The Hinesburg Town Common is coming to life!
The ground has been graded, drainage installed, and grass was planted using federal grants. Can you help make a pavilion and playground happen?
By The Town Common Committee
The Hinesburg Town Common is happening!
This past summer, the ground was graded, drainage was installed, and grass was planted using federal grant funds. Then, thanks to a $30,000 grant from the Vermont Urban and Community Forestry Program, volunteers from the community planted 50 trees and shrubs.
Another grant of $128,000 from the Department of Commerce Downtown Transportation Fund will help build entryways, paths, and parking. All this work was coordinated by the Town Common Committee which was appointed by the selectboard in 2023.
We continue to chase down more grant opportunities, but we need your help.
The committee is seeking to raise $138,000 to erect a 24’ x 30’ pavilion and install a playground. To pay for all this, we are launching a fundraising campaign, an effort being led by two retired business executives, Will Patten and Bill Schubart.
You can learn more about this project here. If you are interested in making a donation you can contact Will Patten or Bill Schubart.
Guided by the small-town New England custom of “doing rather than buying,” the campaign is engaging Hinesburg residents to be part of the creation of our own town common. The plan is to raise the necessary money from residents and then raise the structures with local and volunteer labor. No tax dollars will be spent to complete our Town Common.
Ten years ago, when Milot Real Estate was granted a permit to build the Creekside development, they agreed to deed to Hinesburg the 2.6-acre lot between Farmhall Drive and Route 116 for “future community facilities.”
Town officials envisioned a town green like those in Bristol and Vergennes and so many other Vermont villages. Behind the scenes, Maggie Gordon, then on the Planning Commission and now a member of the selectboard, and former Planning Director, Alex Weinhagen, took steps to bring the vision to life.
“We decided to hold a pop-up park in 2019 to bring attention to the space and it was fantastic - lots of people attended,” Gordon said. “That was followed up with the design charette in 2021, where groups worked together with large maps to create designs for the park. Fall Festivals were held there in 2023 and 2024.”
In 2023 the Selectboard appointed the Town Common Committee to bring to life conceptual drawings of a public green space based on the community input and a design created in collaboration with engineers from Dubois & King. The Committee understood that they would have to rely upon volunteer labor, grants, and philanthropy to complete the project.
This spring, we hope the once vacant lot across from Parkside Café will be a busy place. The pavilion will be erected in one day by 20+ volunteers and supervision from a Vermont timber frame company that will craft it.
Over the summer more volunteers will be installing playground structures; others will be working on butterfly gardens and the entryway. This Town Common is going to be built by and for the people of Hinesburg.