Viddler.com - Chelmsford Planning Board October 28 2009

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Chelmsford Planning Board
October 28 2009

http://www.lowellsun.com/local/ci_13667375#at

Paradise lost in center?

Building plan draws fire in Chelmsford
By Michael Wurm, Sun Correspondent
10/29/2009

CHELMSFORD -- The proposal to build a barn-style office building with paved parking on the open space behind the historic Emerson House in town center ran into major opposition last night at a public hearing held by the Planning Board.

The board decided to ask town counsel to evaluate the legality of the project in light of a 1978 preservation restriction on the property. The hearing was continued to Nov. 18.

The project was presented by Epsilon Group Inc., owned by Michael Eliopoulos, who is being represented by his son, attorney Philip Eliopoulos, a former Chelmsford selectman.

Joseph Shanahan, who was a selectman in 1978, when the town decided to sell the property to Dr. L. Rodger Currie, said the Board of Selectmen and Planning Board first approved the sale for $120,000 along with a preservation restriction on the deed that guaranteed the land behind the house would be open space for the town, including the restoration of a pond and the creation of "Central Park."

Town Meeting approved the transaction, including the preservation restriction.

Shanahan, who is also a former Planning Board member and is an adviser to Michael and Joanne Sargent, who own an abutting property, said the restriction allowed the rebuilding of a barn and silo on the property. It also allowed the rebuilding of other minor outbuildings that had been on the land historically, specifically two small barns and two chicken coops.

Shanahan said the proposal to build
a large office building disguised as a barn, no matter how well-designed, violates the spirit and intent of the restriction.
"I ask you to review the preservation restriction in histo