Steve Fitzgerald moved to North Haven in 2001 and by 2003, he was in then-first selectman Mike Kopetz’s office asking what he could do to help the town. Ever since then, Steve has been on the Open Space Advisory Committee (OSAC), currently as its chairman.

“I walked into Kevin Kopetz’s office and offered my services and asked what the town needed,” says Steve, who lives in town with his wife Jackie and their three daughters. “He suggested I consider the OSAC. I like to camp, go hiking, and go to the mountains in New Hampshire.”

The OSAC is made up of representatives from several other boards, including Planning & Zoning, Inland Wetlands, Conservation, Finance, Parks & Recreation, and the Land Trust. Steve is the representative for the first selectman, serving under Kopetz, then Janet McCarty, and now Mike Freda. Throughout this time, Hugh Davis (Conservation) and Mark Cofrancesco (Land Trust) have also served.

“For the longest time, the primary role of the committee was to work on a priority list of parcels in town that were attractive for open space preservation based on various criteria that the committee came up with,” says Steve. “Over years we’ve seen a number of those parcels be lost to development, which was a little frustrating. There wasn’t a lot of preservation taking place in town.”

While some of the past years have been frustrating, Steve and the OSAC are hopeful that they will be able to make big strides with obtaining open space in 2016-’17 as there is a proposed line item in the budget earmarked for just that.

“Mike Freda recently asked the committee to come up with a priority list and for the first time in my memory, a significant amount has been budgeted for the acquisition of open space,” says Steve. “He [Freda] has appropriately seen that this is a long-term problem for our town and in the long run there are a lot of benefits to preserving open space.”

Steve stressed that preserving open space in town is a benefit for many and can address a variety of concerns.

“If you’re concerned about town finances and keeping taxes under control, then more development is a problem because you need more from the Police Department, Fire Department, and Public Works; plus you need more space in schools, so it puts pressure on town services,” says Steve. “If you’re concerned for environment, you’d like to see open space preserved. For someone who wants to preserve the value of their real estate, the more...inventory on market, the lower the value of house would be. More development affects the quality of life in North Haven. No matter what your view of the world is, we think that open space preservation has something for everyone.”

With the line item proposed for the upcoming budget, the OSAC’s goal is to educate the public about the importance of preserving the open space in town. The committee is also looking for land-owners willing to work with the town.

“The amount of undeveloped land is so relatively small that the goal is to just hopefully preserve a few of the parcels,” says Steve. “There’s not a lot of open space left. We have more wooded areas in the northeast corner, while in southeast corner, there are more farm parcels.”

Steve noted that once the town acquires a property, it would be maintained as open space and would require only passive maintenance. If the parcel were wooded, it might be used as a low-impact recreation area and possibly include a walking trail. If the open space acquired is farmland, the town would look to keep the area as a working farm, perhaps leasing it to another farmer.

“We are hoping that some land owners would be interested in leaving a legacy behind with their land to be kept in its natural form,” says Steve, who is a lawyer at Garrison, Levenstein, Fitzgerald and Perotti in New Haven, a firm that specializes in employment law.

Steve also pointed out that state grant money is available for open space preservation, but towns cannot apply for the grants until they have committed their own funds to the projects first. The OSAC meets the first Thursday of each month at Town Hall and while meetings are open to the public, Steve says there is a better way to help.

“The most important way to get involved, if people feel this is important, is to be supportive of Mike Freda’s efforts to include a line item in the budget for those spaces,” says Steve. “As a committee, we are trying to educate the townspeople that the commitment of funds makes a lot of sense. On behalf of myself, Hugh, and Mark, we’re definitely excited that it seems like Mike has made a commitment to tackling this issue and preserving open space before it’s too late, because once it’s developed, it’s done.”