Community Profile

Pledge Summary

As described in the Town of New Castle 2017 Comprehensive Plan, New Castle’s land area is comprised mainly of bucolic, low-density residential neighborhoods. Of the Town’s approximately 15,000 acres, 14,488 acres are zoned for single-family residential use, and of these, 91% (13,194 acres) have one- or two-acre minimum lot sizes. This low density residential development pattern, derived from the Town’s zoning, has helped to maintain scenic vistas, large lots, areas of open space quality, and forested and undisturbed swaths of land that characterize the Town’s neighborhoods. Preservation of the bucolic residential character of the community’s neighborhoods is a priority to New Castle’s residents, as reflected in our 5-Year Tree City USA designation from the Arbor Day foundation, and recent Bee City USA designation from the initiatives of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. A brief description of the The Town's on-going development programs which coincide with applicable Mayors Monarch Pledge & Action Items in parentheses include: -Town Board 2022 Proclamation in Honor of Monarch Butterflies unanimously passed 4/26/22 (Communication and Convening Item #1). -New Castle Garden Club Native Plant Sale 5/5 - 5/7, 2022 (Program & Demonstration Gardens Item #10). -Formation of volunteer group 'New Castle Vine Squad' in 2020; 2022 stewardship projects in concert with local Eagle Scout project at 2 Town Parks (Jean Craighead George & Bicenntenial) manually removed invasive vines from deciduous trees (sources of food for pollinators) in winter (Program & Demonstration Gardens Item #20). -New Castle Community Day September 2022 - New Castle Conservation Board to host monarch butterfly and pollinator conservation themed booth. To include Town poster highlighting existing registered Pollinator Pathway properties AND facilitate recruitment of other property owners (Program & Demonstration Gardens Item #21). -Town Park Glazier Preserve - beginning in 2022, a private organic landscape company has been hired to perform maintenance practices to maintain a designed and installed meadow adjacent the park entrance by performing a single annual mow event in early spring. Lack of active maintenance since the last mow event in 2019 to accommodate tree planting at the meadows periphery, indicates the meadow habitat will transition to successional shrublands and resemble the dense shrub thicket immediately adjacent two borders of said meadow. Also planned is invasive species removal of a linear tract of mugwort bordering the meadow adjacent a park trail (Systems Change Item #24).