Last updated August 8, 2026

The place and the history

Thirty years of public access. One hearing left.

What the Forest River Conservation Area actually is, the legal protections it carries, and the documented story of the promise, from the neighbors who built the first boardwalk in 1997 to the Order of Conditions.

What’s actually here

This isn’t just open space. It’s protected, twice over.

The Forest River Conservation Area carries two independent legal locks, one from Massachusetts, one from the federal government, plus a Certified Vernal Pool with a state-listed obligate species. Every fact below is verified to a primary public record.

485
Units replacing campus
10
Public spaces requested
140+
Acres of woods at stake

Land Acknowledgement

This land is Naumkeag, the traditional and ancestral homeland of the Pawtucket band of the Massachusett people. Salem records a 1686 quitclaim deed from the heirs of sachem Wenepoykin to the Town Selectmen for £20; the original parchment is held in the Salem City Clerk’s vault. The Forest River appears in 1624 records as Massabequash, a Naumkeag place.

Source: Salem Historical Profile (salemma.gov/city-clerk/pages/historical-profile); Salem State Land Acknowledgement (salemstate.edu/LandAcknowledgement).

01

Massachusetts · State Lock

Article 97, In Perpetuity

All 97.73 acres of the Forest River Conservation Area are coded ARTICLE97 = 1, LEV_PROT = P (Perpetuity) in MassGIS. Article 97 of the Massachusetts Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of both chambers of the state Legislature to convert any of it to non-conservation use.

MassGIS Protected & Recreational OpenSpace; Salem 2023–2030 Open Space & Recreation Plan (state-approved 2024-01-08).

02

United States · Federal Lock

LWCF Section 6(f)

90 of the 97.73 acres were acquired with federal Land & Water Conservation Fund grant money. Under 54 U.S.C. § 200305(f)(3), any conversion of LWCF-encumbered land requires National Park Service approval and replacement land of equal value. This protection runs independent of, and in addition to, Article 97.

MassGIS attribute fields GRANTPROG1=SH (State Self-Help) + GRANTPROG2=LWCF, EOEAINVOLVE=1. The 1997 LWCF attachment is referenced on the existing Salem State entry sign.

03

Natural Heritage · State-Certified

Certified Vernal Pool #3192

Inside the largest FRCA polygon, the Massachusetts Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program certified a vernal pool on June 11, 2003, on the basis of an obligate species: fairy shrimp. Certified pools are protected under the Wetlands Protection Act, with regulated buffers extending around their perimeter.

MassGIS NHESP Certified Vernal Pools, CVP #3192. Coordinates: 42.491846° N, 70.904555° W.

04

BioMap · Coastal Resilience

Salt Marsh & Coastal Adaptation Area

The MassGIS DEP Wetlands layer documents 38 wetland polygons in the FRCA, including salt marsh, tidal flats, wooded swamp, and a 112.83-acre tidal-flat polygon along the Forest River channel. Both the FRCA and South Campus edges fall inside BioMap Critical Natural Landscape “Coastal Adaptation Areas”, salt marsh and adjacent upland buffer flagged for climate resilience.

MassGIS DEP Wetlands (1:12,000); BioMap Critical Natural Landscape Components (Coastal Adaptation sublayer).

A documented contamination history · why disturbance matters

Forest River Lead Works · 1840–1968

From 1840 through 1968, a lead-paint manufacturer operated on the Marblehead bank of the Forest River, directly across from what is now the FRCA. A 2015 Geological Society of America study of marsh-peat cores in the Forest River estuary documented elevated lead and arsenic concentrations in the upper ~28 cm of sediment, the depth a new footing or stormwater outfall would penetrate. Any project disturbing the marsh sediment must contend with this historical industrial signature.

Source: Geological Society of America 2015 abstract, “Salt Marsh Stratigraphy and Environmental History: Forest River Estuary, Salem, MA.” Operating dates from Salem Public Library wiki, Forest River Lead Works.

The city has already studied this

Salem ConCom & CPC commissioned a 2016 engineering assessment.

In February 2016, the Salem Conservation Commission and the Community Preservation Committee jointly funded a Forest River Conservation Area Trails Assessment by Kyle Zick Landscape Architecture and Childs Engineering Corporation. The report identified priority improvements, signage, an accessible crushed-stone path, erosion control, boardwalk replacement, and recommended specific scopes and 2016-dollar costs for each. In 2017 the City funded just one piece of it: an $87,500 accessible crushed-stone path (paid from a state recreational trails program and the City’s own capital improvement budget). The boardwalk replacement the assessment called for has gone unfunded ever since.

