Town Farm land is saved from a sale
Source: seacoastonline.com, by Rachel M. Collins
January 09, 2007
YORK, Maine -- The Board of Selectmen voted unanimously Monday night to nix the idea of putting the Town Farm land up for sale.
Instead they agreed to give a citizens committee until November an opportunity to look at possibly designating the property as an historical site, park or simply open space.
After listening to more than an hour of impassioned pleas from conservationists, historians, former town officials, gardeners and nearby residents, officials decided to back off on their proposal to sell three 30,000-square-foot plus housing lots from the front of the Long Sands Road property to raise money for a municipal fund to pay for a new town hall.
"I think the people have clearly spoken," said Selectman Torbert Macdonald Jr. "I have never heard such an outpouring of eloquence in all of my years in the town." Macdonald said he thought it was necessary that officials step back and allow the property's "historical and archaeological significance" to be determined.
Ron Nowell, a former selectman, told the board at the public hearing Monday night that he already had made application to the Historic District Commission to have the property declared an historic site allowing agricultural, historical and passive recreational uses.
He cited correspondence he had during the past week with the Old York Historical Society's Board of Trustees, which reportedly confirmed the property "might be the oldest land owned by a municipality for Town Farm purposes in Maine." The property, which has been used for more than two decades as community gardens, was the former home of the town "poor farm," as local attorney Wendy Moulton Starkey said.
However, last May voters approved selling town-owned property -- including the land on Long Sands Road -- with the proceeds to go to a fund to pay for a new municipal building.
Selectmen Chairman David Marshall told those in attendance at the public hearing that "our job is tough here tonight." But he said after the hearing that since selectmen had first agreed to draw up a plan to sell the lots, the donation of a contiguous 17-plus acres had created even a greater opportunity for the town.
"I'm way more excited by 30 to 32 acres of open space in the middle of York than by this two-plus acres," he said.
Selectmen and Town Planner Steve Burns have said the acreage that stretches along Long Sands Road to York High School could be ideal for a series of walking trails.
