Sedgwick
Special town meeting scheduled to take land for Walker Pond access

By JONATHAN THOMAS
Sedgwick voters are being called to a special town meeting on Thursday, November 19, to take the next step in a long process to provide public access to Walker Pond from Route 15. The meeting will be at 6 p.m. in the historic Town House.
At that meeting, following state-mandated eminent domain procedures, voters will be asked to “approve the taking of land and interests in land…as described and stated in the condemnation order signed by the selectmen.”

In a separate article, voters will be asked to approve “payment of just compensation” to the owners of land and holders of restrictions on the land.

At a special selectmen’s meeting on November 10, the board signed a condemnation order to allow the town to acquire strips of land for building a road across property now owned by the Blue Hill Heritage Trust. After crossing the BHHT land, the proposed road would then cross a corner of land owned by the James Condon Trust before going onto property owned by the Town of Sedgwick.

As stated in the warrant article, “The taking involves fee title to two 60-foot wide strips of land from, and an 80-foot wide stormwater buffer easement on, land owned by Blue Hill Heritage Trust. The first 60-foot wide strip is about 1,055-feet long and contains part of the existing Cooper Farm Road extended westerly from Route 15. The second 60-foot strip is about 1,173-feet long and crosses the field in a northerly direction to land owned by the James Condon Trust. The stormwater buffer adjoins and is down gradient from the second 60-foot strip.”

When Emma Patten Casey and Sarah Patten Gwynn sold the land to the Blue Hill Heritage Trust in 2001, they placed deed restrictions on how the BHBT could, at some future time, provide access for the town to cross this property. A town meeting vote to approve the taking would also eliminate these restrictions.

The note following the warrant article to set compensation to the parties contains a recommendation by the selectmen that the Trust be paid $13,500 for the strips of land and the easement. This is the valuation determined by the town’s appraiser.

The note also says, “The appraiser gave no value to the extinguishment of the Casey/Gwynn restrictions and the selectmen recommend payment of zero dollars ($0) to them.”

The note continues, “The voters may vote to increase the amount of just compensation paid to those parties, but the statute does not allow the voters to reduce these amounts.”

In 2008, the voters of Sedgwick and Brooksville approved a “Joint Exercise of Powers Agreement” between the two towns to provide for the “acquisition, improvement, and management of the Walker Pond landing and access road from Route 15.”

Under that agreement, the access road would be a town way of the Town of Sedgwick, but costs would be shared half and half by the towns.

Brooksville selectman John Gray told The Weekly Packet that Brooksville did not need to vote on the taking of land, and that Brooksville would be reimbursing Sedgwick for its share of the costs at the appropriate time.

Return to the The Weekly Packet home page.

---