Public document: salemma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/2418 · Forest River Conservation Area Trails Assessment, Feb 2016.

How we got here

A trail network they promised to build, then called impossible.

The promise of public access through these woods runs back nearly 30 years. The developer offered to extend it, in writing and on their own plans, to win the bid. Watch that commitment shrink in three documented beats, ending with the moment they called the trails they drew “not feasible.”

  1. Neighbors open the woods themselves.

    Ward 7 Councilor Steve Dibble and more than 100 residents built a 200-foot, 6-foot-wide boardwalk across the Forest River salt marsh over two weekends. It was named the Volunteer Bridge.

    Source: Salem News, “Into the deep woods of South Salem”

  2. Salem invests in an ADA-accessible trail.

    The City spent $87,500, from a state recreational trails program and the City’s own capital improvement budget, to build a stone-dust, wheelchair-accessible trail from the Salem State South Campus parking lot trailhead to the Volunteer Bridge. Designed by Kyle Zick Landscape Architecture, it was the first public investment in the conservation area in more than 30 years. Then-Assistant Planner Tom Devine described it: “just about anyone, regardless of their ability, is able to traverse the main trunk trail.”

    That accessible trunk trail was meant to be the start, not the end. Several miles of conservation-area trails extend through the woods to the west and south, the same routes the developer would later promise, in writing, to upgrade and connect. The public investment was already on the ground when they made that promise.

    Sources: Salem News · Kyle Zick Landscape Architecture

  3. The RFP opens, with conservation access as a stated priority.

    DCAMM opens bidding on the 23-acre South Campus. At the announcement, Mayor Driscoll names three public goods the sale should deliver: housing, “improve access to and preservation of sensitive conservation areas,” and protect the historic Saint Chretienne convent.

    Contemporary news coverage describes the site in its own voice as supporting “an entrance to the Forest River Conservation Area”, treating conservation access from the outset as a pre-existing public amenity of the property being sold.

    Sources: Itemlive, “Salem State puts campus out to bid” · Salem News, Feb 2022

  4. Avalon and Winn win the bid. Their proposal includes a promise.

    DCAMM publicly recommends the AvalonBay + WinnDevelopment team. The Commonwealth describes their winning proposal in its own words:

    “The proposal by the recommended Development Team includes… enhanced connectivity to the scenic Forest River Conservation Area.”

    Beat 1 of 3The Commonwealth, naming the winning team

    Source: mass.gov, DCAMM announcement, December 2022

  5. The developer files the same promise, in writing.

    In a formal state filing, Avalon + Winn’s attorney lists the project’s components. Component #3, in the developer’s own words:

    “…and (3) open recreational space and improvements to pedestrian hiking trails and trailheads connecting to the adjacent Forest River Conservation Area, to be undertaken jointly by the Proponents.”

    Beat 2 of 3Developer’s attorney, in a formal filing

  6. Purchase & Sale signed.

    The Commonwealth formalizes the transfer to the Avalon + Winn team. The project is branded Forest River Residences.

    Source: mass.gov, South Campus Redevelopment page

  7. The “enhanced connectivity” shrinks to a bike rack.

    The Planning Board conducts its Section 8.9 Coastal Resiliency Overlay District Site Plan Review on the two-phase, up-to-485-unit project. Discussion centers on color selections and AvalonBay’s signage package. Phase I (AvalonBay, 340 units of new construction) is approved. Phase II (WinnDevelopment, up to 145 units of adaptive reuse) is continued to a future hearing. Asked what the promised conservation access actually amounts to, the developer’s representative answers on the record:

    On the record, the developer’s representative described Avalon’s “enhanced connectivity” obligation as trailhead landscaping improvements, the addition of a bike rack, and removing trash from the trailhead area.

    Beat 3 of 3Developer’s representative, Salem Planning Board

    On the Record

    The developer’s on-the-record offer: one additional public parking spot, bringing the total to five, for a development of nearly 1,000 residents. Plus invasive species removal.

    The Contradiction

    The same approved plans polish the trailhead entrance with landscaping and a bike rack, while the trail network their own proposal promised to build goes unbuilt. They will dress up the doorway to a conservation area they are declining to actually open.

    The promise narrowed

    A bike rack, trailhead landscaping, and trash removal at one location is maintenance, not access. It does not build the “series of accessible footpaths” weaving through the woodland with overlooks that the developer’s own proposal promised, and drew. The Commonwealth’s “enhanced connectivity” survives this reading only if it can mean “a bike rack”, which it cannot.

    Source: Salem Planning Board public hearing, April 23, 2026.

