Town of Ayer & Devens Community Awarded $282,640
Climate-Change Mitigation Grant to Bring “Pocket Forests” to Most Vulnerable Neighborhoods
The Ayer Office of Community & Economic Development (AOCED) announces that the Town of Ayer and the Devens Enterprise Commission have been awarded a 2022 Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Action Grant through the MA Executive Office of Environmental Affairs (MVP) Program in the amount of $282,624 to fund the innovative “Ayer-Devens Neighborhood Pocket Forest Planting Pilot Project”.
The BSC Group, Regenerative Design Group and Linnean Solutions have been engaged by Ayer and Devens to provide professional urban/environmental/design consulting services in formulating, facilitating, conducting and administering the Pocket Forest Pilot Project and grant process in coordination with various municipal departments, boards, commissions and local organizations.
As one of New England’s earliest freight and passenger railroad townships (1846-current), many of Ayer’s oldest working-class urban neighborhoods were built along the heavy freight railroad lines, which continue to this day to be exceedingly active freight rail-lines and heavy tractor trailers routes.
Through the decades, and in the face of accelerating climate-change, Ayer’s less advantaged working-class neighborhoods have been covered-over in expansive asphalt surfaces, have been deprived of health-supporting trees/tree canopies, green-space and shaded streets, are at high risk of storm-water/flood damage which brings dangerous mold and associated respiratory health risks, and are subject to constant locomotive engine diesel exhaust cascading over their neighborhoods.
These most vulnerable of Ayer’s neighborhoods are deserving of a reduction in adverse heat-island impacts, improved air quality, reduced stormwater street flooding, and the fundamental physical and mental health advantage and value of a more “tree covered” urban neighborhood.
The $282,624 MVP Action Grant will fund a Pilot Project that will engage the residents of these Ayer/Devens neighborhoods to guide, plan, design and plant “Neighborhood Pocket Forests”. Starting in October, through a series of neighborhood walking tours & neighborhood meetings, youth & student design/planning events, neighborhood “Pocket Forest” design charrettes, resident natural science/community volunteer training sessions, neighborhood “Tree Planting Days”, and additional community engagement forums, appropriate tree species will be selected to maximize carbon sequestration, absorption of particulate matter, nitrogen, sulfur, and ozone. As a green infrastructure tool, the Ayer/Devens Pocket Forests will be located and designed to reduce urban neighborhood impervious surface area, to naturally filter stormwater runoff, and aid in reducing peak flows leading to better micro-climate conditions, improved water quality, and reduced street flooding in Ayer’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods.
This grant and community-participatory pilot program will be the first step in an incremental and generational design, planning, development and maintenance process, in preparation for ongoing climate-change, in order to establish a more healthy, resilient, sustainable and valued quality of life in the less advantaged neighborhoods of the Town of Ayer & Devens Community.
Both the Town of Ayer & the Devens Community have adopted Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Plans which favorably positioned the communities to be awarded this important climate-change sustainability grant.
For additional information on the grant award and “Ayer-Devens Neighborhood Pocket Forest Planting Pilot Project” please contact Director of Community & Economic Development Alan S. Manoian at Ayer Town Hall at 978.772.8220 X141 and/or amanoian@ayer.ma.us
Original source can be found here.
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