Organic Teaching Farm Wants to Return to Site of Girls' Little League Field

The Fairfield Organic Teaching Farm wants to return to its roots.

Pamela Jones, leader of the effort to create an organic teaching farm in Fairfield, said the required bird survey on the Hoyden's Hill Open Space Area and the difficulty in getting water to that property has caused FOTF to reconsider its previous decision to abandon a 9.42-acre town-owned property where the town plans to build a girls' Little League field and infrastructure for a park.

Town recreation officials last spring approved a lease that would allow the organic teaching farm to occupy an acre of the 9.42-acre property through Dec. 31, 2012, with two one-year renewal options after that. The renewal options would require approval from the town. The girls' Little League field would be built in the center of the property, while the organic teaching farm was to occupy an acre in the southwest corner.

FOTF decided not to use that property, however, and instead looked at the nearby Hoyden's Hill Open Space Area, a 58.5-acre town-owned tract where the town's Conservation Commission agreed to let them use two acres for a farm. Unlike the 520 Hoyden's Lane property, the larger property had been continuously farmed since 1995, Jones said.

But the commission required the FOTF to conduct a bird survey during breeding season to determine the farm's effect on rare birds on the property, which was not only costly but would push the start of the farm into July at the earliest. The bird survey wasn't required for the Hoyden's Lane property because it's under the jurisdiction of the Parks and Recreation Commission. The Hoyden's Hill Open Space Area is under the Conservation Commission's jurisdiction.

Jones on Wednesday night told members of the Parks and Recreation Commission that FOTF wants to return to the 9.42 acres at 520 Hoyden's Lane due to the bird survey requirement and the difficulty in getting water to the Hoyden's Hill Open Space Area. "Water's an issue. Water's a really big issue. For farming, it's pretty much the critical issue," she said. She said the bird survey would have to be done in May and June, which would push the starting date of the farm to July at the earliest.

"We're now thinking perhaps we would be better off reverting to the Parsells location for those reasons," Jones said. The 9.42-acre property is sometimes referred to as the "Parsells property" because the town bought it from the estate of Laura Parsells in December 2007.

FOTF's plan to return to the Parsells property comes after the town mowed two acres of the Hoyden's Hill Open Space Area for the farm and after FOTF paid Al Popp, from Sport Hill Farm in Easton, to plow the land and plant winter rye.

But moving back to the Hoyden's Lane property isn't easy either.

The rec commission had agreed to let the organic teaching farm hook up to the water supply that would be used for the girls' Little League field, but Gerald Lombardo, director of the town's Parks and Recreation Department, said he wasn't sure when construction of the girls' Little League field would begin. "I'm venturing it would be August by the earliest," he said.

A private well is on the Hoyden's Lane property, and Jones asked if the organic farm could use that, but Lombardo replied, "I don't know if the water is even working up there, and we're going to be demolishing the house. One of the first things we would do is demo the house."

Despite town officials claiming Hoyden's Hill residents' fears of more fields on the 9.42 acres were unfounded - John Knuff, the town's attorney on the girls' Little League field application, called it "wild speculation" and James Kennelly, a zoning official, referred to it as "hysterical fantasy" - the possibility is in minutes of the Parks and Recreation Commission.

"The front portion of the Parsells property came up but parties understood that the Parks & Recreation had plans for the land," says one part of the May 19, 2010 minutes. Another part says, "G. Lombardo did not want to commit this as a permanent home and lose the possibility for active recreation on that acre of land."