What
will it cost the taxpayers to end a decade of high anxiety?
By
Will Collette
No
matter the outcome of the Zoning Board of Review hearings on Larry LeBlanc’s
proposed Whalerock industrial wind project, Charlestown’s on-going nightmare
will continue.
It will continue until either Larry LeBlanc builds something on his 81 acres overlooking Route One that will give him and his partners a profit or somebody pays him the price he needs to walk away.
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| How much is it worth? |
It will continue until either Larry LeBlanc builds something on his 81 acres overlooking Route One that will give him and his partners a profit or somebody pays him the price he needs to walk away.
LeBlanc
is a business man, not an ideologue. He expects to get a fair return on his
investment. Besides, according to people who know LeBlanc, he believes
the town promised him it would buy the land from him when he was, according to
the tale, talked into buying the land from Narragansett Electric, which he did
on March 19, 2003 for $1.1 million.
The
legend is that LeBlanc was urged to buy the parcel to keep it from falling into
the hands of the Narragansett Indian Tribe. The tale also includes an unspoken “quid
pro quo.” If LeBlanc gave the town the land the 10 acres where our new Police
Station was built, it would expedite the town’s purchase of the 81 acres.
The
real estate market has been on a wild roller coaster over these last ten years.
LeBlanc bought the land just before Charlestown real estate prices skyrocketed.
By 2006, average values in Charlestown jumped by more than 33%. Many properties
were doubling and tripling in price.
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| How Charlestown property values have changed over 10 years |
But
those high-flying values ended with the real estate crash. Today, according to Zillow.com, Charlestown is
at about the same average value that it was in 2003. This is reflected in
LarryLand’s current tax assessment value of $1,019,000, slightly less than what
he paid for it.
However,
his assessment should be climbing to $2 million in the new fiscal year starting
July 1. LeBlanc registered a sales agreement on December 31, 2012 at Town Hall
showing that his formerly silent partner, James Barrows of Connecticut, promises
to pay LeBlanc $2 million for the land not later than December 31 of this year.
Barrows will also lease-back that portion of the land that LeBlanc needs to
build the turbines.
Some key moments in Whalerock history
Shortly
after acquiring the land in 2003, LeBlanc was approached by the town when Charlestown was interested in seceding from the Chariho School District and was planning to set up its own independent school system. The planned location for the new main campus of the new Charlestown School was to be LeBlanc's property atop the moraine.
The land was appraised at $4 million and was included in the total package for a new autonomous Charlestown School District that was presented to the voters in 2004. It failed and Charlestown remained in the Chariho system. That left LeBlanc to fend for himself to find an alternative use for the land. Town officials advised him to consider putting up a high-end housing complex which, they told him, would probably not face much town resistance.
So LeBlanc proposed a major new development called “Ninigret Hamlet” that would contain 200 condominium units. That resistance that wasn't supposed to happen, happened. In 2005, the number of proposed units was dropped to 125. While LeBlanc was pitching the Ninigret Hamlet project, he was also pitching the town to buy the property.
The land was appraised at $4 million and was included in the total package for a new autonomous Charlestown School District that was presented to the voters in 2004. It failed and Charlestown remained in the Chariho system. That left LeBlanc to fend for himself to find an alternative use for the land. Town officials advised him to consider putting up a high-end housing complex which, they told him, would probably not face much town resistance.
So LeBlanc proposed a major new development called “Ninigret Hamlet” that would contain 200 condominium units. That resistance that wasn't supposed to happen, happened. In 2005, the number of proposed units was dropped to 125. While LeBlanc was pitching the Ninigret Hamlet project, he was also pitching the town to buy the property.
During
the last year of Jim Mageau’s reign as Town Council President, LeBlanc floated
a number of hints that the Town needed to make a deal with him or he would do a
deal with the Narragansetts.
But
during those times, it was hard enough for the Town Council to even assemble a
quorum to hold a meeting, and when they did, they were deadlocked with Mageau
and Bruce Picard on one side of every issue, and the CCA Party supported
Councilors Kate Waterman and Harriet Allen on the other.
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| Chief Sachem Thomas : "We haven't offered Larry LeBlanc anything." |
The
Mageau Council ended without any negotiations with LeBlanc. They were replaced
by five new Council members, all of them elected on the Charlestown Citizens
Alliance Party ticket.
When
the new Council took office in November 2008, LeBlanc offered them several
choices – (1) the Ninigret Hamlet 125 (or 200) condo project; (2) watch him cut
a deal with the Tribe or a casino developer or (3) buy the land from him. In
December 2008, he made an offer of $5.5 million which didn’t fly.
