Lynn Council preps for eminent domain action on waterfront

LYNN – The City Council is preparing to take by eminent domain five tracts of land along the Lynnway as a step toward developing the waterfront once the electrical transmission towers are removed.Council President Timothy Phelan has informed Lynn Economic Development and Industrial Corp. Executive Director James Cowdell that the council will go on record Tuesday in support of the land taking.”As you know, the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) issued all applicable permits for the relocation of the power lines on Lynn’s waterfront. The statutory time period to appeal issuance of these permits has expired,” Phelan told Cowdell in a Dec. 11 letter, adding that no appeal was filed.Phelan said he will ask the council to request the EDIC begin eminent domain proceedings for the following properties: Dean’s Foods, 626-680 Lynnway; Electrical Mutual, 715 Lynnway; Donald Algeni, 847-853 Lynnway; Car Realty LLC, 720 and 730 Lynnway and on Harding Street; and Irwin Nebelkoph & Paul Varadian, trustees of South Harbor, Lot 7 off the Lynnway.”This action will be another major step in correcting the decisions of our forefathers and realistically developing Lynn’s underutilized waterfront,” Phelan said.The DPU in October gave National Grid and Lynn officials permission to relocate power lines along the Lynnway that currently impede development. The permits were the last major obstacle preventing the relocation of the steel towers to the other side of the Lynnway, according to James Marsh, director of the city Department of Community Development.The DPU approval was contained in a 40-page decision in which the agency recognized that the relocation project would allow for nearly 6 million square feet of mixed-use development along the waterfront.Construction is expected to generate millions of dollars in taxable revenue, Marsh said.