Chester seeks federal grant to improve Carpenter Community Park parking lot

The parking lot at Carpenter Community Park in Chester is large enough to shape how families, league players and event crowds move through one of the town’s busiest recreation sites, and officials are now seeking federal money to make it safer and more accessible. The Town Board voted May 27 to apply for a Community Development Block Grant to repave the roughly 30,000-square-foot lot, add new ADA spaces and signage, repaint striping and install new crosswalks.

Supervisor Brandon Holdridge said the grant request could land somewhere between $125,000 and $275,000, but the town was told not to expect the money until 2028. That makes the project a long-range fix rather than an immediate repair, even though the changes would be visible to anyone who uses Carpenter Community Park’s pavilion, basketball and tennis courts, baseball and softball fields, bocce court, children’s swing set and playground, pickleball area, little free library and public bathroom.

Town documents show the parking lot work is part of a broader effort to improve access across the park, not just to lay new asphalt. The county’s environmental review notice for FY2026 Carpenter Park improvements described a looped asphalt pathway around the park to better connect visitors to amenities and facilities, while earlier board materials referenced a Carpenter Community Park ADA walkway project funded by a prior grant. In January, Holdridge said the town expected to begin construction on walkway, bathroom and lighting projects backed by about $270,550 in grant funding.

This is not the first time Chester has turned to outside aid for the park. Orange County approved $95,550 for Carpenter Community Park ADA accessibility improvements in its 2025 CDBG awards, and town meeting minutes say Chester has been pursuing Community Development Block Grant funding for Carpenter Community Park improvements for a third consecutive year, including parking lot resurfacing, lighting upgrades and ADA parking-lot reconfiguration.

The effort fits into a county program that has supported public facilities, infrastructure and accessibility work since 1974. Orange County officials said that from 2018 through 2025, federal CDBG money invested more than $21 million in the county, including drainage, street, wastewater and park projects.

Chester, a town of about 25 square miles near the New Jersey border, leans heavily on Carpenter Community Park as a central public space, which is why changes to the parking lot would matter well beyond the pavement itself. The board also set a June 24 public hearing on amendments to the comprehensive plan and zoning laws, even as work on Route 17M and other town matters continued to crowd the agenda.