Pawtucket continues plan to permanently shut down Morley Field
A developer, Blackstone Distribution Center, LLC, is in negotiation with the City of Pawtucket about buying Morley Field to convert it into a parking lot for its employees and for the fleet of delivery vans the business intends to deploy.
October 6, 2022, 2:11 pm
By Steve Ahlquist
On Wednesday evening the Pawtucket City Council moved ahead with the potential acquisition of land that will possibly act as a replacement for Morley Field, the only greenspace in Pawtucket’s District 5, an environmental justice community. District 5 encompasses the Woodlawn neighborhood (which is just north of Providence, along I-95, west of Pawtucket Ave), which is approximately 74% people of color with 59% of people living at or below the poverty rate. 29% of the population are children. Woodlawn is a working class neighborhood where most people live in triple deckers or multifamily units, often with no backyard.
A developer, Blackstone Distribution Center, LLC, is in negotiation with the City of Pawtucket about buying Morley Field to convert it into a parking lot for its employees and for the fleet of delivery vans the business intends to deploy. The cemetery land is not an adequate replacement for the greenspace in District 5 say advocates and elected officials because the replacement site is not in District 5 but over a mile away in District 6, a whiter, wealthier part of the city that already has a large greenspace.
The land the city is seeking to acquire is owned by Riverside Cemetery and is undeveloped. Riverside Cemetery has agreed to sell the land under the condition that it not be developed.
“What we don’t want is low-income housing because the cemetery is right there, and we want to keep it quiet as possible,” said David Harrison, President of the Riverside Burial Society of Pawtucket, representing the cemetery before the Pawtucket City Council Property Committee. An assisted living retirement home would have been okay, he said, similar to Laurelmead in Providence, but that kind of development never transpired.
When the Pawtucket City Council first took up approving the resolution to buy the cemetery land two weeks ago, it decided to delay approval after Councilmember Clovis Gregor, who represents District 5, objected. After a lengthy hearing, the council agreed to send the resolution back to the property committee for rewrites. The nature of what those rewrites were supposed to be is in dispute.
Councilmember Gregor maintains that all references to Morley Field and the potential use of the cemetery land as a replacement for Morley Field were to be removed from the resolution. But Councilmember Michael Araujo, who chairs the property committee, countered that the amended resolution was to make clear that in the event that the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) and the National Park Service (NPS) do not approve of the cemetery land as a replacement for Morley Field, the city will still purchase the cemetery land.
NPS and DEM are involved because federal money was used to create Morley Field, and decommissioning the Morley Field can only happen if NPS can be convinced, by a favorable DEM report, that the cemetery land is a fit replacement for Morley Field and can adequately serve a low-income, BIPOC, environmental justice community a mile away.
Things were contentious at Wednesday night’s council meeting. Councilmember Gregor felt that the City Solicitor and many of his fellow city councilmember were being deceptive when they decided to rewrite the resolution and leave in all references to Morley Field. Councilmember Araujo countered that leaving Morley Field references in was a measure of “honesty” since the new land may be used to satisfy the conversion criteria that DEM and NPS will be looking for, and not including that information in the resolution would be deceptive.
What became clear was that the City Council, as a whole, was not willing to rule out the permanent closure and conversion of Morley Field. “We don’t want to give [Morley Field advocates] false hope,” said Councilmember Araujo. The resolution passed 6-3.
Further complicating things is the nature of the two lots that make up Morley Field. Lot 291 was gifted to the city, for use as a recreational field, by William Morley. Under state law the City of Pawtucket cannot sell gifted land to a developer. To create Morley Field Lot 291 was paired with lot 309 and federal money was used to create the recreational facility there now. Years of neglect and lack of maintenance on the part of city officials have led to the deterioration of Morley Field, but to sell it will take more than simply neglecting and condemning the land. The legal knot of a gifted lot and the use of federal money to create the field will have to be untangled.
A couple times during Wednesday’s City Council meeting and the Property Committee meeting hints were dropped that the city is considering separating the two lots and selling half of Morley Field to the developer. Whether or not this is the plan will be revealed in two weeks or so in future city council and city council committee hearings.
Morley Field has been closed for around two years now. Chain link fences surround the property, and people have to circumvent the fencing to get in. The company seeking to convert Morley Field into parking, Blackstone Distribution, hired Alliance Environmental Group to perform a site investigation of Morley Field in accordance with DEM Regulations. The results of the site investigation indicated that lead and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were present in the soil at concentrations above DEM’s Residential Direct Exposure Criteria, but according to Councilmember Gregor and confirmed by DEM, not at levels that necessitated the immediate shutting down of the field. Additionally, at least half of Morley Field is not contaminated.
DEM approved the remediation plan submitted by the city that would cap the land and convert it into a parking lot, but DEM would have approved a remediation plan that remediated Morley Field and kept it as a park, as long as the plan was in accordance with DEM regulations. In essence, DEM approved the plan it was given. DEM has no say in how land will be used after a remediation plan is approved. The decision to shut down the park came from city officials, and doing so was an overreach in service to Blackstone Distribution, said Councilmember Gregor.
“Stories have been circulated out there that it was the DEM that did the environmental site investigation, it was the DEM who found the contaminates, it was the DEM that closed Morley Field,” said Councilmember Gregor at a city council meeting two weeks ago. “None of those facts are true. It was the developer, with the acquiescence of the city administration, who went ahead with the environmental testing. It was [the developer] that found the alleged contaminates, it was them who submitted to the DEM. It was the City who closed down Morley Field, it wasn’t the DEM.
“As a matter of fact I spoke to the DEM personnel, the engineer who was in charge of the remediation. He told me specifically and in no uncertain terms that the contaminants are there, but not to such a degree that DEM feels it necessary to close down the park. [DEM] never recommended closing down the park.
“In fact, the protected lot, the gifted lot, none of the contaminants were found on that side of it. I’ve looked at that documentation. There were only three different [contamination] spots found in Lot 309. Nothing in [Lot] 291.”
DEM confirmed the conversation Councilmember Gregor reported in the council meeting was accurate.
Those interested in preserving Morley Field should contact Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien at 401-728-0500 x281 and email at [email protected]. For more information, see:
