Capping months of negotiations, Edgartown selectmen voted Friday to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Martha’s Vineyard Boys and Girls Club related to the planned purchase of a 21-acre parcel off the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road for a new, expanded club facility.
The complex, five-page MOU is still subject to a two-thirds vote at town meeting this April, and would effectively grant the Boys and Girls Club a valuable easement to their new property in exchange for a land swap with the town.
“I think we ultimately came to an agreement that has an equal exchange in value to the Boys and Girls Club and the town,” town administrator James Hagerty said.
Club leaders signed a purchase and sale agreement with the Norton family last May to buy the 21 acres for $2.8 million, or $135,000 per acre. The club, whose current facility is located off Robinson Road adjacent to the property planned for a new facility, services over 1,200 Island children every year through a variety of after school programs, camps and activities.
As part of the sale with the Norton family, the club has agreed to subdivide the 21 acres into four parcels. The northernmost 9.75 acres, called lot C, will remain with the Norton family, while the southern section of the property adjacent to the town’s current baseball field and tennis courts will be divided into three lots.
As spelled out in the MOU, lot D, a two-acre parcel behind the baseball field, will be transferred to the town for $1. Mr. Hagerty said in a phone call after the meeting that the two-acre parcel would go to the town’s parks and recreation department and potentially include an expansion of the park facility adjacent to the property.
A second, 4.5-acre parcel at the southernmost section of the property, lot B, will be offered to the town by the club for $135,000 an acre, the same price per acre the club has agreed to pay the Nortons. The parcel is adjacent to the town’s Westside Cemetery. Mr. Hagerty said the town would use the parcel as natural heritage mitigation for the work planned on lot D.
He said the town hopes to eventually use lot B as an expansion to the cemetery. But because the Norton property contains rare moth habitat, every acre use of the land used must be offset by two acres of conservation — a difficult calculus that complicates the project phases.
The third, 14-acre parcel, lot A, will be owned by the club, including a 2.4-acre envelope meant to house the new facility and a parking lot. Additionally the town will have a right of first refusal on lot A in the event that the sale not go through, the MOU stipulates.
In exchange for the land, the town has agreed to grant the club an easement that snakes behind the tennis courts and ultimately connects the property to Robinson Road. The MOU limits use of the easement to the club or another nonprofit, preventing it from being sold or otherwise granted to another entity.
The MOU stipulates that the club will reimburse the town up to $300,000 for the costs of moving or relocating any recreational facilities that have to be displaced because of the easement, including the tennis courts or baseball field. The club will also pay 25 per cent of fees charged to an engineering firm for the planning of that work, should it be needed.
The MOU also contains a trio of clauses that clear the way for the club to use the easement in calculating the property valuation for the purpose of a mortgage or loan for capital improvements, capped at $1 million. If the property went into foreclosure, the town would have the chance to buy it for the price of the outstanding balance on the note, the MOU also stipulates.
Club leaders have said they are in the early stages of a capital campaign to raise money for the project.
If it clears voter approval at the annual town meeting, the project will also have to go in front of the Edgartown planning board as well as the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.
“We are very grateful for the cooperation . . . to get to this point,” said Jeffrey Madison, who serves on the club’s board. “We will not seek to change the agreement. We will do everything that we can to live up to it. If it changes, it will change as a result of the town meeting vote.”
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