Edgartown is going back to square one in its effort to lease out the so-called Yellow House on Main street amid concern about a shade tree on the property.
A town subcommittee charged with evaluating proposals for the property was scheduled to reconvene Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. to work on a new request for proposals to lease and renovate the run-down property next to town hall.
The town took the property for $3 million by eminent domain from the Hall family last year.
In early February selectmen signed off on a plan to lease the property to a team including Vineyard Haven contractor Mark Nicotera, who proposed renovating the property and turning it into retail space and apartments.
On advice of town counsel selectmen added conditions requiring Mr. Nicotera to hire arborists to make sure a public shade tree on the property was not harmed by construction. The shade tree was the subject of legal wrangling between the town and the former owners of the property, the Hall family.
According to a written statement by selectmen that was read aloud at the board’s weekly meeting Monday, lease negotiations with Mr. Nicotera revealed that the town would have to establish restrictions for the building so that the large linden tree on the property would be protected. Those restrictions would have altered the proposal approved by the yellow house subcommittee, selectmen said.
In fairness to other bidders and to comply with due public process, selectmen said they determined that an earlier request for proposals should be changed to include the tree and re-issued.
“We have a very strong committee. We’re prepared to work with the procurement officer and town counsel to re-draft the RFP and re-issue it as soon as possible,” Yellow House committee chairman Chris Scott said Monday.
Selectman Michael Donaroma said he thought the delay would not be a major setback to the project. “We’re all hoping that we should be able to get through this process again in time again for the applicant to start in the fall, so we’re not losing a lot of time,” he said. “So hopefully we’ll get back on track.”
The town originally issued a request for proposals in November, seeking bidders to agree to restore and lease the property for up to 30 years. There was wide interest in the early stages of the process but in the end two developers submitted proposals by the January deadline. One group was disqualified because of technical issues with their proposal, and Mr. Nicotera’s group was the winning bidder.
At the last minute one of the former property owners, Benjamin L. Hall Jr. raised concerns that construction or expanding the building’s footprint might damage a linden tree on the property. The tree’s fate was the subject of a legal back and forth between the Halls and the town, with the Halls arguing that renovation options were limited because of the tree, and the town arguing that the tree was not an impediment to redevelopment and should be saved. A superior court judge ruled that Mr. Hall could not remove the linden tree because it had been declared a public shade tree by the town tree warden.
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