Fort Hill Gardens Meeting, June 11, 2003

First off, Mr. Carando had a very detailed presentation of his plans for the "Fort Hill Gardens" at 240 Longhill St. He had slides, maps, aerial photos, surveys, etc.

He tried to portray his project as a small, cozy, appointment-only public botanical garden. It would have just 12 parking spaces (only 5 of them would be paved), and just one "staff member" working other than himself or his children.

However, when it came to financial information, he presented nothing. I asked him how he thought it would possible that a small, cozy, appointment-only botanical garden could be economically sustainable.

His response was that they hadn't gotten to those details yet, and that he was going about the project a little at a time. His first step was to get the thing built, and he would worry about the finances later.

He talked about getting federal grants, donations, and an endowment set up to support the property. But he had absolutely no numbers with him. Or perhaps he chose not to release them since they would show the real picture as to the number of visitors that such a business would require.

My opinion is that a small, cozy, appointment-only botanical gardens is NOT economically viable. That would mean that there would be just two alternatives.

One option is that the project will fail. We will then have a hybrid property in the neighborhood; a large, bastardized structure that no one will want to buy, a property that is a step away from being a commercial property -- with a visitor center and a nursery for children.

It's not hard to imagine that the next step would be to either demolish the house (because it would be unusable as a house), or petition to convert the property to business zoning since it is 95% commercial anyway. Or maybe condos. Right on the strip of land that has perhaps the highest property values in the city (except for maybe the Longmeadow side of Springfield).

The other option is that in order to be economically viable, the project would have to expand. Instead of 12 parking spaces, he might need 30, including some bus parking. Instead of a small, cozy, appointment-only attraction we might have a large, public commercial attraction, with a large lighted sign to let people know where it is.

Mr. Carando is using a technique called "bootstrapping". He can't get from point A to point Z in one leap because no one in their right mind would support a large commercial attraction. So he starts small, and goes from point A to B, then to C, then to D, etc.

He first grows commercial plants on his property. He then has semi-annual plant sales. Then he builds a botanical garden, but assures everyone that it will be small and cozy. Then he expands it. Then he advertises it more. He then brings in bus tours. Once he reaches the limits of what his zoning permits, he petitions the city to expand,
based on the fact that he has a thriving business that needs to grow in order to survive, and that he's just asking for a little bit.What was once an unthinkable situation is suddenly reality.

Mr. Carando is no fool. He has been working closely with the neighborhood residents who support him on this issue while keeping his plans secret. There have been recent meetings to which the public has not been invited. The invitation to this meeting was only sent to about 30 people -- the immediate abutters on Longhill St. and Buena Vista Ave. The entire project is still essentially a neighborhood secret.

When I asked Mr. Carando about his intentions to convert the property to a non-profit, tax-exempt use, he got very flustered and stammered something about not being sure what they would do in the future. One of his agents gave some story about how it is a multi-step process to do this, although he admitted that 95% of the time it is a rubber-stamp to allow a nonprofit organization to be exempted from property
taxes.

When someone asked Mr. Carando's team about the use of "volunteers" to staff this attraction (since Residential A only permits a single "staff" member), they suddenly weren't that familiar with the zoning rules even though they were convinced that the project would be legal under them.

Mr. Carando is under the opinion that he can convert his property into a public botanical gardens with absolutely no input, restrictions or regulation from the city. He is using a provision of
the Massachusetts Zoning law (which I believe to be Chapter 40A, Section 3) that says:

"[No zoning ordinance or by-law] should prohibit, unreasonably regulate or require a special permit for the use of land for the primary purpose of agriculture, horticulture, floriculture, or
viticulture"

Reading that section of the law makes it clear to me that its intent was to allow either farming or horticulture nurseries; it does not appear that it was written to allow public exhibits such as botanical gardens. Mr. Carando has a differing opinion, as his interpretation is that if he has agricultural use of his land (allowed by law), and as long as he doesn't have more than one person working for him, he can have activities related to agriculture He may have an Achilles heel. Mr. Carando's property is listed in the tax rolls as 213,849 square feet -- 4.90 acres. He stated that two of those acres are unusable, since they are the side of the cliff down to the highway (and they include wetlands).

The law has a provision that says:"except that all such activities may be limited to parcels of more than five acres in area not zoned for agriculture, horticulture, floriculture, or viticulture. "

It would seem that Mr. Carando may fall just short of the 5-acre rule, so if I read this right, since he has less than 5 acres he may not be able to do what he pleases with his land under this exemption. Let's cross our fingers on that one.

There is another provision he is relying on, which says: "No zoning ordinance or by-law shall regulate or restrict ... the use of land or structures ... for educational purposes ... or by a
nonprofit educational corporation"

In other words, he is considering his botanical gardens to be an "educational" public attraction. That sounds like a loose interpretation at best.

Mr. Carando does not appear willing to back down on this issue. He tried this about five years ago; does anyone know why he quit then?

I invite anyone to drop by my house and see exactly how close a public botanical exhibit -- with potentially dozens of gawking visitors -- would be to both my back door and my neighbor's back yard. Although Mr. Carando's maps give the appearance that any exhibits would be far removed from neighboring parcels, the diagrams are deceiving; I could hit one of the exhibit areas with a spitball from my garage.

I realize that if you are a gardener you might like the idea of having a botanical garden right around the corner, but keep in mind what it would be like to have one next door. And keep in mind that if the current abutters are not in favor of this proposal, that means that there is less demand for the property, and therefore property values are lessened. Also keep in mind that when this project inevitably expands, it will increase the traffic and congestion in our already dense neighborhood.

It is obvious that in an ideal world, if someone wanted to put a botanical garden in the Springfield area, this parcel would be at the bottom of a list of sites. The only reason that Mr. Carando wants to use it is that he already owns it, and since it is a restricted (historic district) residential plot it was cheaper to buy than an unrestricted lot in a more suitable agricultural area (Amherst, Hadley, etc.)

I will be contacting the planning commission tomorrow to see what can be done about this situation. I will keep people informed. Please let me know if anyone can do anything towards this issue.

Thanks,

Ralph Slate