In a reversal, the Pelham Board of Education said Monday it will not appeal the Village of Pelham’s condemnation of portions of Julianne’s Playground for a major storm sewer project. The move came after “recent discussions and after consultation with our legal counsel,” the school board said in an email to residents.
Under the condemnation, the village is seeking to take ownership of .13 acres of the school district-owned playground for six diesel pumps, a pump house and bathrooms, while also acquiring a permanent subterranean easement covering .7 acres for an underground reservoir and a temporary easement covering 1.71 acres to stage the construction project. The Village of Pelham Board of Trustees voted Sept. 10 to invoke its power of eminent domain to condemn the land.
The school board said, “Even with an appeal, the village will ultimately obtain easements to the property and not assume ownership of the entire playground or project area. Given this, we believe pursuing an appeal would only cause delays by extending the legal process, adding increased cost and consuming valuable resources that would be better used educating our students. Ultimately, a protracted legal process will not serve our community’s best interests and would not keep with the district’s tradition of being a unifying community body.”
With the move, the school trustees reversed their 7-0 decision on Oct. 25 to appeal the village’s use of eminent domain. The school board has been saying since February it would fight the village’s planned action, issuing a statement Sept. 26 stating as much.
Monday’s statement did not say when the school board decided to cancel its plans to appeal. School Board President Jackie De Angelis said in a later email, “We determined this through attorney-client conversations. We do not need a public vote. The previous vote was to authorize the attorneys, not to compel them, so an additional vote is unnecessary.”
The school board said abandoning a court challenge “means that when the village files for a condemnation proceeding, unless the village and district agree otherwise, [the village] will acquire a portion of Julianne’s Playground and gain easements on other areas of the property for its stormwater project. The courts will then determine the value of the property that the village seeks to own and the value for the easements” to be paid to the district as compensation.
“We remain committed to supporting community members affected by flooding and to securing a fair, equitable settlement for district taxpayers and the broader community,” the school board said. “As we move through the valuation process, we will strive to reach a resolution that balances the village’s flood management needs with the interests of our school district and, most importantly, our community.
The village plans to build the reservoir and the pump station at the Sixth Street park as part of a $39 million storm sewer system overhaul designed to reduce increasingly severe flooding in the north Pelham and Highbrook Avenue neighborhoods. The .7-acre easement—which is a permanent right to use the land without owning it—would be for land under the blacktop and tennis courts at the park, where a three-million-gallon reservoir would be constructed. The six pumps are designed to turn on in stages as needed to move water collected in the reservoir from storm sewers to the Hutchinson River. The pumps and reservoir are capable of handling three million gallons in 25 minutes, the village’s engineers have said.
In February, the school board denied the village’s request for an easement to proceed with the project. After that, negotiations over a possible sale or land swap between the school system and the village ended in late April, when Mullen said the municipality rejected the district’s only offer, a trade of Julianne’s Playground for some portion of the village’s Wolfs Lane Park. At that point, the village began the eminent domain proceedings.
- The Pelham Examiner delivers the facts when news breaks in town. Donate to support our nonprofit community newspaper.
