Thursday, January 24, 2013
The board discussed the controversial Vose Parcel as well as new sidewalks in the area.
The Board of Selectmen addressed several issues surrounding the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail on Tuesday night, including two issues impacting the long standing debate on parking in the area of Carlisle and Acton roads. With Westford Conservation Resource Planner Bill Turner fully recovered from illness that prevented him from attending the board’s last meeting, the Selectmen gathered his counsel on how to proceed with a conservation restriction agreed to by the Conservation Commission. Although the small size of the property (8,500 square feet) made it an unusual choice for a conservation restriction, the Conservation Commission recommended pursuing a restriction approved by the state due to a certified vernal pool near the property, the …
Friday, January 18, 2013
The issue that dominated Town Meeting last year continued with several items last week.
If there was one continuing news item Westford continued to see in 2012, it was the issue of parking along the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail. And while it's 2013, that didn't stop the Board of Selectmen from hearing more updates on the topic. Westford director of land use planning Angus Jennings presented an update on the Cresthaven parcel, a small piece of land on Acton Road along the trail just north of Carlisle Road. Since a subdivision approval in 1988, a cloud has been on the title of the property, which at one point was a potential location for a parking area near the trail. Jennings informed the board that issue at hand, whether the boundary of the property in its deed was the northern or southern stone wall on the property, had been …
Friday, June 29, 2012
Memorandum of Understanding from neighbors' group reviewed
The Tax Possession Sale Committee was missing one of its three voting members on Thursday night and decided to hold the Vose parcel vote until their next meeting in July. As soon as the meeting began, members Bill Harman and Darrin Wizst stated that they would wait for missing member Ernie Hyde to be present before taking a vote. This did not stop the forward motion on the parcel, however. The neighbors’ group, led by Wade Ripley of Acton Road, presented a memorandum of understanding to the committee. The memorandum laid out the agreement and the deed restriction details starting with the assumption that the TPSC will transfer the Vose parcel to the Conservation Commission. In the agreement, the Conservation Commission will hold …
Thursday, May 10, 2012
The matter now goes back to the Tax Possession Sales Committee, which meets on May 17, and appears that it will eventually go before Town Meeting.
In the latest chapter of the ongoing Bruce Freeman Rail Trail parking issue, the Conservation Commission agreed to help place a conservation restriction upon the controversial Vose Parcel. After a recent discussion by the Tax Possession Sale Committee (TPSC) on how to dispose of the property drew a lengthy debate, a delay was made to see if the parcel could be transferred from its current status as a TPSC property to the ownership of the Conservation Commission. The idea was brought forth as a way to ensure that the town could keep the property in a natural state while ensuring that people would not congregate near the property per the neighbors’ desires. “This is a happy solution for all sides, but we’d need to get a legal opinion,” …
Andrew Sylvia
10:57 am on Thursday, January 24, 2013
Thanks Chris! I apologize for the error here, I must have misheard things. I grabbed the details from the packet Chris mentioned and added them above as a .pdf attachment, I hope I can make amends there. Also to build on what Chris said, there's plenty of other source materials for from BOS, School Comm and Fin Comm meeting packets on the Town Website, go to "meetings and agendas" on the "quick … more ›