Groton — The town has approved the sale of a small piece of the Noank School Public Gardens property to a neighboring property owner, and is considering selling another portion to another neighbor.

Clint Wright, chairman of the task force overseeing the public gardens on the roughly 6-acre property, said the task force has endorsed the sales. The land parcels, which are 0.09 acre and 0.168 acre, are in areas of the property that are unusable and won't affect the public gardens.

But the Planning Commission stands opposed for reasons that include that the town has not yet established criteria for the reuse of its facilities, and that the property's potential for development will decline if parts of the land are sold in "piecemeal fashion."

The Town Council in 2014 supported an agreement to allow the former Noank School property to become the site of public gardens. In 2017, the Town Council extended the use for another four years.

Public gardens comprise about 30 percent of the property and include garden plots for people to rent, as well as the volunteer-maintained "Giving Gardens," whose produce is donated, Wright said. There is room for additional garden plots, and the property also holds Christmas trees, fruit trees and a memorial garden. A fundraising effort is underway, and a committee is interested in potentially adding a pavilion, veterans garden and a small playing field for younger children.

Requests from neighbors

Town Manager John Burt said the owners of two properties adjacent to the Noank School Public Gardens property had approached the town within a week or so of each other to request the sale of portions of the town-owned property.

Michael and Valerie Speller, who have owned their property for the past 21 years, proposed purchasing 0.09 acre of the town property.

"Adding this piece of property to our property would give us the opportunity to create an additional buffer to the north side of our property and also to include it in our overall landscaping plan as a woodland garden so it substantially would not change from its current look and feel to the property," Michael Speller said during an October public hearing.

The town approved the sale for $12,500, with the proceeds slated to be allocated to a new fund "to be used for cleanup of nuisance properties," according to the minutes from the Nov. 7 Town Council and Dec. 12 Representative Town Meeting meetings.

Another adjacent property owner, Christopher Drake, is seeking to purchase 0.168 acre from the town. The purchase price is $2,500, according to Burt.

Drake, who for 25 years has lived in his house to the south of the gardens property, said in a phone interview Thursday that the 0.168 acre would serve as a setback for a small, yet-to-be-designed garage, and he has no plans to touch the additional acreage.

"It's a quite unusable piece of land," he said. "We just need it for that setback."

"It's in our family's best interest to preserve the property as much as possible, so we're not doing anything to overturn that," he added.

Planning Commission opposes sales

The Planning Commission opposes both sales, because it says the Town Council has not developed "criteria to evaluate the reuse or sale of Town owned property," a recommendation of the Plan of Conservation and Development, according to a town document. The commission also said the "development potential and value of this town-owned property will be diminished if portions of the property are sold in a piecemeal fashion to abutters" and the sale may "generate similar requests."

At a Town Council public hearing Wednesday on the 0.168-acre proposal, five people, including Planning Commission members, spoke in opposition.

Planning Commission Chairman Jeffrey Pritchard described the former Noank School property as a nice property that could be developed, if it were sold as one entity.

“We’re going to have in the long run needs for additional housing in the town, for senior citizens, as an example, or maybe affordable housing. I’m not saying that’s where it should go but those are potential uses for that property,” he said. “Nibbling away at it piece by piece by the neighbors is going to destroy the value of that property, if we want to sell it or use it for anything.”

Pritchard called for the town to come up with a policy for how it disposes of school properties.

Burt said the town has an adopted policy on the process of selling properties. A committee is slated to begin next week reviewing the town's properties and the types of uses they could be suited for and then develop over the next few months a proposed policy.

Michael Kane, a Planning Commission member, asked the Town Council to hold off on considering the sale until a townwide or council discussion on the entire property could be held. 

"I think it’s a mistake to start selling off little pieces," he said. "You never know which piece is going to make this property less desirable in the future to someone else. You could be selling the most critical part and we wouldn’t know it."

Wright said in a phone interview Friday that the two portions of land are in areas with steep and rough terrain and are unusable. He said the sale would not affect the garden and the overall usable space on the property, regardless of what activities take place on the property.

The school was built before the current zoning regulations, so the two neighboring property owners are looking at setbacks which would bring them into alignment with the current regulations, he added.

Town Mayor Patrice Granatosky pointed out that a map shows a steep elevation in the small chunk of land in the corner, and said from what she can tell, the sale would not impact the overall use of the rest of the property.

Councilor Lian Obrey proposed the council go back and review the proposal. She added that she doesn't think it would probably impact the property value but would like to be much more comfortable with that.

The Town Council took no action on Wednesday, as it was a public hearing. 

The Town Council Committee of the Whole is slated to consider at its meeting Tuesday whether or not to recommend a resolution to the council to approve the sale of the 0.168 acre portion "with funds to be deposited in a new fund to be used for cleanup of nuisance properties."

k.drelich@theday.com