  8. The promise meets the very topography it was sold on.

    At the Conservation Commission’s May 19 hearing, the developer’s own winning proposal came up directly. WinnDevelopment’s representative told the Commission that the promised conservation trails are “not feasible” to build. But that promise was never vague, and the terrain was never a surprise. The Avalon + Winn proposal said this, in its own words, in the section titled “Forest River Conservation Area Access”:

    “…a series of accessible footpaths will weave through the existing woodland areas with overlook spaces on the western and southern sides of the park.”

    Avalon + Winn proposal, “Forest River Conservation Area Access”

    They did not just write it. They drew it. Their official Site Plan maps switchback trails climbing those exact slopes, labeled, in their own hand, “OVERLOOKS + TRAILS”, on the same hillside the proposal sold as a feature, describing how the design “nestles the development into the natural bowl created by the surrounding topography.” Decide for yourself:

    AvalonBay and WinnCompanies official Site Plan from their proposal (page 29). Two areas labeled 'OVERLOOKS + TRAILS' show switchback footpaths climbing steep, densely-contoured hillsides on the western and southern sides of the site, beside the Avalon buildings and Loring Villa, above the Forest River Conservation Area.
    The developer’s own Site Plan (AvalonBay + WinnCompanies proposal, p. 29). The tightly-spaced lines are elevation contours, steep grade. The zig-zag paths are switchbacks, the standard way to carry an accessible trail up a slope. Both are labeled “OVERLOOKS + TRAILS.” These are the trails the developer told the Commission are “not feasible” to build. View the original document (PDF).

    A commissioner named it: a bait-and-switch

    “Not feasible” is doing a great deal of work in that sentence. This plan was built to win a competitive public bid; its job was to present the most compelling possible vision for the land. The grades on that hill have not changed since the bid, and the developer was still showing this same plan view, with the same trail network drawn on it, at the August 12, 2024 community meeting and again at the December 9, 2024 Harrington Building meeting with Mayor Pangallo, when the developer needed City approval of the 40R. What changed is the willingness to pay for the trails once the property was secured. And at the hearing it was not only the trails, one appealing commitment after another from the winning proposal was now described as not feasible. A commitment WinnDevelopment made to win the bid binds WinnDevelopment, regardless of who speaks for the company today. The hearing was continued, to a July 1 special meeting the City later cancelled (see below).

    Sources: Avalon + Winn proposal, “Forest River Conservation Area Access” & Site Plan (p. 29). Salem ConCom hearing, May 19, 2026.

  9. Under pressure, the first trail comes back.

    After the continued hearing, a Commission-ordered site walk on June 4, and weeks of public letters and testimony, the developer’s consultants filed a supplemental submission committing to a 5-foot-wide public footpath from Loring Avenue to the trailhead, the connection they had called “not feasible” on May 19, with Loring access to be written into the public easement “in perpetuity.” Their own letter calls the trail “likely the largest improvement” and admits the regulations they had blamed “originally appeared to be a barrier.” The terrain never changed. The pressure did. The filing also roughly doubles invasive-species removal and details trailhead improvements, and asks the Commission to issue the Order of Conditions. The trail network and overlooks from the winning plan, and the Volunteers Bridge, remain absent. See the full scoreboard.

    Source: Supplemental Submission to NOI, Goddard Consulting LLC, June 9, 2026 (DEP File #064-0825), pp. 2–3, 6–7, 10; KMDG Conservation Area Improvements Plan, sheet L1.1.

  10. Withdrawn, then refiled with the trail on the plans.

    The City cancelled the July 1 special meeting. Several commissioners had missed hearings and could not vote, so on June 24 the development team withdrew its application and on June 30 refiled it under a new state file number, DEP #064-0831. The refiling carried the trail commitment forward, stating that the project “now includes the requested trail connection from Loring Ave through to the trailhead,” and added a standalone Trailhead Improvements Package with a public footpath, information board, bike rack, bench, nine granite conservation markers, and an interpretation area developed with the Naumkeag Tribe.

  11. Approved

    Both boards close their hearings and approve.

    On July 21 the Conservation Commission closed its public hearing and issued a unanimous Order of Conditions. On July 23 the Planning Board closed its own hearing and approved the Winn Phase II decision 7 to 0. The Loring Avenue trail connection is on the approved plans, and the Planning Board decision requires the parking lot corner to be redrawn to make room for a better walking route. The wider trail network and the overlooks were not required, and the Volunteers Bridge was never part of this filing.

    At that final Planning Board hearing, the minutes record public comment in one word: “None.” The work had already been done, months earlier, by people writing letters and showing up on weeknights.

    Source: Salem Planning Board minutes and signed decision, July 23, 2026; Salem Conservation Commission agenda, July 21, 2026.

