Above: Special Town Meeting will be asked to vote on a $100,000 Article related to the old Atwood Water Tank parcel. But a request to ultimately turn the land over to the Affordable Housing Trust won’t be on the October Warrant. (image from Town GIS Map)
At Tuesday’s Select Board meeting, the Chair of the Affordable Housing Trust announced the formal withdrawal of their offer on the old Atwood Water Tower Parcel.
The Select Board will be bringing forward an amended funding request to the Fall Town Meeting for the next stages of addressing contamination on the Town-owned property. But voters won’t be asked to consider a deal to allow the Trust to purchase the site. (At least not this fall.)
At the Select Board’s September 2nd meeting, Al Hamilton (a member of both the Select Board and AHT) had outlined an offer from the AHT to pay $200,000 to the Town to help reduce the costs of cleaning up the site that tested positive for lead contamination. In exchange, the Trust would take over ownership of the parcel, after full remediation, to use for building Affordable Housing.
Below are my recaps of the Trust’s more recent decision and the Select Board’s Special Town Meeting Article.
Affordable Housing Trust’s reversal
It appears the AHT’s board voted unanimously in a closed Executive Session immediately following their last public meeting. On Tuesday night, Manz said the Town needs more time to study the environmental concerns. He also referred to concerned neighbors and the quickly approaching Town Meeting.
Prior to that vote, at the Trust’s September 11th meeting, Select Board member Marguerite Landry informed the AHT board that she believed the cleanup costs might not be a legally allowed use of the AHT’s funds. She also clarified that the lead contamination is about 12″ below the soil surface. And she noted the need for an engineering study is needed to provide cleanup options, determine if ledge is present, and assess if further testing is needed.
Even if the board wasn’t worried about what studies would reveal, it was clear they knew they would have a big challenged to overcome neighbors’ worries and gain voters’ support for the soon-approaching Town Meeting.
Details and much of their decision making related to this potential projects and others are currently shrouded by closed sessions. The board is legally allowed to discuss potential real estate acquisitions behind closed doors to avoid a “detrimental effect on the Town’s position.”
Manz pointed out that while “unfortunately” they have abutters “full attention” now, they didn’t yet have any timeline for how long it would take to begin or complete a remediation project.
The last time the Town looked into the site for an affordable housing project, neighbors publicly worried that the project would be inappropriate for their neighborhood.
Last week, the chair described his board’s intent to use the parcel for “very low density” housing for a 55+ community. But he didn’t specify how many units or what type of building they were seeking to build.
Resident Carl Alvitti pushed Trust members to explain why the Trust was rushing the Article to this Fall’s Town Meeting. If the Trust was “acting in good faith” Alvetti believed they should be willing to make the offer after the Engineering Report on remediating the land is final.
Alvetti was the only one to publicly comment at that meeting. But comments in recent meetings indicated that other Town officials had been hearing concern from residents outside of meetings.
During the Atwood discussion, member Jesse Stein asked if they should consider focusing more on the (unidentified) “uncontaminated parcel”. Manz noted that they have only discussed it in Executive Session and couldn’t speak publicly about that privately owned parcel. It was unclear whether he was speaking about an unrelated, alternative site, or an abutting site related to the Atwood project.
In their August 14th meeting, the AHT board talked about wanting to build a 20 unit 55+ community. However, they didn’t specify where. And since the Atwood parcel is only 1.8 acres, it’s unlikely they would target locating all the units on that land under the descriptor “very low density”.1
It remains possible that the AHT board will consider making another offer on the Atwood parcel down the road, after both they and voters learn more about the Atwood situation from the Engineering Report.
Select Board’s Remediation Article
As I previously covered, the Select Board planned to ask Special Town Meeting to approve $85,000 from “Free Cash” to approve engineering and other costs required to prepare to issue an RFP for remediation of the site. Abutter Sarah Warden asked about how the Town was addressing/funding the recommended “temporary safety measure” for the contaminated site until remediation is done.
This week, Chair Andrew Dennington said that after following up with the engineer on his recommendation, they were adding $15,000 to the request to cover the temporary fix.
Hamilton asked to revise the Article to pay for the costs out of the Water Enterprise Fund (the revolving fund based on collecting fees from water users) rather than Free Cash (with is based on collected tax revenue). He said that since the contamination was the result of lead paint formerly on the water tank that was for the Town’s water system, non-water system users shouldn’t have to pay for the cost.
His request applies not only to the funding Article this fall, but to the future funding (expected to be far higher) for the actual site remediation.
Hamilton lives in one of the sections of town that is cutoff from the Town’s water supply. He argued that residents in those areas have to pay for operating and maintaining their wells. He followed that made it unlike other Town “amenities” that some residents don’t use.
As an example, he stated that while his kids are too old for him to take advantage of the public schools, that would change if he adopted a child tomorrow. But the water system will never be accessible to him.
Member Kathy Cook originally believed it should be funded by Free Cash, but said she thought that Hamilton made a convincing case. Still, she wanted to include DPW Superintendent Bill Cundiff in the discussion.
Landry disagreed, saying that it is Town land and funding only through water user fees would be “very divisive”. She argued, “We should all just bite the bullet and pay for it.”
Dennington said Hamilton made good points, but he was inclined to use Free Cash. He noted that the enforcement action from MassDEP if the Town doesn’t act would be against “100% of the Town”.
Member Tim Fling said that he believed the funding source should be based on the Town’s intent for the future use of the property. If the property will be useful for the entire Town, then the cleanup should be funded by the Town.
The board agreed to have Cundiff and Pare Engineering consultant Tim Theis attend the next meeting on October 7th. That’s the same night that they will finalize the wording in the Warrant.
They’ll vote on the funding source that night and get more information to help them present the request to voters at the October 27th Special Town Meeting.
- An alarmed reader highlighted to me that there is an abutting 3 acre parcel the Trust could also have been eying. Using the combined 4.8 acres for 20 units could qualify as low density — but I still wouldn’t describe that as “very low”.
