NORTHBOROUGH – Members of the Community Preservation Committee (CPC) are calling for no additional Community Preservation Act (CPA) spending for White Cliffs until there is a plan for the mansion.
The conversation arose at the committee’s June 13 meeting. At the meeting, Planning Director Laurie Connors noted three potential funding opportunities for White Cliffs-related endeavors: a facilitator to lead a community input process, an assessment to determine how much it would cost to remediate several issues and demolition of the additions.
“I’m completely of the view that we spend no more money on this until there’s a plan as to what they want to do [with it],” said CPC member and the former chair of the White Cliffs Committee Todd Helwig. “Because the Select Board is so high on political accountability, they should come up with the plan. They can have their charrette. That’s fine. Come up with the plan. Don’t have us try to pay for it piece by piece by piece. Put a big number out there. Bring it to Town Meeting, tell them what they want to do and have them vote on it.”
History
This conversation comes after the Select Board declined to move forward a proposal by Metro West Community Development.
Chair John Campbell recalled the circumstances of the 2016 Town Meeting vote.
“Essentially, we had almost no time before the warrant to decide did we want to try to protect White Cliffs or let the other buyer buy the property, and they had intended to tear it down,” Campbell said.
It was brought quickly before Town Meeting, he continued. According to Campbell, they were clear at Town Meeting that there wasn’t time to make plans.
After, he said the property was remediated and the town closed on it in 2017. The Select Board voted to form the White Cliffs Committee.
An “exhaustive” architectural study was completed, “which brought forth a lot of facts overlooked,” he said.
“We get to this point where we had what we thought was a great potential partner,” Campbell said. “The financial benefits for Northborough really have been overlooked because of other objections. Now, we’re at a point where we own the building, but we have no plan for it.”
White Cliffs costs
The assessment and reuse study was submitted by DBVW Architects in 2020. One of the options of “preservation lite.”
Connors said the report did not include the mold remediation.
According to Connors, there have been questions that the figures in the DBVW aren’t realistic. Some people in the community want the town to retain the building for municipal purposes, she said.
“The thought is if people had some current numbers on what certain aspects of the project would cost, is there still the appetite to retain ownership of the building or is the goal to sell the building to somebody else who’s going to use it for some other purpose,” Connors said.
Helwig said the numbers have been studied numerous times, including by Metro West.
“We got it reduced to $9 million to do the least we could possibly do and still have it function. That was the lowest end,” Helwig said.
As Campbell described it, there will need to be maintenance, and the original Town Meeting amount is “pretty much exhausted” for the carrying costs. He said the town should look for another source to maintain the mansion while figuring out how to arrive at a cost summary that people will say is believable.
“That’s what I can’t shake is we had what we call a high level study done. Yes, it’s over two year old. But [if] you want to review it, come up with funds to review it again. … I think most people in the community don’t understand the level that you need to go to to make the building up to code and safe and accessible, and how those costs compare when a municipality does it versus a private entity,” said Campbell.
Ultimately, the CPC did not vote whether to use their administrative funds.
Watch the full meeting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE6cnIY2kRk.
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