Gift comes with a cost
Councillor worried about liability associated with new piece of land
A town councillor is concerned the costs associated with accepting a parcel of land that’s been given to the town could outweigh its future potential.
There was some divided opinion during last night’s council meeting on whether the town should accept a piece of property located off the end of Gaul Road as a gift.
Council ultimately voted 4-1 to accept the property, which has access via a right-of-way and borders the brook, with the possibility of it serving as a future park environment.
Coun. John MacFarlane voted against accepting the property after raising a number of concerns, one of which was that although the property has a right-of-way it is currently overgrown with no designated walkway to the parcel.
“I just don’t think it’s going to be cost beneficial to do anything with it. It’s way in the back, and you’ve got to go down a long way in order to get to it,” said MacFarlane, who said he didn’t want to ‘look a gift horse in the mouth.’
“It’s a gift, and we appreciate that, but there are also costs. There’s legal costs to change over the deed, then we have to maintain it, there’s also insurance and liability.”
The legal fees and searches to complete the deeding of the property over to the town are estimated to be about $1,000.
Coun. Jim Bagnall, who chairs the town’s planning board, said the board discussed several times whether to accept the property and initially refused it.
“We were told it was landlocked, so we weren’t going to accept it,” said Bagnall. “Andy (Daggett, Montague CAO) checked into the deed and there is, in fact, a right-of-way, so we reviewed it again and decided we would accept it.”
The property was first voted on during a committee of council meeting two weeks ago, where MacFarlane raised similar concerns.
“I just don’t see it ever coming to fruition,” he said.
The meeting also saw council vote unanimously to swap a piece of land with resident Danny London, a resolution that was recommended by planning board.
The swap involved two adjacent parcels located near the corner of High Street and Mill Street.
Bagnall said the board had previously talked about either buying a piece of London’s property or selling a piece of its own, with the ultimate decision being that a land swap was the best solution.
“What it really does is cleans up (the property lines in) the whole area down there and it helps our right-of-way and gives us proper access,” said Bagnall. “It also helps Mr. London because it gives him a place at the back to park his boat. Doing the switch is a win-win.”
Coun. Wayne Spin was absent from the meeting.