City Council declines right of first refusal option on Feeding Hills property

Dec. 26, 2018 | Stephanie Trombley
stephanie@thereminder.com

AGAWAM – During the Agawam City Council meeting on Dec. 17, the council voted to decline the town’s right of first refusal option on land located at 0, 1246 and 1266 Springfield Street in Feeding Hills. The vote included 0 yes, 10 no and 1 absent.

Right of first refusal is the right to enter into a transaction before anyone else can. A yes vote would have been in favor of Agawam entering a transaction to purchase the land. The no vote represents that the town has declined to enter into the transaction.

The vote came after a recommendation by Mayor William Sapelli to vote no.

Councilor Anthony R. Suffriti shared with the council, “Our community relations met this evening prior to tonight’s council meeting. It was talked about from Mr. Sapelli’s letter to the council of the first refusal option and that he had done his due diligence on what it could be used for in the town of Agawam, and at this time, it didn’t meet any of the needs, and to take it off the property tax roll would actually be negative for the town. There was some small talk between and amongst the councilors, and we put a vote three to zero in favor of sending a negative recommendation not to proceed with the purchase of the property.”

Councilor George Bitzas commented, “I’d like to thank the mayor. I think the letter was excellent and I hope this letter persuades some of you. I was totally against this from the beginning when I saw this in our agenda. I saw the land. I felt this was not in the best interest for our town and not for the best interest of our taxpayers.”

Councilor Dino R. Mercadante agreed, stating “I’d also like to commend the mayor for his decision not to pursue the option on this piece of property. Things we have to look at here is, when we take a piece of property off the taxpayer rolls, how long this piece of property is going to stay fallow and how much lost revenue we’re going to not get from it. Also, if we’re going to not put a piece of commercial development in that particular spot, where are we going to put it? We have to start looking at the residents here and their escalating tax rates, and by putting some commercial development in this town in good, reasonable spots, we’ll slow the rate of that tax growth for the residents.”

Many councilors agreed that the town of Agawam needs to observe potential locations for senior housing and a revival of the town hall.

Councilor Robert Rossi shared, “At the onset, I though that the property geographically was a pretty good idea for the town, as did several other members of some of the committees that I have been on and thought that it might be useful to the community for an early childhood center or for other uses, like open space recreation, those types of things. I did not jump to any conclusions about not getting the property. But after evaluating it and taking into consideration what the mayor and his team did, it was determined that it would not be useful for the city of Agawam.”

Rossi continued, “There was due diligence on the mayor’s part on not purchasing the property because he found it to be of no value. But geographically, if the property was a little bit better in terms of wetlands and use for the community, it probably would’ve been a good area. But we found that for our town purposes it not to be, so I have to commend the mayor and his committee for the work that they’ve done in not applying for the exemption.”

Councilor Paul C. Cavallo agreed that Agawam should look into potential areas for town building improvement.

“I applaud the mayor for making the move that he did make. He’s looking in the near future to take care of some of the needs in terms of our buildings and what we need. If we can find a piece of land where we can adjoin the town hall with the police station, I think that would be great. As you know, the police station on Springfield Street is certainly antiquated. Some of the material that they have inside the building is fine, but it doesn’t really look like a police station. They desperately need one.”

Cavallo continued, “And also, the town hall. We’ve done some band-aid approaches to help make it handicap accessible, but let’s face it, it’s an old building. Maybe somewhere in the town or maybe right where it’s standing, we might be able to put both of those facilities there. We do need that, people have to understand that. It costs some money, but hopefully we can buy some land and make them better than what they are.”

Councilor Rosemary Sandlin said, “I also want to commend the mayor, but I think we need to remember to look at every one of the 61 A properties that come up to see if we can use them. We look at it to see if it could be of use to the city.”

The property was looked into by the town and by the housing committee, who determined based on various factors such as wetlands that the property was not suitable for the needs of Agawam.

Councilor Joseph Mineo, who is on the housing committee, shared, “We had thought that it might be a good piece of property maybe for affordable senior housing and there were some other ideas we were talking about because it does make sense if you have something where seniors can walk to. With that piece of property, they could go to Stop & Shop or the post office, there were a lot of things in walking distance. A part of that property is wet, so I am going to support that we don’t take it, but hopefully something will come along.”

Agawam City Council meetings are hosted at the Agawam Junior High School Auditorium located at 1305 Springfield St. Meetings take place the first and third Monday of every month with the exception of summer and holidays.

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