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03/01/2021 11:00 PMCognizant of the pitfalls of the former Academy School, which has sat vacant and unused since 2004, the Board of Selectmen (BOS) is moving cautiously forward with a timeline for finding a more permanent use or sale of the Island Avenue School building, with officials discussing more options for the property including residential or affordable housing and debating how the process should fit into the town’s larger facilities plan.
With the building’s current occupant, the private K-8 Our Lady of Mercy Preparatory Academy (OLMPA), recently approved to remain in the building through summer 2022 and still expressing interest in making it its permanent home, officials say they will be careful not to rule any options out.
According to Marc Sklenka, who was hired as a consultant to help the town with the Academy School process, there are still around 10 developers who would likely be interested in purchasing Island to construct some sort of residential housing.
Sklenka works for local project management firm Colliers International, which has provided input and a proposal regarding the Island process, though the town “has not committed” to working with Colliers yet, according to First Selectman Peggy Lyons.
A citizens committee formed a little over a year ago sought to narrow down options and solicit public input on the property, eventually delivering recommendations and a draft request for proposals (RFP) to the BOS early this year. Those recommendations focused on either sale to a school or to a developer to create residential housing of some kind.
At a special BOS meeting last week, Town Planner Dave Anderson also pushed for decisions on Island to wait until the conclusion of a comprehensive facilities study meant to be presented publicly early next month; that study is likely to generate specific recommendations about a multitude of town properties and the overall needs for space in Madison.
Anderson cautioned this facilities study would not lead to “a lightbulb moment,” but was more focused on providing more data that can give officials a better idea of the town’s overall needs.
“It is going to illustrate that we have a lot of facilities in various states of utilization,” Anderson said. “I think it’s going to scream that we really need to do this strategic, comprehensive analysis.”
He also asked the BOS to explicitly consider whether the town had a “responsibility” to consider bringing some sort of affordable housing to the property. That should include a “very specific” proposal for senior-restricted housing or affordable housing in general, he said.
“I think we have to really think deeply about what our goals are,” Anderson said. “Revenue generation is certainly a goal, but we probably also have other goals for our community that we should consider alongside that.”
Madison recently named members to an affordable housing committee, meant to help draft a comprehensive plan to increase the availability of lower-income housing options in town ahead of a state-mandated deadline next year.
Officials have been explicit in recent months about how the lack of affordable housing is a problem in Madison with very little growth in that area over the last decade. Only about 1.7 percent of housing stock in Madison is categorized as affordable: 136 total units, according to the most recently available data from the state.
If the town does go that route, Anderson said specifically targeting affordable housing is how other towns have been “successful,” rather than simply leaving it as an option in an RFP that allows other types of development.
“At least have a dialogue about [affordable housing] before issuing any RFP,” he added.
While acknowledging the wisdom behind these ideas, Lyons said she saw an urgency to getting something done with the property, citing OLMPA’s need to give its families assurance about where students will be attending class in future years, as well as the fiscal responsibility not to leave a potential revenue-generating asset vacant long-term.
“I would be concerned about the timeline, that’s all,” she said. “I feel like we have a hard time making decisions in this town...so that would mean we would [have] to somehow come together with this plan and have, the lease situation resolved, and have all these things come to a head. I just envision that taking so long.”
She added that many residents were told that the closure of Island would offset the cost of future improvements in the school district, which eventually manifested as a $129 million plan to close two other elementary schools in the town and build a new one, which Lyons has pushed to get on a ballot this year.
But Lyons also said the BOS could reserve the option to go back to OLMPA and potentially negotiate a longer-term lease as it tries to fit Island into its larger strategic plan, but warned that the negotiation process had been difficult and time-consuming.
However the town decides to proceed, Anderson said he was generally happy with following the Academy RFP process from a technical standpoint but cautioned the town should be “in a better place” as far as knowing its goals and needs before jumping into that.
“I do feel like at some point the development community is going to say, ‘[I’m] not wasting my time on this anymore, Madison has got to get their act together first,’” he said.
While some BOS members pushed against “analysis paralysis” and becoming weighed down by multiple studies and committees, they agreed for the most part that no decisions should be made ahead of taking in this comprehensive information from the facilities study.
Another potential stumbling block is the legal requirement that the town offer heirs of the original Island property owner the right to purchase it at market value before any other buyer.
Lyons said that those questions are still not resolved as the town continues to search for those people, with town counsel in contact with two women who “appear to be” legal heirs of the original Island property owner, according to the Island Avenue Future Use Committee Chair Graham Curtis.