Special Board of Aldermen 12-07-2021 Page 2
disposal, and | want to be fair here to everyone, and | want to show a couple of slides so the public can see exactly
where this property lays beside Greeley Park. | joked at one point that at the map 15 Bartlett is like a puzzle piece
that kind of fits into the armpit of Greeley Park.
And as you can see here, Jeff, if you can show that first slide, please. This is a slide that was shared with me from
Mr. Geisinger from Thorndike. You can see exactly how this fits - that piece of property actually fits into it. The
reason | wanted to show this is because he also was kind enough to kind of show where he was planning on
developing the area and then he pointed out where the woodland that's abutting Greeley Park. You can see that up in
the upper left hand corner. That particular piece also has some wetland in it. And then you kind of see that mustard
green, | used to call it baby poop color is the open space. It's kind of down towards the lower portion and that medium
green is the buffer area. But that yellow portion right in the middle there is the development area. | show this
because | do want to be fair. | do want to show that there are woods that are going to stay there. So when | refer to
how all the woods are going to be removed, and so on, there are things that are going to stay there. This is
conservation land and he does have to maintain a certain portion of non-developed land, so to speak.
Jeff if you could show the next slide. Thank you. This was given to me by a constituent who also wanted to show
how that piece of property kind of fit into the whole landscape and the property that's owned by the city. So obviously
Greeley Park is owned by the city. Then you see that little tiny piece of parcel of land. That, too, is owned by the city.
So | just want to show how important it is that this piece of property fits in there and right across - diagonally across
from that owned by the city property to Greeley much of that is forested area. So kind of continues that forestry in that
land. If you look over to the right hand side, you can kind of see where those 43 homes are going to be spread
throughout all of this. Now I'm showing you all of these things and I'd be remiss if | didn't say that the sellers did send
a letter or actually their legal office sent us a letter. Jeff, you can stop now. Thank you. Stating that they plan to
continue with the sale to Thorndike and continue to move forward with that. So | do want to make that very clear. The
city, in my opinion, we should still continue going. We should still continue doing all that we want to do and | showed
these slides to be fair to everybody to show where the buffer areas are to the properties, to show that little piece of
woodland area that's going to be there, but also to show how this truly truly fits into that. Once that is developed,
there is no going back. You can't go oops | made a mistake. You can’t put those trees back there. So this is
extremely, extremely important.
You're going to hear from a lot of people | believe. We've been getting e-mails back and forth. People are saying well
don't develop this land either. And maybe that be true, but this particular one as you can see is so important, my
feeling, to the health of Greeley Park. Well yes there are some people who say not in my backyard. | know for a fact
that not too long ago there was a piece of property not too far from here that had two or three homes that they wanted
to develop and certain people stopped that because they didn't want to in their backyard. This isn't so much in my
backyard as it is to save our park. The city's park. A crowning jewel of the city. | think it's important that the
conversation goes on even though they've said they do not want to sell and they're going to move forward, | think we
still need to have this conversation because | think the safety of this park and saving this park is extraordinarily
important. So from here, I'm going to pass it back to Chairman Dowd. Thank you very much for letting me speak.
Chairman Dowd
Just to reiterate a couple things. | did hear from the developer's attorney today. They are still going to honor the
purchase and sale and buy the property. We did get a letter from the owners of the Barker's saying they had no
interest in selling it to the city and that they didn't want the city to interfere with the purchase and sale agreement,
which technically we can't interfere with. So the sale is probably going to go through and we may be tabling the
motion in the Budget meeting tonight because there's no action that we can probably take at this point in time. If the
development does go through, it's going to have to go through the Planning Board and all the concerns brought up by
the neighbors can certainly be aired at the Planning Board and I'm sure there are a number. If in the future for some
reason the property becomes available again. Then we could entertain the city purchasing it at that time. But at the
moment, | don't believe there's a course of action that we can take to purchase the property. Okay. Any other board
members have any comments? Okay with that, | will open the public hearing on R-21-202 and | will now entertain
testimony in favor. Please go up to the microphone and state your name if you'd like to comment. You do have a
three minute time limit soon as you start talking the clock will start. State your name and address for the record.
Testimony in Favor
Paul Metzger
Paul Metzger, 25 Columbia Ave., Ward 3. Joseph Thornton Greeley gifted 125 acres of land to the City of Nashua in
1896. That land became what we know today as Greeley Park. This year 2021 marks 125 anniversary of it. The
