Longmeadow's DPW task force eliminates Wolf Swamp Field

July 22, 2016 | Chris Goudreau
cgoudreau@thereminder.com

LONGMEADOW – The Department of Public Works (DPW) Building Committee has eliminated Wolf Swamp Field as a potential home for a new DPW facility and is currently narrowing down a list of four sites to make a top recommendation to the Select Board.

Wolf Swamp Field was the top site for the Town Manager’s DPW Task Force. The Select Board decided to create the building committee to explore additional sites.

DPW?Building Committee Chair Chris Cove explained the committee reviewed its list of properties using a matrix. Each site was ranked on three factors, which included social factors and permitting, constructibility, and as well as acquisition and cost factors. Sites were ranked on a scale of 100 points. Social factors and permitting amounted to 45 percent of the overall ranking, constructibility was also 45 percent, and acquisition and cost factors amounted to 10 percent.

Cove said Wolf Swamp Field ranked high in constructibility, but extremely low in permitting due its designation as an Article 97 field, which protects and preserves open space areas. The committee listed the parcel on its list of sites until its most recent meeting.

“Mainly it ranked low because when this committee went back and made our matrix, we put a little more emphasis on the permitting factors,” he explained.

According to Article 97 of the Massachusetts Department of Energy and Environmental Affairs, in order to dispose of the status a municipality would need to obtain a unanimous vote from the Park Board, and a 2/3 majority from Town Meeting and the state legislature.

Cove said during the committee’s last meeting he believes the reaction from residents was “a sense of relief” that Wolf Swamp Field was removed from the list.

Cove told Reminder Publications the top sites include the privately owned Grande Meadows Tennis Club at 170 Dwight Road, a west portion of Laurel Park, the 20.1-acre Water Tower Property on Academy Drive, and the site of demolished former temple at the east end of Williams Street.

Cove said all four sites were ranked among the highest in at least one category.

“We started off with a totally clean slate,” he explained. “We basically asked to look at every single piece of property, whether it was privately held or held by the town that would be big enough to accommodate the site, which in round terms is a 4.5-acre site minimum.”  

He continued, “We quickly went through and said, ‘These don’t make sense; they’re privately held or they’re residential. We had nine sites that we went into an in depth analysis [with]. We spent about four or five meetings filling out a matrix.”

Cove declined to mention the list of rankings in order of scores because the matrix is in its draft form.

He added the committee is also investigating whether the Laurel Park property is protected under Article 97.

Cove said he anticipates that by the end of August a top site recommendation would be made to the Select Board in order to potentially place the project on the Special Town Meeting warrant this fall.

“We’re probably going to pick one saying, ‘This is our recommendation, but here are the pros and cons of all four sites,’” he added.

Town Manager Stephen Crane praised the work of the committee in evaluating sites and debating the merits of each location.

“We only have the sites we have and we can only evaluate and recommend a site or sites in comparison to the ones we have,” he noted.

The committee reviewed the current DPW site at Pondside Road for weeks, Cove said.

“The bottom line is that you can’t build in a 100-year flood plain and essentially everything west of [Interstate 91] is in a 100-year flood plain,” he explained.  

Got a comment about this story? Go to http://speakout.thereminder.com and let us know.

Share this: