Open Space in Southeastern Connecticut: Nature, Recreation, and Conservation

Southeastern Connecticut is full of beautiful open space areas. Depending on their exact location and characteristics, open space lands in our region have practical value to well-being through their contributions to the conservation of biodiversity, climate change mitigation and adaptation, cultural and historic preservation, recreation, health and well-being, tourism, and other essential community needs.

2024 Regional Open Space Plan

In 2024, SECOG finalized the preparation of a regional open space inventory, plan, and accompanying digital open space dashboard with three primary outcomes:

• A digital regional Open Space Inventory that represents the best available data on all protected and publicly accessible lands in the region, which SECOG staff will continue to refine and maintain over time.
• A digital Open Space Dashboard that will help stakeholders make informed decisions about lands to prioritize for protection.
• A defined open space work program for SECOG to pursue over the next decade, developed with input from regional residents, open space organizations, and municipal members, alongside a set of municipal action plans to identify open space projects of regional significance and align local priorities with regional and state goals for open space.

The 2024 Regional Open Space Plan and accompanying digital dashboard ground the discussion of regional open space in the context of several types of data frameworks, including demographic data, a regional environmental inventory, and the current extent and characteristics of preserved and protected open space. The plan highlights the trends in responses to public outreach, through which the region’s residents and stakeholders were invited to identify open space assets and ongoing issues and needs. Finally, the plan concludes with defined goals, objectives, and action items for SECOG’s open space work program, and highlights local municipal open space objectives of regional significance.

The Regional Open Space Plan does not recommend specific parcels for preservation, but rather builds a case for an approach that considers the landscape characteristics of a given area and weighs these against complementary community goals when making preservation decisions. Parcels that provide multiple benefits, increase community climate resilience, or that have unique environmental and/or recreational value should be given highest consideration for preservation. This plan advocates for supporting our municipalities, land trusts, and conservation focused non-profits to develop and use tools that prioritize parcels for open space preservation proactively, targeting lands for open space uses with the greatest open space value, recognizing that value is subjective depending on goals and context.

The Digital Open Space Dashboard is one such tool that can contribute to proactive open space planning across the region. Users can view the existing regional open space network alongside several environmental and social variables (water resource protection, environmental challenges, wildlife habitat, climate resilience, open space proximity and access, environmental justice areas, proximity to current and planned trails, and others) to investigate the benefits that existing preserved open spaces provide to their communities and consider were additional open space preservation can enhance these benefits.

View The Regional Open Space Plan

View The Digital Open Space Dashboard

Ongoing Open Space Plan Implementation

The Regional Open Space Plan recommends detailed action items that create a framework for the region’s collective progression and growth. Over the next 10 years, SECOG staff will work toward supporting member municipalities in:

• Bettering our analysis and understanding of open space accessibility and equity
• Integrating open space and transportation planning
• Evaluating where open space networks can act as nature-based solutions that support climate resilience and stormwater management, especially in the areas of flooding, extreme heat mitigation, and low impact development
• Creating additional tools for clarifying contexts where development, rather than open space, is the highest and best use of land
• Exploring the role of preserved working lands (farms and forests) to the region’s ecological stability and food security
• Maintaining SECOG-based resources quantifying and delineating the open space network over time, such as our mapped inventory of open space
• Pursuing grant funding for greater open space data collection

View the 2024 Review and 2025 Work Plan

Fore more information regarding SECOG’s Open Space work, contact Lana Melonakos-Harrison.