SAUGUS — Town Meeting members on Monday evening gave the Board of Selectmen the go-ahead to acquire the title to the land and buildings at 42 Jackson St. in Cliftondale Square, and allocated $835,000 for the purchase of the property, which is set to become municipal parking.
By wide margins, members voted to approve Articles 6 and 7 on the Special Town Meeting warrant, both of which were submitted by Town Manager Scott Crabtree. The two-family home on Jackson Street sits adjacent to a property on Lincoln Avenue also owned by the town, and was under agreement pending the Town Meeting vote Monday. The purchase had been recommended to Town Meeting by the Finance Committee at a meeting last week.
Crabtree explained that purchasing the property is part of the town’s efforts to revitalize the square after years of decline for businesses. The town convened a Cliftondale Square Revitalization Committee to look at potential solutions to the issues plaguing the area, and one of the chief concerns raised was the lack of parking.
“This discussion has been going on for decades,” Crabtree said. “The conclusions out of all of those reports … was that without accessible and available parking in Cliftondale Square there’s going to be a challenge in trying to attract businesses and revitalize [the area]. The studies were consistent to the point that public acquisition of property would be an option to allow for expansion of this accessible parking.”
Crabtree admitted that he wasn’t certain purchasing the property would be a “silver bullet” to revitalize Cliftondale, but added that he believed there were no easy solutions to the issues facing the area.
At the meeting, the articles were backed by three members of the Board of Selectmen — Chair Anthony Cogliano, Vice Chair Debra Panetta, and member Michael Serino — who each advocated for Town Meeting members to approve the articles, with Cogliano going as far as to say that “we can’t afford not to buy this.”
Serino added that “without parking, we won’t have a shot of revitalizing Cliftondale.”
Precinct 10 member Peter Manoogian attempted to make an amendment to Article 6 that would have capped the price the town could purchase the property at 25 percent of the average assessed value of the property during the previous three fiscal years, consistent with Massachusetts General Law Section 40, Chapter 14. According to assessing records, the property is valued at $634,600.
Manoogian also sought to amend the article so that “no demolition of any real property on the site shall occur until such time as a plan for Cliftondale Square that includes zoning changes is developed by the Planning Department and subsequently presented to and adopted by the Saugus Town Meeting and that parking rules and regulations for said parking lot are adopted after a public hearing by the Board of Selectmen.”
But, Town Moderator Stephen Doherty, in consultation with Town Counsel John Vasapolli, found the amendment to be out of order, as the articles before Town Meeting did not concern any future plans for the property. An effort by Manoogian to undo Doherty’s ruling failed.
Doherty told Manoogian the first part of the amendment, concerning the purchase price, was only relevant to Article 7, which asked Town Meeting to formally allocate the funds.
Manoogian repeatedly pushed back on the idea that the town could purchase the property for any amount higher than $723,000 citing the portion of the law that states “no lot of land shall be purchased for any municipal purpose by any city subject to this section for a price more than twenty-five per cent in excess of its average assessed valuation during the previous three years.”
But, Crabtree and Vasapolli repeatedly assured Town Meeting that they would follow the law, and Precinct 9 member Rob Strasnick noted that the particular portion of the law cited by Manoogian only concerns cities.
Some members expressed skepticism about the need for parking in the area, while others feared the property could be later sold to a developer and turned into apartments, but the concerns appeared to fall on deaf ears with their fellow members who voted overwhelmingly, by a margin of 34 to 5, to approve Article 6.
Manoogian formally proposed an amendment to Article 7 to cap the purchase price to $723,000, citing the law, but the amendment failed to gain traction with Town Meeting members, who ultimately voted 34 to 6 to approve Article 7.
Charlie McKenna can be reached at [email protected].
