Groton — Absolute clarity regarding the dispute surrounding the Merritt property and the fate of the town's Groton 2020 school project is just on the horizon.

Late Tuesday night, during a Committee of the Whole meeting, Town Attorney Eileen Duggan said that the town soon will file an application with the New London Superior Court to release any use restrictions on the Merritt property and thus allow construction of a consolidated middle school on the site.

She added that since briefing the Town Council in April, three public conservation groups have publicly reiterated their support for using the Merritt property for the middle school, as part of a land swap agreement that would transfer the use restrictions to part of the King Property and a 20-acre property known as Boulder Heights.

"I do appreciate the concerns that the process has taken some time but I do believe, however, that the best interest of the town and the best opportunity for meeting the goal of construction of a consolidated middle school rest with this process," Duggan said.

Two years ago voters approved a $184 million multischool building project that would build or renovate three schools, and for which the state would reimburse $100 million. Construction of the consolidated middle school is set to begin next year, with the facility set to open in 2020. However, disagreement involving the land-swap needed for the school has thrown the project into some doubt.

The Merritt property, which the town purchased back in the late 1980s and on which the school would be built, is deed-restricted for open space and recreation. Because of the property's conservation restriction, the town is required to provide an equivalent property for conservation in its place, thus transferring the deed restrictions elsewhere.

For the swap, the town proposed a 20-acre property off the end of Colver Avenue known as Boulder Heights, in addition to 36 acres of the King property.

Although that swap has been approved by the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, back in March a spokesman for the Office of the Attorney General said the town still needed to obtain permission from a Superior Court judge in order to build a new middle school on the land adjacent to Robert E. Fitch High School because the Merritt property would be used in a manner inconsistent with the conservation restriction.

Duggan said that, in addition to submitting the application to the superior court shortly, the town also is working with the attorney general's office to help streamline the process.

c.clark@theday.com