    The one ask still open

Keep reading

The Bridge

Salem awarded $66,148.66 toward fixing it in 2022, but the volunteer-labor grant could not be assembled. A DANGER sign hangs there instead.
Update · June 16, 2026 · The Day of the Hearing

The June 16 letter, in its own words.

On June 16, the day of the hearing, Mayor Dominick Pangallo submitted a letter to the Conservation Commission. Read closely, each point it makes moves a commitment somewhere it can no longer be enforced. Here is what the letter says, and what the record shows.

The letter says

“…the RFP is not applicable to the Conservation Commission’s purview of the project.”

The record

The letter itself notes the development team promoted these connections “across public informational meetings and the required zoning hearings with the Planning Board and City Council.” The trail commitments were not confined to a state document. They were made through Salem’s own public approval process, the one residents relied on. A project approved on those representations should be held to them.

The letter says

“The most recent example of this is the proposed footpath extension to Loring Avenue, which the applicant has recommended be conditioned to be part of the perpetual access easement with ongoing maintenance responsibilities.”

The record

In the applicant’s own June 9, 2026 submittal, the continuous footpath behind the parking lot is committed only to reconfiguring parking “to the extent practicable.” The path fits in if the parking allows. And the improvements at the Loring Avenue end sit on state-owned (MassDOT) land, which the plans note are “subject to DOT approval.” A connection the applicant has made conditional on its own parking and on another agency’s approval is being described as a permanent easement commitment.

The letter says

“…the City will be applying to the Community Preservation Committee in its next funding round in order to fund an assessment of the trail bridge and the development of repair plans for it. Once there is a clear understanding of its condition and the required scope of work, the City will be able to identify funding sources to advance the necessary repairs.”

The record

This bridge was already awarded repair money, but the grant was built around volunteer labor, and the volunteer force could not be assembled. In 2022 the City awarded $66,148.66 in Community Preservation Act funds toward “Volunteer Bridge Rehabilitation” in the Forest River Conservation Area, with all work due within one year and the construction itself to be donated by volunteers, work a private contractor would have charged the City at least $318,000 to do. The volunteers could not be assembled, the funds returned to the CPA pool, and four years later the letter proposes to return to the same fund in its “next funding round”, this time only to assess the bridge and draw up repair plans, before any repair funding is even identified. The 2022 grant was meant to repair the bridge. The 2026 proposal is to study it.

The letter says

“There is no nexus with the proposed project to compel such funding from the applicant.”

The record

This is accurate as a matter of law, and beside the point. A “nexus” is what the law requires before a city can compel a developer to pay for something unrelated, it has no bearing on what a city can negotiate. When the Union Square redevelopment needed Somerville’s zoning approval, that city compelled nothing; it negotiated roughly $91 million in community benefits as the price of the approval, including $5.5 million toward the Green Line Extension. Salem held the same kind of leverage on this project, the Chapter 40R Smart Growth rezoning the City Council adopted, and the discretionary Conservation Commission waiver it still requires. The record shows the City used that leverage to support the project, and shows no request that the developer help fund the Forest River trails or the bridge. The City was never required to compel a payment. It was free to ask.

Read together, each enforceable commitment has been moved somewhere it cannot be enforced, and the one moment the City held clear leverage over the developer was spent supporting the project, not bargaining for the trails and bridge its own residents asked it to protect. The Conservation Commission’s role is to protect the wetland resource and the public access that was promised, and to decide on the record before it. We are asking it to do exactly that.

Salem deserves leadership that bargains for its residents when it holds the cards.

For the record · campaign finance (public data)

Per the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF), the Pangallo Committee (filer #18152) has received the following individual contributions from members of the project team:

$1,000

AvalonBay

David Gillespie, the project’s AvalonBay representative (Chestnut Hill), two $500 contributions, 2024 and 2025.

$1,000

WinnCompanies

Lawrence Curtis, President (Boxford); Michael O’Brien, EVP (Southborough); Gilbert Winn (Boston), 2024–2025.

$2,750

Project attorney

Joseph Correnti (Correnti Kolick LLP), attorney of record on the application (Salem), four contributions, 2023–2025.

Combined, from the project team

$4,750

Of these donors, only the project attorney resides in Salem. The developer executives reside in Chestnut Hill, Boxford, Southborough, and Boston.

These contributions are a matter of public record and are legal under Massachusetts law, which prohibits corporate donations to candidates. We draw no conclusion from them and make no claim that they influenced any decision. We believe the public is entitled to the full record and can weigh it themselves.

Source: OCPF, Pangallo Committee filer #18152, ocpf.us/Filers?q=18152.