Assistant City Solicitor Andrew Lee requested an opportunity to provide the Conservation Commission, at its meeting on September 7, with a summary of an item docketed before the City Council regarding a “Confirmatory Order” that corrects the boundaries and area of land known as Webster Woods, which the City took by eminent domain.
In 2019, the City took the rear portion of 300 Hammond Pond Parkway for conservation purposes, paying Boston College $15.2 million. Based on the metes and bounds and survey that was provided by Boston College, the City believed it was taking 17.4 acres of land. When the City commissioned a new survey to set boundary markers and to prepare a Taking Plan to be recorded with the Registry of Deeds, the latter survey determined that only 14.7 acres were actually taken. The eminent domain taking still protects all the land that it was intended to protect, but the Conservation Commission staff noted that 2.7 acres of the 17.4 acres were already protected as Massachusetts DCR land and thus were not part of the taking. The new survey thus reduces the acreage taken by about 15.5%.
In a letter to the City Council, Mayor Ruthanne Fuller states that the Confirmatory Order does not impact the City’s ownership, and the Council’s consideration of the Order does not require action by the Conservation Commission or the Community Preservation Committee.
Ed. Note: We revised this article to correct the date of the Conservation Commission meeting and the description of acreage taken.