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Date: 5/27/2016
LONGMEADOW – Voters voiced their disapproval of utilizing field space for town building projects by defeating an article at Town Meeting that called for additional studies at Turner Park and approving a non-binding citizen’s petition to preserve Wolf Swamp Fields.
Article 16 of the May 16 Annual Town Meeting warrant called for a vote to transfer $50,000 for additional site analysis, conceptual site plans and building renderings for a new Adult Center at Turner Park. Residents voted for the initial funding at the Nov. 3, 2015 Special Town Meeting.
Town Manager Stephen Crane formed two task forces to research locations for a new Department of Public Works (DPW) facility and Adult Center, respectively. The DPW Task Force recommended Wolf Swamp Fields as its top site and the Adult Center Task Force indicated portions of Turner Park would be ideal. The Select Board formed its on committees to further research town parcels for these projects, both of which are currently working to develop recommendations.
Crane told Reminder Publications the $50,000 would have been also utilized to create a master plan of the entire Turner Park parcel.
“I presume that the [Adult Center Committee] will essentially do what the DPW Committee is doing, which is basically re-doing all of the work that the task force did,” he explained.
When asked whether he believes creating a building project on open space would be an uphill battle with residents, Crane said he would let the committee’s work inform the next steps for the projects.
“I’m trying to kind of pull back and let the committee do their work,” he explained. “If the committee comes up with a different recommendation, I’ll support the recommendation of the committee.”
Crane said he anticipates the committees making recommendations sometime within the next couple months.
He said he “completely understands” and agrees, in part, with the idea to preserve open space areas.
“They are beloved because they are great,” Crane said. “I agree with the statement that our open spaces are one of the things that make Longmeadow such a great town, but after spending all of the time that I’ve spent on both issues and on land use generally in the community, it’s clear that we just don’t have a lot of options or opportunities to expand our tax base, which is something that I think I’ve laid out clearly that we’re going to need to do in the near future.”
He continued, “I think by and large, there’s broad consensus that a new DPW is needed. I think as we educate people on the constraints of the current site, they understand that it can’t go back where it is. It can’t really go anywhere in the meadows because of flood plain restrictions, conservation restrictions, and other environmental restrictions.”
Crane said he believes an alternative site to Wolf Swamp Fields for a new DPW complex, the privately owned Grande Meadows Athletic Club, would be a viable location.
“It would require an eminent domain vote, which would be a Town Meeting vote,” he added. “It’s costly – it’s assessed at $2.2 million – and then there would be a relocation payment to the business because there is a business operating there. There would be site prep costs associated; you would have to demolish the building because the building cannot be reused for DPW.”
He said if the site were chosen it would also mean the permanent loss of tax revenue from the location.
“Not only the tax revenue, which is about $10,000 that we get now, but the loss of potential tax revenue if it were ever developed say into an office building or something like that … It’s already zoned commercial and we have very little commercially zoned land, so it’s valuable in that regard. We’re going to have to incur debt to build this DPW facility and we’re going to have less capacity to pay it because we’re taking a tax generating [property].”
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