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Rec Path
Contributors

The Conservation Commission & Trails Committee would like to thank those listed below for their part in building the Rec Path. Many apologies to those whom we have overlooked -- there were SO many people involved:

Mayor Mark Lauretti Board of Aldermen
Parks & Rec
Planning & Zoning
Inland Wetlands
Highways & Bridges
Open Space Comm.
Tom Welch
Ray Sous
CT DEEP
Iroquois Gas Company
New Alliance Bank
Dick Belden
Pete Stockmal
Jason Perillo
Terry Jones
Harriet Wilbur
Pruzinsky & Sons
Fairview Tree Farm
Sound Construction
Barry Mucci
Nagy Bros Const.
Lewis Associates
Tice Brothers
Joel Hurliman
SEDC
Peter Stockmal
Shelton Land Trust
Steve Ng
Spencer Tate
Dylan Spagnuolo
Adam Cleri
Boys & Girls Club
Basil Dikovsky
Higgins Group
Sassafras Diner
Rick Swanson
Perkin Elmer
Allison Menendez

And to the many, many TRAIL VOLUNTEERS:

THANK YOU

The Rec Path: Twenty Years in the Making

Twenty years ago, Conservation Commission Chairman Terry Jones experienced the Stowe Recreation Path in Vermont and imagined one just like it connecting downtown Shelton to Huntington Center.  Today, that path is complete.

It began as a pipe dream. The City owned almost none of the four-mile route.  Major multi-use trails like the Farmington Canal Trail or the Derby Riverwalk were built on a pre-existing routes, such as an old railroad bed or canal towpath.  Shelton had to find a route over terrain so rough that much of it was never farmed and was instead relegated to the production of charcoal.   In the Nells Rock area, cliffs and swamps stack up one after the other.  Finding a handicapped-accessible route through this terrain required many hours of pondering maps and walking through the forest.  There were jokes about searching for the “Northeast Passage.” 

Once the route was identified, it had to be preserved. The mantra was:  “If we preserve the route now, some future generation will always have the option to build it. But if we lose the route to development, it will be lost forever.”   Nearly half of the proposed route crossed surplus water company land that included three reservoirs but for which a developer had already drafted plans for condominiums and a gas station.  For five years, the purchase and preservation this property, known as “Shelton Lakes,” was of the highest priority.   In 1997, the voters of Shelton agreed with those efforts and passed a referendum to purchase the property.

Just prior to the referendum, another large portion of the route was in jeopardy from the development of the Huntington Woods subdivision along what is now Wesley Drive.  This was also an opportunity, however.  The process was bumpy, but plans ultimately included a corridor of open space for the future Rec Path. In addition, a fund was set up by the developer to help build the path.

A number of smaller properties were also purchased, and by the turn of the millennium, most of land along the route had been acquired.  Efforts turned to construction.  The Trails Committee had already cleared a yellow-blazed hiking trail along much of the route.

But real construction would take more than volunteers, it would take funding.  With that in mind, the Rec Path was designated as a Millennium Trail by the White House,  Connecticut Greenway. 

Constructing the Shelton Section
Construction was kick started in 2001 with $100,000 in state bonding associated with the construction of Shelton Intermediate School, secured by Dick Belden. This is only paved section of the Rec Path.   Parks & Rec staff then graded the path along the beginning of the route during the slow winter months and surfaced it with crushed road millings. People liked this “temporary” surface better than the paved section, so plans to pave the entire path were abandoned. This significantly reduced the cost of the project. Over the next several years a series of grants from the CT DEP Recreational Trails Program as well as Kings Mark paid for bridges at Pine Lake and Silent Waters, as well as associated fencing, abutments, and trail surfacing around Silent Waters. The first 1.25 miles of the path were completed in 2007. 

The popular “Dog Park Section” was constructed in 2011 with City funding.  The first two miles of the Rec Path were now complete.

Constructing the Huntington Section
It was the Shelton Land Trust who in 2006 began work on the opposite end of the path near Huntington Center, using a grant from New Alliance Bank and Iroquois Gas Company. Land Trust volunteers built a 110-foot boardwalk so strong it could hold up a Cadillac, and the Rec Path was constructed along the edge of the Land Trust’s scenic Lane Street meadow.  In 2009, contractor Barry Mucci worked “at cost” to build a difficult section of trail between Lane Street and the Land Trust’s boardwalk, completing the last half mile of the trail. Two years later, yet another DEP grant was awarded and combined with City funding to extend the past the Wesley Drive neighborhood and to a powerline corridor in the Nells Rock area. The Huntington section of the trail was now 1.5 miles long.

The Two Paths Meet
The Huntington and Shelton sections of the Rec Path were now within a half mile of each other, but separated by private property. The moment that last property was purchased, intrepid path users began trying to get from one path section to the other using a combination of a swampy utility road and Oak Valley Road. Parks & Rec crews improved the utility road (which also served as the Rec Path), and then the gap was just a quarter mile.  A grant from the Iroquois Gas Pipeline Company was combined with money from the State’s LoCIP program to fund construction of the last section. In July 2012, the two sections were joined and the Shelton Lakes Recreation Path was complete.

A Community Effort
The Rec Path is unusual in the number of volunteers and grants that were involved as well as for the low cost of the construction. A typical multi-use trail is said to cost about a million dollars per mile to build. The Rec Path cost just $151,000 per mile, with two thirds of that cost coming from outside sources like grants, including grants from the CT DEEP Recreational Trails Grant Program (four grants), the Iroquois Gas Company (two grants), Kings Mark, New Alliance Bank, State Bond Funding, LoCIP funding, and the Huntington Woods Construction Fund. Some sections were constructed by Parks & Rec staff during slow times, and the Shelton Land Trust built the section along their Lane Street property. Countless volunteers lent a hand over the years, and in some cases their heavy machinery, too.