Arlington Land Trust and Symmes Conservation Easement

The Board of Selectmen, under chair Dan Dunn in his last official act as chair, had an unusual Friday morning meeting to vote on the Symmes conservation easement.   According to the Advocate "the areas, which combined make up nearly nine acres, will function like public parks."

The entire Symmes site is 16 acres.  The initial debt exclusion paid by the Town was $12M for the site, later sold for about $7M to a developer selected by the Selectmen and their captive Redevelopment Board.  

Look at the attached picture which crudely shows the maximal acreage available for parks and open space is about 5 acres.  Ask yourself, where is the 9 acres out of 16 that this easement covers?

Note that the conservation easement will be held by the Arlington Land Trust whose president is none other than Clarissa Rowe, quoted in the Advocate as saying about this purchase "... I don’t think it was a decision the town should have made."

Note only did Arlington pay $5M for 5 acres of barely unusable land, the Arlington Land Trust will take the acreage off the tax rolls, costing Arlington an additional $70,000 a year in property taxes.  

Want to bet there is no public parking nearby?  The only people who will be able to use the parks are the apartment dwellers and Joe Curro's neighbors.  

A gift to the developer who won't be saddled with property taxes on 9 acres of land, a questionable 9 acres that doesn't pass the smell test and another source of property taxes taken off the rolls by Clarissa Rowe's Arlington Land Trust.