The community center’s always been at the top of the list of things.”

Council President Kevin Aguiar

PORTSMOUTH — The Town of Portsmouth is doing a decent job in providing and maintaining its outdoor recreational facilities, but lags behind other similar communities when it comes to indoor amenities, according to a new report presented to the Town Council recently.

The town, working with the Parks and Recreation Committee, Parks and Recreation Director Wendy Bulk and the Horsley Witten Group (the town’s advisor on the project), initiated the Parks, Recreation and Open Space Master Plan project and sought citizen input through an online survey and two public workshops held in April and December of 2022.

The plan built off a Facility Conditions Assessment that was completed in 2019, and sought to understand how residents utilize parks and recreation amenities, if existing facilities and programs are meeting the needs of residents, and what the projected future trends in parks and recreation are.

Craig Pereira, senior planner from the Horsley Witten Group, presented the master plan’s findings to the council on July 10.

“It’s intended to be a 10-year planning horizon for the master plan. It’s not intended to achieve anything other than creating a roadmap for the town moving forward over the next 10 years, to prioritize where and what your investment should be based on the demonstrated need of the community,” Pereira said.

The plan’s findings showed that for outdoor facilities, the town measures up fairly well against other communities of similar size across the country,” Pereira said.

However, he told the council, “For indoor facilities, it does show that the Town of Portsmouth is slightly deficient in some of those facilities as compared to other agencies or communities that participated in the process.”

Specifically, the report said “limited parks and recreation personnel and (the) absence of an indoor facility/community center is a barrier to truly expanding program offerings and community/family-oriented events that can be offered year-round.”

The report, in fact, stated that Portsmouth could use not one, but two community centers to serve its population. Pursuing a community center was also listed as one of the “overarching goals” at the December 2022 public workshop. The other four were basketball courts, a senior center (Church Community Housing is working on a plan to build a new senior center as part of an affordable senior housing complex off Bristol Ferry Road), an aquatics center and a nature center.

“The community center’s always been at the top of the list of things,” said Council President Kevin Aguiar.

Most recreational programming, the master plan stated, is centered around team sports and is limited to summer and fall. “The town is doing its best for now to accommodate indoor facility needs regarding an aquatics center and indoor ice rink through shared-use agreements with community partners,” the report stated.

The master plan looked at national trends — such as what percentage of certain activities are found in other communities — and then projected out 10 years based on population projections. 

In some cases — baseball, tennis, and youth soccer, for example — the town has no additional needs through 2030 based on what other communities are offering.

What, no pickleball?

But there’s room for potential growth in the following areas, according to the plan:

• Pickleball courts: Five (the town currently has none)

• Playgrounds: Three more

• Adult softball fields: Three more

• Adult baseball fields, adult soccer fields, swimming pools, community gardens, skate parks, and ice rinks: Two more for each

The lack of any pickleball courts in town came up at both public hearings last year. The sport is one of the fastest-growing activities in the country, especially among older adults, and several surrounding towns already run successful programs.

In late 2021, the town applied for a R.I. Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM) Recreation Development Grant to transform the abandoned basketball courts at Elmhurst Park into a four-court pickleball complex. The town’s application was not among those selected by RIDEM, however.

‘Solid roadmap,’ but ‘overwhelming’

After the presentation, council member Daniela Abbott thanked everyone involved for their work on the plan, which she labeled a “solid roadmap for us to follow,” even though it was “a little overwhelming.”

“I think the needs highlighted are significantly more than we can accomplish in the next 10 years,” said Abbott, adding the council needs to take “baby steps” and figure out “how we’re going to fund some of these projects and which projects to pursue.”

One of her pet peeves when it comes to recreational programs is the town’s lack of connectivity, she said. 

“We don’t have sidewalks, we don’t have bike paths. There are huge areas of Portsmouth where kids have nowhere to safely walk or ride a bike to a park where they can play basketball or throw a ball around,” she said.

There’s also “a little bit of disconnection with the school department,” Abbott said. “You certainly can’t just walk into the gym in the winter and play basketball,” she said.

Expanding on that point, council member David Gleason said school properties that are not utilized in the summer seem like practical places to establish pickleball courts or other activities.

“Maybe it’s such that they’re only used seasonally in the summer months. It seems like a lot of waste space that we’re not addressing. Hathaway has a huge playground area,” Gleason said, adding the council would need to work on a formal agreement with the school department to make that a reality.

Gleason also said he wanted something done with the town-owned “3S” fields on the south side of Sandy Point Avenue. “I like to see things finished. The Town of Portsmouth approved that in 2007 with a rec bond, and we still really haven’t made any progress up there,” said Gleason, noting the property has enough room for two soccer or lacrosse fields, even though its soil conditions are not great.

The council voted unanimously to accept the master plan as its roadmap for parks and recreation programming going forward.

“It’s our guiding document. Not everything in this plan is going to get done,” council member Keith Hamilton said.