advisory Committee’s consulting partner stands ready to tighten its drawings and estimate costs for the project within a 60-day period. While a cost estimate remains to be revealed, D’Ortenzio did note as an aside at the Oct. 9 meeting that the building permit from 1938 shows that the original bath house cost $7,040 to build.

As the project moves forward, more is to come from Town Meeting, the Select Board (on financing the project) and the Permanent Building Committee. A presentation about beach and bath house improvements made at Annual Town Meeting last year featured a project schedule showing Special Town Meeting this fall voting on construction funds and a possible debt exclusion vote going to the town in December. That’s obviously not happening at this point, but a new schedule will unfold.

In summarizing what McHale said during the Oct. 22 NRC meeting, D’Ortenzio ended by saying, “My story to Town Meeting would be this was a project that now costs millions of dollars less and disturbs tens of thousands of square feet less than originally proposed,” he said.

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Related: We take a ride on the Morses Pond weed harvester (August, 2023)