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Tracy Olson brought maps to the Select Board on Aug. 24, and the one that mattered most showed land the town is not trying to buy. Two properties near Forest Circle, she said, had been approached by a developer looking for road access and a turning radius wide enough for a fire truck.
Bell Point LLC, which builds in eastern Massachusetts and New Hampshire and is permitting a 36-lot subdivision in Esse, has the Forest Ridge land under agreement with its owner, the Shannon Investment Trust.
The Conservation Commission wants the same 13.66 acres. In the draft warrant for the Fall Annual Town Meeting, dated Sept. 11 and placed before the Select Board on Sept. 14, the town has written down what that contest could become.
Draft Article 20 would authorize the Select Board, at the request of the Conservation Commission, to take the property by eminent domain.
An old parcel gets a new legal frame
The draft describes the land with a surveyor’s flatness: roughly 13.66 acres at Forest Circle, Parcels 1-202 and 1-273 on the assessors map, a deed at the Registry of Deeds in Book 37644, Page 38. The stated purposes are conservation, open space and passive recreation.
Draft Article 21 would acquire the same acreage, plus a parcel at Fallon Road in Stoneham, by gift, purchase or eminent domain under the Community Preservation Act, with a permanent restriction recorded against the land.
Both articles carry the same four-word caveat in the draft: “Placeholder pending committee vote.”
Neither article names a price.
Article 19, which carries the Community Preservation appropriations, lists its sum as TBD. The Winchester Committee on Community Preservation (WCCP) deliberated on this round of applications Aug. 26, and the numbers that will fill those blanks have not been written into the warrant.
What is known is what the appraiser found. A June appraisal valued the parcel at $2.85 million, about $780,000 below the October 2025 appraisal the town carried into the spring.
The reason for the value is the reason for the urgency. The appraisal identified the property’s highest and best use as sale to an investor or developer for residential subdivision at the highest density allowed.
The spring loss still sets the terms
Town Meeting rejected a $3 million borrowing for Forest Ridge on May 4, by a vote of 59-105, after the failure of an $11 million override.
The Finance Committee opposed the article, citing an estimated $3 million to $4 million in property tax revenue the town would forgo.
Christina Marshall, chair of the WCCP, spoke against it at the time on procedural grounds, not on the merits: the request had come outside the fall cycle.
That objection has been answered. The revised application went through the regular cycle this summer.
The money has moved, too. The town holds a $250,000 state earmark secured by state Rep. Michael Day and $27,900 for acquisition-related costs.
The Conservation Commission has applied for a state land acquisition grant of up to $425,000 and a federal Land and Water Conservation Fund grant of up to $1 million, with grant managers signaling that both awards are likely. Word on those is expected in October or November.
If only the state grant is approved, the projected bond is $2.23 million and annual debt service about $135,000. If both are approved, the bond drops to $1.23 million and the yearly payment to roughly $75,000.
Any taking and/or borrowing would need a two-thirds vote of Town Meeting.
Select Board member Michael Bettencourt described the land in July in terms that had nothing to do with habitat value.
“It is not maintained, and it is unsafe,” he said.
Construction debris and discarded car parts sit on the property. The ecological case is separate and sits in the Conservation Commission’s application: forested upland white pine-oak knolls, a cat-tail marsh edged with red maple swamp, few invasives, a wildlife corridor running from the Fells toward the Aberjona River, and drinking water supply below.
An inside look at the Forest Ridge property. COURTESY PHOTO/TRACY OLSON
Forest Ridge abuts the Middlesex Fells Reservation. If the town takes it, it becomes the only town-owned conservation land on the east side of Winchester.
Prassede Calabi, an ecologist and Town Meeting member, put the objection to treating it as a small item plainly before the Select Board.
“We’re talking about it as though it’s a pretty little add-on, and it’s not,” she said.
After Olson finished her presentation Aug. 24, Select Board Chair Anthea Brady thanked her and said the board would reach out if it needed more information. That was the whole exchange.
The rest of the warrant, and the clock
The draft runs to 29 articles and the board is not done with it. The warrant closes Monday, Sept. 21 at 5 p.m. The final version returns to the Select Board on Sept. 28.
Town Meeting convenes Thursday, Nov. 5 at 7 p.m. in the Winchester High School auditorium at 80 Skillings Road.
Draft Article 9 carries the capital list as voted through Sept. 11: shoring design at Mystic School, heating and cooling design at Ambrose, district-wide building management upgrades, traffic improvement design at Symmes Corner, an air conditioning feasibility study for McCall and Vinson/Owen, concrete assessment at the High School, flatwork construction and field design at Lincoln School, a transfer station tractor cab, a facilities utility vehicle, a hot box asphalt truck, roads and sidewalks, a replacement for Fire Department Engine 4, a lines and signs safety program and traffic calming studies.
Cemetery and water and sewer projects remain pending. The money would come from the Building Stabilization Fund, the Capital Stabilization Fund, retained earnings, the Cemetery Perpetual Care Fund or free cash.
Elsewhere in the draft: a dog license fee increase, a school transportation revolving fund, acceptance of state water and sewer lien provisions, federal tax consulting for the town’s solar projects, an easement placeholder at the Waterfield lot and an article that would declare vacant the seats of Town Meeting members who missed half or more of the sessions in fall 2024 and spring 2025.
Town Manager Christopher Senior reported his office met with representatives of The Ledges to hear the petitions they intend to bring. Citizen petitions get added as they come in.
The commission’s timetable has the purchase closing in early 2027. Bell Point’s agreement does not wait on the warrant.
Will Dowd is a Massachusetts journalist who covers municipal government and community life for Winchester News. He is also the founder and editor of The Marblehead Independent, a reader-funded digital newsroom.
