Project presenter outlines 4,400-foot rail trail, sidewalks and 30-basin stormwater plan for Heather Hill

A project presenter laid out a transportation and drainage plan for the 200-acre Heather Hill development, saying the proposal includes a 10-foot-wide paved rail trail that “is going to extend about 4,400 ft from West Bacon Northerly all the way to Fuller Street,” sidewalks along West Bacon tied to a special-permit condition, and a stormwater system of 30 basins.

The presenter said the rail trail will be a standard 10-foot path with a yellow skip stripe down the middle and solid white edge lines and that design work must address mapped jurisdictional wetlands. “This screen is just an aerial view of the 4,400 ft corridor,” the presenter said while pointing out wetland buffers on the plan.

On grading, the presenter described a roughly 10-foot drop at West Bacon and a planned transition in slope: “We’ll start at 2% at West Bacon, then we’ll gradually transition down to 5% until we flatten out at the bottom,” he said, and added retaining walls and railings will be provided on raised sections.

The presenter said the town will require off-site improvements to be completed early in construction: the rail trail and the West Bacon sidewalk are planned to be built before phase-one units receive occupancy permits. When asked how long phase one would take, the presenter replied, “Yeah, probably about four years.”

Sidewalk details include a minimum 5-foot-width on the main roadways and modifications to catch basins and curbing where needed; the presenter described a continuous sidewalk from the Heather Hill entrance on West Bacon to the downtown traffic light, passing the Warren intersection and continuing toward South Street. The presenter also noted a small parking area was added near the upper-right corner of the site plan with about a half-dozen public spaces and said all trails and walking paths would be available to the public.

On drainage, the presenter said installing a 10-foot paved path over compacted gravel will have a negligible effect on runoff but proposed a crushed-stone trench parallel to the path to capture any flow. The broader drainage plan includes 30 stormwater basins—27 infiltration basins and three detention ponds—designed to meet the town's peak-flow, water-quality and volume standards. The presenter said staff began by identifying regulated freshwater wetlands, then performed an updated topographic survey and modeled individual subwatersheds so mitigation could be sized for future conditions.

No formal vote or board decision was recorded in the presentation; the next steps described were completing wetland delineation, finalizing drainage design and implementing off-site sidewalk and trail construction ahead of phase-one occupancy.