At a recent City Council meeting, councilors, other city officials, and members of the public discussed whether a piece of city-owned property at 2 Linda Jean Lane should be sold to homeowners who live adjacent to it for $15,000, with the council unanimously rejecting a motion to sell the land to accommodate a swimming pool.
According to the Department of Community Development and Planning, Robert and Lisa Polignone’s shed, stone wall, and a part of their pool has spilled over onto the 4,161 square-foot lot. Attorney, James Sears, representing the Polignones said at a Legal Affairs Committee meeting last October that the couple only learned that their pool, on which they started construction in 2008, was built past their own property line when buyers of their home had a mortgage inspection plot plan done and found that the pool was, in fact, on city-owned land.
The council had previously ordered a meeting in January to approve the sale of the land to the Polignones for $15,000, so that the pool can lawfully remain with whoever buys the Polignones’ home. There was no opposition to sale then, but some community members spoke against it at the council’s most recent meeting.
Neighbor Alan Titelbaum said he was one of the first people to question the approval of the sale in October 2023, when he sent emails to City Clerk Allyson Danforth saying he would have liked the chance to voice his opposition before a deal was made.
Titelbaum noted that in the Polignones’ application to buy the land, which was received by the city clerk in last July, the Polignones checked a box that read, “Assessed value is below $5,000 and no appraisal is required. Abutters will be notified”. However, Titelbaum said that none of the abutters within 100 feet had been notified.
“I have spoken to the residents at 3 Linda Jean Lane and 29 Emily Lane, and neither of them had even heard of this request to purchase the land in question and they live less than 100 feet (away),” Titelbaum wrote in an email to Danforth. “Why was there no public hearing or a chance for the public to speak? It was in today’s paper that it was a done deal.”
Steven Blumenkrantz, another neighbor, agreed with Titelbaum.
“To my knowledge, no abutters or other neighborhood members were contacted about any of this.” Blumenkrantz said.
One of the main things Titelbaum and Blumenkrantz criticized was the $15,000 price tag of the land. Titelbaum said it should have been more than $20,000.
“I think $15,000 for this piece of land is extremely low,” Blumenkrantz said. “As a taxpayer, I think that seems both ridiculous and unfair.”
Titelbaum was also frustrated that the Polignones had cut city trees and removed earth materials to have the pool built. Shellee Rubin, who lives directly next to the Polignones, mentioned that as well.
“As the neighbor directly next to him, I kind of feel like I’ve been a little more affected than anybody else here,” Rubin said. “Living very closely, we have a small buffer zone between us, and by taking out a nice chunk of trees, it’s kind of ruined my privacy.”
School Committee member Jarrod Hochman also took the stand to oppose the $15,000 sale out of fear it might set a precedent.
“What are we saying?” Hochman said. “Am I taking down war monuments in front of City Hall, and digging a hole, and building a pool? And saying to you, ‘Hey, I thought I could do it’. Are we saying, ‘Take city land without asking, and then we’re gonna not only forgive you, but give you a discount?’”
Hochman then expressed his frustrations as a member of the School Committee.
“I’m going to be working on a budget pretty soon, and I’m going to be looking at a budget that doesn’t have funds from the federal government that we got for COVID, and we’re going to be looking at cutting reading specialists perhaps, or guidance counselors, and we’re going to give a property owner who trespassed upon city land and stole it — we’re going to give them a break?” Hochman said.
Robert Polignone said the issue has been blown out of proportion.
“Years ago when we did this, we went to City Hall,” Polignone said. “We went to the Building Department, we asked what we needed to do to build a pool, and (the department) gave us a copy of the map — the plot plan, he said, ‘You need to give this to your contractor, he needs to take it, mark where the pool is, and where it’s going to be put in the yard’. So we hired a contractor, he went down to City Hall with the map, and the Building Department approved it.”
“We pulled all the permits for the land, we trusted that the contractor is doing the right thing, we didn’t know the contractor was supposed to get a survey. We’ve been there 15 years now, and everything we did, we did according to the city,” Polignone said. “We did not do anything intentionally.”
Susan Antonellis, the city’s chief assessor, explained how the city came to be satisfied with the $15,000 valuation that was given to them by a third-party appraiser for the land.
“I think the appraisal is a legitimate opinion of value for this piece of unbuildable land,” Antonellis said.
Councilor-at-Large Anne Manning-Martin emphasized that prior to the land being built upon unlawfully, the parcel as a whole, which was around 15,000 square feet, was actually buildable and could have had a value of $319,000.
“That’s a lot of money,” Manning-Martin said. “$319,000 in its original state… and we’re getting $15,000 and left with an unbuildable lot because it’s been cut in half, so that’s a problem. A very expensive problem. So this is starting to get even messier.”
Councilor-at-Large Jon Turco said that he finds it hard to completely believe all of Robert Polignone’s claims because “the story keeps changing,” and agreed with Titelbaum that the land should be valued at more than $15,000.
Councilor-at-Large Thomas Gould then told Polignone that he should have known where his property lines ended, and that he took up a significant chunk of city land, 64 by 64 feet.
“I apologize, but I did not walk the land and never looked at my property line,” Polignone said. “When this was done, I was traveling, and we trusted that the contractor did the right thing, and I never measured the land. By the time I got back the pool was already in. If I had known that the pool was not built on my land, I would have stopped it immediately.”
“I just don’t think you’re being truthful with us,” Gould responded.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the motion to sell the city-owned land encroached by the pool to the Polignones for $15,000 was unanimously rejected. The Polignones will have to pay for a new appraisal, which the Department of Community Development and Planning will be responsible for. In addition, the motion carried 10-0 that there will also be an appraisal for all of the city-owned land, which will be paid for by the city.
