Breaking news: Looks like Charlestown will put purchase of LeBlanc property before the voters

Changes to Town Council agenda – a sign of open-mindedness to buying Whalerock land?

By Will Collette

Overnight, the Town posted changes to the Town Council agenda for next Monday night. They added a 5 pm Executive Session, which had not been posted before, and they added this intriguing item under “New Business” for the 7 pm public meeting

8.a.   Discussion and potential action regarding the method of funding and the authorization of the Town Clerk and Board of Canvassers to hold a special referendum for the potential land acquisition of AP 17 Lot 186 for an amount not to exceed $2.7 million

AP 17, Lot 186 is the undeveloped 81 acre site where developer Larry LeBlanc is currently proposing to build the Whalerock wind turbines and a mixed development of housing that would include affordable units.

Time to buy the rock?

Unless you have been asleep for the past three years, you would know that this one piece of land and the proposed uses for it have roiled this town. 

We are in the middle of Charlestown’s summer drama, the seemingly endless series of hearings by the Zoning Board of Review (ZBR) on LeBlanc’s application for a Special Use Permit.

Throughout the years of rancor over this land, and especially this summer, as the ZBR drama has unfolded, it became increasingly clear that there was only one positive ending to this saga: acquisition of LeBlanc’s property at a fair price to put it under public ownership and preserved in perpetuity as open space.

This new agenda item is a positive sign of movement in exactly that direction.

On December 31^st, LeBlanc and his previously silent partner, James Barrows of Connecticut, signed a sale-leaseback agreement. Under the deal, Barrows pledged to pay LeBlanc $2 million for the property and LeBlanc pledged to leaseback enough land to build the turbines, paying Barrows a portion of the profits. 

Barrows retained the right to develop the property not needed for the turbines for, for example, the development LeBlanc currently has in the works. The result would be two turbines in the middle of a development, not unlike the NK Green project in North Kingstown that went on-line last December.

The LeBlanc-Barrows deal appeared to me to be more like a signal to the town for how much LeBlanc was willing to consider for acquisition of the land. Click here to read my analysis of what the land might be worth.

Charlestown already has a voter-approved $3 million Open Space-Recreation (OSR) bond that is also on the Council agenda (it may or may not be unrelated to this late addition). There are also other sources of funding that Charlestown could tap, such as the State’s open space bond money and the town’s uncommitted surplus.

Even though voters have already approved $3 million for Open Space-Recreation, Charlestown set a precedent by requiring separate voter approval for the construction of the new beach facilities at the two town beaches, rather than tap the OSR bond money. Those facilities won voter approval despite opposition from the CCA Party.

It looks like the Council is thinking along those lines again.

We’ll bring you more news as it become available. Also up-coming is our preview of Monday night’s Council meeting which, until the changes to the agenda were posted in the middle of the night, seemed to mean a pretty quiet Council meeting.