Mayor Daniel M. Knapik submitted an order to the City Council last night seeking to petition the state legislature to authorize transfer of the Cross Street municipal field from a park designation to general municipal purposes.
The Council sent the request to its Legislative & Ordinance Committee for further review.
Ward 2 Councilor James E. Brown Jr., chairman of the L&O, said he will slate a committee meeting for Monday, May 14 at 7 p.m. following the 6 p.m. Committee as a Whole session to nominate candidates to represent Ward 3.
Brown said this morning that the Knapik’s request to petition the legislature will be one of the items discussed by the committee.
Brown said that Cross Street was one of nine park facilities upgraded through a federal Department of the Interior conservation grant. Approximately 2.7 acres of the nine-acre playground was improved through the federal grant, but records do not detail which area of the Cross Street facility was upgraded through the federal grant.
“The only way to change this is through the General Court,” Brown said. “We’re asking the General Court to approve the city’s taking of that land and in return we are proposing to place a restriction of 62 acres of land on Northwest Road that the city will acquire as open space and recreation space. It’s a fair trade, 2.76 acres for 62 acres.
“Basically, it’s to complete the transfer of (Cross Street) from park to general municipal use,” he said.
The city is seeking to change the designation of Cross Street to support construction of a new elementary school at the intersection of Cross and Ashley Streets.
Two Cross Street residents spoke against that school project during public participation.
Emily Larsen of 36 1/2 Cross Street, who has a child that would attend the new school, questioned the adequacy of evacuation procedures and the need to put children on sidewalks next to the heavily traveled street during emergencies.
Larsen said that she attended the Planning Board’s public hearing Tuesday and was not given an answer to her questions to either the board or Fire Chief Mary Regan.
“That children are not safe (during evacuations) is unacceptable,” Larsen said. “Children should be safe both inside and outside the school building.”
Daniel Smith, a Holyoke resident whose family owns the house at 36 Cross Street, informed the City Council that all council members have been named in a suit filed by 10 residents in Hampden Superior Court challenging the status of the school project and the permit process of city boards.
“You have an agenda item asking you to vote to send a petition to the (state) Legislature to approve a land transfer,” Smith said. “You can’t because of pending court action. You were all named as defendants, if you have not been served, that’s your problem. A hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday (May 9).”
Smith said the status of the Cross Street Playground was established to “protect that land in perpetuity.”
Smith said the process for changing the status of park land and open space is with the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
“They have procedures they have to follow to discourage use of open space, to preserve recreational opportunities for economically disadvantaged. Parks are essential to open space in our city,” Smith said. “What is proposed is removal of half of that green space in the poorest section of the city.
Smith’s brother, Thomas, is also a party to a separate civil suit charging the Zoning Board of Appeals with improperly approving a dimensional special permit for a side yard setback needed to create a legal building lot for the school construction project.
Attorney Mark A. Tanner of Bacon Wilson filed the superior court appeal on behalf of Cross Street residents Ernest L. and Elizabeth Simmons of 32 1/2 Cross Street, and Holyoke resident Thomas P. Smith, who has an ownership interest in his family’s house at 36 Cross Street.
The suit charged that the ZBA acted in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner when it granted a dimensional special permit to provide side-yard relief for the school project.
“There was no basis in fact or law for the grant of the dimensional special permit,” Tanner charges in the suit. “Any such grant was arbitrary and capricious, rest on legally untenable grounds, and was in violation of the law.”
City Council members questioned Thursday night following the meeting said that have not received any information about the suit referenced last night by Smith and no further details of that legal action were available to the public, or press, this morning.