In
January 2009, the Town Council turned down a reduced price offer of $4.5 million by a vote of
4-1. Now-Budget Commissioner Richard Hosp was the only Councilor to push for
buying the land at that price. Hosp said at the time that the land was “potentially important” to the future of
the town and "I think we should have put it before the voters."
When
the Council rejected LeBlanc’s offer, Charlestown’s anti-Tribal casino paranoia
was at its height. The Tribe had won a decision from the US Court of Appeals in
its federal lawsuit that it had the right to put land into federal trust and
outside town jurisdiction[1]. The state of Rhode Island, on Charlestown’s
behalf was appealing the Appeals Court ruling all the way to the US Supreme
Court.
Later
in 2009, after the Carcieri decision, LeBlanc returned with the new Whalerock wind
turbine proposal which was initially going to be done as a partnership with the
town. Whalerock’s initial investment was estimated by LeBlanc and his partner
and son-in-law Michael Carlino to be $2 million, with the expectation that there would be federal funding and grants as well as stateand local funding and tax breaks. Since then, many of those
financial opportunities have vanished.
At the Zoning Board of Review's May 21, 2013 hearing, Carlino testified that it will cost $4 million each to build the two turbines.
At the Zoning Board of Review's May 21, 2013 hearing, Carlino testified that it will cost $4 million each to build the two turbines.
According
to a complaint filed by neighbors of the Whalerock site, that partnership agreement was hatched
at an illegal meeting held between three of CCA Party Town Councilors
(Forrester Safford, Gregg Avedisian and Candi Dunn) and LeBlanc at a wind
energy conference at URI. That complaint was rejected by the state Attorney General, but it marked the beginning of a bloody civil war and a permanent internal rift within the CCA Party.
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| Nick Gorham, LeBlanc's lawyer for Whalerock. Gorham also represented the Sachem Passage Association which opposes Whalerock, though not as a party to the lawsuits |
LeBlanc’s lawyer, Nick Gorham, testified before the Zoning Board in 2009 that LeBlanc was asked by the Council at the URI conference to launch the Whalerock project and promised the support of the town. Before that conversation, LeBlanc had no particular plans to build wind turbines.
When
the 2010 election rolled around, the anti-wind CCA faction ran its own CCA
loyalist slate against the pro-wind CCA Town Council incumbents who were
effectively excommunicated from the CCA Party.
It
was a bitter, nasty campaign. Each faction elected two Council members and
newly elected “independent” Councilor Lisa DiBello provided the deciding vote.
She threw in with the anti-wind CCA Councilors Dan Slattery and Tom Gentz, not
so much because she was against wind power (though she said she was) but because the incumbent, now ex-CCA Councilors had voted to fire her as Parks and Recreation Director
six months before the election.
Yes, it is a very a tangled web.
In
November 2010, with the anti-wind forces in control of the Council, Larry
LeBlanc cancelled the partnership agreement with the Town and decided to go
forward with the project on his own. The new Council, controlled by CCA
loyalists, immediately enacted a moratorium intended to stop all wind power projects in Charlestown,
especially Whalerock.
However in
2011, the Charlestown Zoning Board of Review (ZBR) ruled that Whalerock’s
application was complete and “vested” under the Town ordinances that existed at
the time and could go forward, despite the moratorium.
The
Town and the neighbors used the courts to try to stop LeBlanc, but have lost twice before two different judges. The final decision is up to the ZBR who had
ruled in 2011 that Whalerock’s application was complete and the project could
go forward. The critical last step in that process begins with the ZBR public
hearing on May 21st.
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| Town Council boss Tom Gentz (CCA) argued strongly for buying the LeBlanc land for open space |
In
June 2011, there was one
last half-hearted effort made to reach a deal on the purchase of LeBlanc’s land by the town. LeBlanc’s offer was $3
million.
Town Council Boss Tom Gentz (CCA) made an impassioned speech urging that Charlestown should make a deal with LeBlanc.
Planning Commissar Ruth Platner presented a Planning Commission advisory that favored acquiring the property for open space.
US Fish and Wildlife’s local chief Charlie Vandemoer presented an environmental analysis of the site that highly praised its value as open space.
Town Council Boss Tom Gentz (CCA) made an impassioned speech urging that Charlestown should make a deal with LeBlanc.
Planning Commissar Ruth Platner presented a Planning Commission advisory that favored acquiring the property for open space.
