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Banner file photo/Sowers
The exterior of the Hawthorne School of Art barn, part of a historic piece of property up for sale. |
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Land Bank funds eyed for art school acre
By Pru Sowers
Banner Staff
PROVINCETOWN — Increasingly worried that the 3.3-acre property containing the historic Hawthorne School of Art might have to be sold to developers, the owners have embarked on a campaign to convince residents to purchase part of the parcel for conservation land.
The plan is in its preliminary stages, according to Harry Opsahl, the son of owner Olga Opsahl-Gee, and would require voters to approve spending Land Bank funds on the purchase. Opsahl-Gee has gathered enough signatures on a petition to bring the matter to the Special Town Meeting floor next month but wants the support of the town’s open space committee and the Provincetown Conservation Trust before moving ahead.
The idea is to sell two lots totaling approximately one acre to the town as protected conservation land, Opsahl said, using Land Bank funds amassed from a three percent property tax surcharge paid each year by residents. Four other lots on the parcel have attracted the attention of two separate prospective buyers, who would develop the property into private homes. And the barn where Charles Hawthorne, the famed painter who gave birth to Provincetown’s international reputation as an art colony, taught his “plein-air” method of painting is under consideration by another buyer who would preserve the historic landmark.
“The land will probably be split up. Instead of being sold to one developer, it would be split up into separate lots. We’re trying to preserve it as much as possible,” Opsahl said.
Winning over members of the open space committee and conservation trust may not be a slam-dunk, however. While Celine Gandolfo, president of the trust, is in favor of bringing the proposal to voters, Dennis Minsky, open space chair, is worried that the purchase would sacrifice the Land Bank’s ability to acquire other threatened properties as conservation land. He believes Opsahl-Gee should wait to put the proposal before voters.
“In a perfect world the town would buy the whole thing and it would be like Central Park,” he said. “But we can’t allow the tail to shake the dog. We need to have a master plan on which properties [bought by the] town are the most valuable and most vulnerable in terms of habitat protection and proximity to the greenway.”
Gandolfo said the conservation trust is in the beginning stages of its annual review of properties to recommend to the open space committee for consideration for purchase. However, the two Hawthorne lots are attractive for a variety of reasons, she said, not the least of which is that Opsahl-Gee would sell them to the town for approximately half of their $700,000 assessed value.
“Her property is important historically as well as environmentally. It contains one of the last in-town dunes that remain. It would be really sad to see it developed,” Gandolfo said.
Even if residents vote to use Land Bank funds to purchase part of the property, it would likely require other sources of income. Currently, $322,000 of the approximately $383,000 the local Land Bank brings in each year is committed to pay loans taken out to purchase property residents previously voted to preserve. Gandolfo said the trust would work with open space to find alternative sources of funding.
And Opsahl acknowledged that there are many details to work out before deciding to put the proposal before voters.
“We’re not trying to take all of [available Land Bank funds]. There are other properties that are important,” he said. “There’s nothing definite yet.”
Opsahl-Gee and her husband Peter Gee operated the art school since 1994. Gee’s death in December 2005 left the school struggling to stay open, losing the students who came in the summer to take his classes on experimental color. Opsahl-Gee originally tried to find a buyer for the entire property who would preserve it but has found no takers. The compromise, Opsahl said, is now to sell off some of the property, protect other lots and continue to look for a buyer who would use Hawthorne’s barn in some artistic fashion.
psowers@provincetownbanner.com
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Oct 16th, 2008