Town resident critical of Lee Property survey
By Ken Powers Community Reporter

Westborough - To begin with, Don Burn wants town residents to know that the Lee Property is accessible via a gravel driveway marked by a granite post, just past 169 West Main St.

Burn, an member of Westborough's Open Space Preservation Committee, has been vocal in his opposition to the Lee Property Survey the selectmen have distributed since November 2007 and is also available on the town's website, town.westborough. ma.us, until Sunday Jan. 13.

What he's trying to make clear, however, is that he objects to parts of the survey, not the notion that the land should be used for something that can be used by all town residents.

"I know the majority of people in town look at me as this tree hugger who wants all the open space in town to remain open space and not develop anything," Burn said, "but that's not accurate."

It was, in fact, the Open Space Committee that first presented the idea of purchasing the 24-acre parcel that runs from that gravel drive on West Main Street toward Mill Pond.

Separate to the acquisition of the Lee Property was the desire of Westborough residents, as revealed by a survey in the town's 2003 Master Plan, to have a park in Westborough similar to Shrewsbury's Dean Park.

Burn thinks the marriage of those two ideas, the Lee Property and a town park, is a possibility.

"I think the Lee Property could be the centerpiece of such a park, but I don't believe you could create the park without acquiring additional land," Burn said.

Some of Burn's displeasure about the survey stems from the fact that it lists a number of options, such as a swimming pool, that would be illegal to have on the land because of the way it was acquired.

The town got the property in a transaction that created the housing development near the train station, Burn explained, "and among the stipulations placed, by state law, on a piece of property acquired the way it was is that no permanent structures can be built on the land. I assume if you're going to have a swimming pool you're going to have changing rooms and bathrooms and things like that."

Burn said such constraints are the reason the Open Space Committee wanted to leave the Lee Property undeveloped and pursue acquiring some of the acreage adjacent to it.

"That way, if you wanted to have a swimming pool in the park you could place it on the property in such a way that the pool would be on the Lee Property," Burn said, "and the bathrooms and changing rooms would be on an abutting piece of property where the construction of building would be permissible."

Part of the reason that the Open Space Committee wanted this parcel was not as a stand-alone piece, Burn explained, but as the first piece in trying to acquire more land, because there are another 41 acres of open land in the area.

Burn said he would prefer that the land remain as is while other avenues are explored. Those avenues include acquiring more land and hiring a design firm to prepare a report about the options.