LYNN — The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to exercise eminent domain for 98.7 acres of unclaimed land and authorize the city to grant a conservation restriction for the Lynn Woods to the Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Essex County Greenbelt Associates, Inc.
The conservation restriction applies to park lands, forest lands and watershed lands.
“This was a true community effort,” said Assistant City Solicitor James Lamanna, whose department worked with the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), the Essex County Greenbelt Associates and the Lynn Water & Sewer Commission for many years on the project.
Lynn Woods Reservation is the second-largest municipal park in the United States, according to the Essex National Heritage Area website. The reservation was founded in 1881 and offers 30 miles of trails that run through more than 2,000 acres of diverse forest, wetlands, ponds and streams. The ponds of Lynn Woods provide residents of the city and neighboring communities with fresh drinking water.
Mayor Thomas M. McGee spoke in favor of the conservation restriction at the public meeting in the City Council Chambers on Tuesday. McGee called Lynn Woods one of the greatest resources of the community and an important resource for the region.
“There is an opportunity here for us to preserve for our generation and future generations something special in all of our hearts,” said McGee.
He thanked the law department and Lamanna for their hard work on this conservation project that spanned several years.
Maura Scherrer, vice president of the Friends of Lynn Woods, spoke in support of the approval as well. She said that the organization joined forces with the DCR and the Essex County Greenbelt Associates eight years ago in an effort to update and strengthen the antiquated documents that were protecting Lynn Woods. The goal was not to change ownership but to update the conservation measures already being supplied by the park act in 1890.
“Nobody expected this process to take eight years. I certainly didn’t,” said Scherrer.
Proposed conservation documents would keep things as they are and protect the park for the future generations, said Scherrer. The process took so long because of an extensive and complicated title search, as the parcels of land were purchased by the city or donated haphazardly without complete documentation.
For the last four years, the DCR and the city’s law department have been searching for a deed for a 98.7-acre piece of land and its owner. Since their efforts were not successful and the owner did not step forward, the City Council voted to execute eminent domain and include the land into conservation.
The version of the conservation documents that the City Council voted on were already deemed acceptable by the DCR and the Greenbelt, Scherrer said.
No one spoke in opposition to the conservation restriction.
The Council also voted to petition the governor of Massachusetts to designate this land as conservation land forever, under Article 97 of the Amendments to the Constitution of the Commonwealth. Next, the Lynn state delegation will take the petition to the State House and senate to eventually be signed by the governor.
The conservation restriction will not affect the Gannon Municipal Golf Course and its parking lot that were carved out from the document, Lamanna said. Some land is owned by the Lynn Water & Sewer Commission, which will have to vote on putting a conservation restriction on their plots and agree on Lynn’s conservation restriction.
Lamanna said that in the city’s view, the language of the conservation restriction does not prevent Lynn Water & Sewer from carrying out their business.
The Friends of Lynn Woods is a community organization that was incorporated in 1990 to help the city in maintaining and improving Lynn Woods. The main goal of the nonprofit is to ensure Lynn Woods Reservation’s perpetual existence.
Essex County Greenbelt conserves farmland, wildlife habitat and scenic landscapes in the 34 cities and towns of Essex County. It owns and manages more than 6,000 acres of conserved land, owned by private individuals, municipalities, or organizations.