US Fish and Wildlife’s local chief Charlie Vandemoer presented an environmental analysis of the site that highly praised its value as open space.
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| So did Planning Commisar Ruth Platner (CCA) |
LeBlanc’s
lawyer, Nick Gorham, said LeBlanc’s price was $3 million. Neither he nor
Slattery would budge. Gentz made one last attempt to break the deadlock by
asking the audience in the Council chambers for a show of hands for who favored
the town buying LeBlanc’s land.
Only
two hands went up – mine and Planning Commissar Ruth Platner. But there were
plenty of hot-headed, anti-LeBlanc people in the audience, more than enough to
convince the Council to vote 4-1 to blow off LeBlanc.
Instead
of negotiating in good faith and trying to arrive at a reasonable compromise,
the Whalerock controversy has become a guaranteed employment program for
lawyers. Other than them, I doubt if anyone in Charlestown is happy with the
amount of money has been thrown down the toilet or the amount of stress it has
caused in town.
So what is
LeBlanc’s land worth?
In
any property transaction, you begin by deciding how much the property is worth
to you. The ultimate sale price will be determined by a compromise between the amount
you want to pay and the price the seller is willing to give you.
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| We almost spent nearly $1 million on Y-Gate |
After a private party ended up buying it, the former Y Camp’s assessment was cut to less than half of what the CCA Party was willing to pay for it.
I
related my own experience in 2007 helping a citizens group in Cranston to defeat a
proposed cement plant in their neighborhood. That battle was permanently
resolved when the city, using mostly DEM funds, bought the land for $2 million.
That land was tiny compared to LeBlanc’s property. It was pretty messed up as
well as in a working class neighbors with generally low appraisals.
Under
LeBlanc’s arrangement with Barrows, they plan to build not only the two Whalerock
wind turbines, but also a housing development on the remaining acreage not needed for the turbines.
LeBlanc's ten
year investment is worth something. And if it’s true that Charlestown has broken its past
assurances to LeBlanc, he has some moral claim to compensation for the money he
has spent on lawyers and experts to push all of the various alternative proposals
he has made over the past ten years.
LeBlanc has at least two partners – son-in-law Michael Carlino and James Barrows who signed the $2 million sales agreement. They will expect something for their time and efforts.
LeBlanc has at least two partners – son-in-law Michael Carlino and James Barrows who signed the $2 million sales agreement. They will expect something for their time and efforts.
Back
in January 2009, then Councilor Richard Hosp was willing to say that he felt
Charlestown needed to make the deal, even though LeBlanc’s asking price was
then $4.5 million – and this was after the real estate bubble burst.
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| LeBlanc's land is currently assessed at almost the same amount that he paid for it ten years ago. There is a signed sales agreement on file at Town Hall that provides for James Barrows to buy the land from LeBlanc for $2 million not later than December 31 of this year. Over the past decade, the "value" of the land has swung wildly based on the real estate market and the anticipated uses of the land. Values range from a low tax assessment of $885,000 in 2011 to LeBlanc's claim that he was offered $20 million in 2007 by casino developers. |
Just
about every real estate deal involves a process we all know as “negotiation.”
State law and the Town Charter provides for property negotiations to take
place, as such matters usually do, behind closed doors in Executive Session. Click here and see RIGL 42-46-5(5).
As
I’ve looked to the historical record, I found no evidence of any real negotiation
between the town and LeBlanc. Given how much this land has cost the town in
time, treasure and anguish, it’s just plain pathetic that we’ve never actually
sat down and really negotiated.
I
believe there is a deal to be made. Between the funds we have in the
voter-approved Charlestown Open Space bond, our huge excess undesignated fund
balance and perhaps the participation of the RI Department of Environmental
Management which won voter approve last November for $20 million more for open
space acquisition, the money to make a deal is there.
What’s
missing is the will to begin to make the deal.
FOOTNOTE
[1] Contrary to CCA Party propaganda, the land the Tribe wanted to place into trust was NOT a casino property, but rather a low-income elderly affordable housing project. People in Charlestown were told that the housing project was just a front for a casino. Coincidentally, that piece of property is right next to LeBlanc’s 81 acres.
[1] Contrary to CCA Party propaganda, the land the Tribe wanted to place into trust was NOT a casino property, but rather a low-income elderly affordable housing project. People in Charlestown were told that the housing project was just a front for a casino. Coincidentally, that piece of property is right next to LeBlanc’s 81 acres.