Residents Walk Around Walker Pond, Meeting on Aug. 14 Will Gather Input on Future of Site

On the morning of Aug. 7 a group walked around a small forested area around one of Watertown’s few wetland areas — Walker Pond.

The City purchased the property on the border with Waltham in 2023 to develop the area into a public recreation facility. On Aug. 14 the first meeting to gather input about the project will be held (see details below).

Thursday’s walk was part of Live Well Watertown’s Watertown Walks series. After strolling through nearby Gore Place, Michelle Moon, the City’s Open Space Planner, led the group across Waltham Street to the Walker Pond site.

Part of the area has a sandy pathway that sits on land owned by the Bell Watertown apartment complex, but which is open to the public, Moon said. As you walk counter clockwise, the pathway curves and then ends. From that spot along the pathway, waterlilies can be seen through the trees and brush.

“There’s a nice view of the lake or the pond,” Moon said. “Maybe people want to sit here, maybe people want to continue walking. Maybe people want to exit out and go to Waltham. So we’ll be thinking through the ideas.”

The area owned by Bell Watertown is known as Lot 6, and the City’s property is called Lot 8, a 7.162 acre plot which includes a portion of the pond and a swath of open space east of there.

The whole area once was part of the Gore Estate, said Gore’s Executive Director Gavin Kleespies. More recently it was owned by Raytheon, which used an area from Seyon Street in Waltham (including where BJ’s Wholesale Club is located) all the way to where the Jewish Community Day School is on Stanley Avenue.

The City’s property has some contamination, but the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Activity and Use Limitations (AUL) can be used for recreation, but not for uses such as housing, said Watertown Director of Planning and Zoning Gideon Schreiber.

Moon said the fate of the open space has not been decided, and will be a big topic of discussion at a meeting on Aug. 14.

“What do people want to see here right now? It’s kind of a blank slate,” she said. “Do people want athletic fields? We’ve talked about bringing in public art. There’s a lot of ideas.”

The City hired a firm to do an ecological study of the property, Moon said, and the results will be presented during the community meeting.

“We know how many trees there are, and which are an invasive species,” she said. “And then we know about the water quality here, and the good news is it’s not worse than any other urban pond.”

The survey also looked at wildlife, and researchers found more than 30 species of birds, the types of fish in the pond (including goldfish), bats, and frogs. One of the species of bats is on the national endangered list, Moon said.

Another topic to be touched upon at the meeting is how people want to get to and around the Walker Pond site.

“So the circulation and access is really important, and we are thinking about people walking, biking, running, scooting, driving, hoverboarding, whatever, to get here,” Moon said.

The future of Walker Pond and the surrounding area will be the topic of discussion during a public meeting on Thursday, Aug. 14 at 6 p.m. at the Jewish Community Day School, 57 Stanley Way. At the meeting, attendees will see a presentation about ecological study’s findings, followed by a visioning session to collect community input to develop design options for the site. Other meetings on Walker Pond will be held later this year.

Beforehand, at 5 p.m., the public will have an opportunity to walk on the area being designed as a recreation space. Parking will be available at BJ’s Wholesale Club, 66 Seyon St. in Waltham. For more information or questions, contact Michelle Moon at mmoon@watertown-ma.gov If anyone has accessibility requests, they can email Tyler Cote at ADA@watertown-ma.gov.