Our mixed-up open space priorities

Why one and not the other?

The bull's-eye is Larry LeBlanc's 81 acres - site of the proposed wind farm.
The 27.5 acre YMCA parcel on Watchaug Pond is a little over half a mile
to the west

By Will Collette

Aside from Dan Slattery's search for Charlestown’s “phantom” open space properties, the two biggest “open space” controversies” in Charlestown during 2011 both came down to this question – is it in the public interest for Charlestown to buy more property to reserve for open space, or let the land be used for another purpose?

One of the properties is the 27.5 acre derelict YMCA camp on Watchaug Pond, subject of a green-light vote at last week’s Town Council meeting.

The other is the 81 acres of wild and undeveloped land overlooking Route One that is owned by developer Larry LeBlanc and which is still in play for maybe (a) a wind turbine complex, (b) a large affordable housing development or (c) sale to the Narragansett tribe to provide the land they could use to build a casino. Earlier this year, the Council rebuffed LeBlanc’s offer to sell the land to the town.

These two parcels are fairly close to each other. They share many of the same environmental features, though the old Y camp property is covered with abandoned buildings but is right on the water while LeBlanc’s land is not. The LeBlanc land, however, straddles a good chunk of Charlestown’s glacial moraine and is largely untouched and unspoiled..

LeBlanc’s offering price of $3 million was clearly an opening offer, not a firm price, given the current assessment of the land at about $1 million. But the Town Council didn’t even make an effort to negotiate, indicating that the best the Town would offer is at or below the assessment. So LeBlanc didn't budge off his opener and the town didn't even seem to want him to do so.

Yet LeBlanc’s land – and mostly LeBlanc’s proposed or hinted uses of it – has caused migraine headaches in the town for at least the past five years. His Whalerock wind farm proposal turned usually eco-friendly Charlestown into NIMBYtown and turned a consensus in favor of wind energy into town policy that is the most extreme anti-alternative energy in the United States.

One of LeBlanc’s alternative uses – large-scale housing development – gave impetus to Charlestown’s retreat into extreme anti-development, anti-affordable housing NIMBYism. Our Planning Commission now seems to oppose any new housing and was just recently thwarted in its attempt to push state legislation to gut the state’s affordable housing program.

And then there’s Larry LeBlanc’s ever lurking threat to sell his 81 acres to the Narragansett Tribe. If the tribe buys the land and if it combines it with land it already owns and if legislation passes in Congress to overturn the “Carcieri Fix,” then maybe the Tribe might decide to put the land under federal trust and proceed with its dream – and white Charlestown’s nightmare – of building a casino, a la Foxwoods. Though that's an awful lot of "ifs," I understand how it makes people nervous.

But instead of marshalling our resources to get rid of this royal headache by negotiating a fair price with Larry LeBlanc and buying those 81 acres, we said “no.”.

But for reasons I can’t fathom, we seem willing to pay the YMCA a premium price for its Watchuag Pond camp. The only thing that had been planned at that camp site was a pleasant conservation development that would have cleaned up the property and put 10 market rate houses on the land along with public access to the pond and open space.

That proposal by Ted Veazey would have added at least $5 million to the tax base.

Instead, the town taxpayers are being asked by the Charlestown Land Trust to put up hundreds of thousands of dollars so the Trust can complete the purchase and take title. We will also pay at least $100,000 in the short-term and perhaps several hundred thousand more over time to clean-up and maintain the camp. Maybe even a million or more. For a camp we don’t own. A camp that sits on land that could have become a productive part of our tax base.

I applaud the Land Trust's recently announced fund-raising effort, which is being chaired by Boston attorney and Sonquipaug neighborhood leader Joanne D'Alcomo. I hope it raises most of the money the town is being asked to put up.

It seems only right that private money should be used to pay to purchase the land for a private non-profit group to own for the primary benefit of a private neighborhood group - and not Charlestown taxpayer money.

I would also note, as did the leaders of the Charlestown Conservation Commission, that there is no rush to commit taxpayer money to buy the land since the matching grant terms set a period of 14 months to raise the matching funds.

The YMCA camp property wasn’t going to be used for a wind farm or a densely packed development or an Indian casino or a toxic waste dump or a fireworks factory. The only threat it posed was to trespassers from the Sonquipaug neighborhood whose children played in the abandoned buildings and to the pond from leachate from the old camp cesspools.

But that still leaves the question - what about LeBlanc’s land? There is litigation regarding the Whalerock wind farm that is awaiting a judge's ruling. LeBlanc's lawyers have made a strong argument that the current Town Council improperly overturned the prior Council's action that almost gave LeBlanc a clear path to begin Whalerock's construction. The case currently awaiting a judge’s decision in RI Superior Court could easily go LeBlanc’s way and clear the way for his proposed 400 foot wind turbines to be built on the moraine.

If not that, then maybe affordable housing. Or the sell-to-the-Narragansetts gambit.

Why are the Planning Commission and Town Council so hellbent on spending taxpayer money to pay a premium price for the YMCA camp – that poses no serious threat to the town – and ignore the opportunity to end Charlestown’s long nightmare?

As consumers, we spend millions of dollars to relieve headaches, back aches and pains in the butt. That’s how I view the looming threats to Charlestown from LeBlanc’s 81 acres.