By Patrick Adrian Staff Writer
CLAREMONT — City efforts to strike a solution in regards to the encroachment of commercial businesses on public-owned land continue to raise concerns among councilors about potential legal snares or unwanted consequences.
Last week, City Manager Ed Morris sought the Claremont City Council’s approval of the licensing of city land to two rental companies on Washington Street: Reed Truck Services, located at 287 Washington St., and Maurice Auto & Truck, located at 299 Washington St. Both companies, for several years, have kept some of their vehicle or trailer stock on city-owned land without an agreement in place with the city.
While years have passed without attention from the city, this public land is property of the Bobby Woodman Trail, a 1.7-mile recreational trail through Claremont. The trail section in question runs adjacent to Washington Street, a heavily trafficked commercial sector.
Motorized vehicles are prohibited from the trail, under federal law connected to the trail’s funding. However, the lack of delineation between the trail and some company lots has resulted in vehicles being parked directly on the trail or drivers on Washington Street treating the trail as an access road to circumvent traffic, according to city officials.
A land agreement, according to Morris, would enable Reed Truck Services and Maurice Auto & Truck to keep their stock on the public land and pay taxes on the value to the city. This would relieve potential stress on the companies if requiring them to relocate their vehicles or trailers.
The city initially proposed this agreement last November with the focus on Maurice Auto & Truck after company owner Mike Hurd raised a grievance to the city council. Morris said the city then presented a similar proposal to Scott Reed, owner of Reed Truck Services.
“We gave [Reed Truck Services] the option of either moving his equipment back off the rail-trail land or entering into a similar license agreement for the taxes due,” Morris told the city council. “At this time he would like to move forward, if the council will allow it, to keep that equipment there and move into a licensing agreement.”
But several city councilors expressed reservations to the proposal.
“I’m concerned that we’re taking city park land for the rail-trail out of the public use and granting it to private business,” said Claremont City Councilor Deborah Matteau. “And are we going to be doing this all up-and-down Washington Street? To me this is a really slippery slope.”
This agreement would also need approval from the New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NHDOT), which wrote the city last month that the NHDOT would need to determine whether “the use is in the public interest” and that “full and safe access to the trail is maintained for non-motorized trail users.”
“The city really needs to look at whether [these agreements] are really going to benefit the public,” Matteau said. “I think this is going to benefit the property owners, not the public.”
The NHDOT did not indicate in its correspondence about its likelihood to approve these agreements. According to Morris, however, William Watson of the NHDOT is “well aware of the situation” and said “he is in support of the city moving forward” with agreements.
“They have entered into [similar] agreements in the City of Manchester and other cities across the state along rail trail properties,” Morris told the city council.
City councillors also recognized a letter of concern sent by Claremont attorney Jim Feleen, who strongly recommended against a land license for this property.
“Giving one abutter legal rights over city-owned park property will invite other encroaching abutters — there are several I know of — to request similar relief,” Feleen wrote.
While the city leases or licenses public land near the airport and the farm fields, those parcels “had never been used by the public and are not part of the park system,” Feleen added. City councilor Dale Girard asked about reports of private landowners along Chestnut Street also using rail-trail property to park their motorized vehicles.
Claremont Parks and Recreation Director Mark Brislin said he was not aware of such an issue but would be willing to investigate and report back to the city council.
The city council, who had three members absent, voted 4-2 to table the discussion until a later meeting and directed Morris to provide a clearer site map of the property lines, seek legal opinion from the city’s attorney, and supply the full details of the license agreements.
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