Contributed Photo
A student works at Common Ground High School, creating an educational wetland.
A project to restore a wildlife habitat and construct handicap accessible trails around Common Ground High School’s garden will get a $55,000 shot in the arm.
The Board of Alders voted unanimously at a meeting Monday evening at City Hall to allow Mayor Toni Harp to accept a grant in that amount from the State Department of Environmental and Energy Protection.
The grant, according to a letter to the alders from Chief Administrator Michael Carter, will be used by the New Haven Ecology Project Inc. at Common Ground High School to do the following:
• Purchase materials for the construction of a quarter mile handicapped accessible health and environmental exploration trail around Common Ground’s Garden.
• Restore a half-acre of wildlife habitat and model green infrastructure practices directly abutting Springside Avenue at the entrance of Common Ground’s location.
• Purchase and install fencing, signage, lighting and other park/educational amenities
• Landscape the disturbed area. Funds may not be used to purchase plants on the state’s invasive plant list.
• Cover associated surveying, engineering, architectural and landscape services including advertising and public notice ads.
Joel Tolman, Common Ground’s director of impact and engagement, said the project is designed to provide more resources not only for students at the high school, but also for the city. The project is expected to cost around $170,000; the $55,000 grant will cover part of the cost. The cost also is being covered by matching funds that have already been secured.
“We’re committed to being a resource for all of New Haven,” Tolman said. “We want our campus to be an entry point to West Rock State Park; we want to be a resource for people who are just curious about sources of food. We want to have a front door to our campus that says, ‘You are welcome here, and this is your place.’ That has sort of been the common theme around all these projects that we are sort of taking on.”
Tolman said work on the trails is about 75 percent complete thanks to those matching funds. Once the contract is signed for the $55,000, he said, the habitat restoration can be ramped up over the course of the spring and the summer. He estimated that a pavilion which will be built as a space for outdoor classes and weekend workshops for adults would be up sometime in the fall.
“It’s our hope that this will be an awesome resource for our high school students but also the city of New Haven,” Tolman said.