Since I am discovering more and more that many of the readers of the Newburyport Political Blog have lived here for a “short” time, I thought I would give some background on two events, Cherry Hill and the Access Road.

Cherry Hill was a large piece of open space abutting Maudslay State Park. The City of Newburyport had the chance to buy it. But, the Newburyport City Council felt that the City of Newburyport did not have the money and voted against the sale of the property. The property was then made into a development.

For many years different administrations and businesses had wanted to put an “access road” that would have adjoined the Industrial Park on Hale Street with Storey Avenue. This is a huge piece of open space with wild life and wetlands and the citizens of Newburyport, Massachusetts wanted (they voted) to keep it as open space. This large parcel of land was owned in part by NAID (Newburyport Area Industrial Development) and purportedly (you see, this is where I’m being very, very careful, maybe too careful) Norbert Carey. NAID’s president was Curt Gerrish. Hence NAID, Curt Gerrish and Norbert Carey all landing on the “controversial scale.” (I’m beginning to think that I’m landing on the “controversial scale.” In fact depending on who you talk to, on a scale from 1-10, I could be a 20! Move over Norbert Carey.)

It’s my feeling that a number of very good things came out of these controversies. The Community Preservation Act, a small tax that is matched by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The money can be used for open space, historic preservation and affordable housing. The Open Space Committee and the new cluster zoning law (see earlier post,) called open space residential development which was designed to avoid large subdivisions like the Cherry Hill project. And the purchase of 102 acres along Hale Street that is now referred to as the “Common Pasture.”

Now, I’m not a scholar or an historian. I haven’t gone back and researched these two issues (in fact I’ve put a disclaimer in the Guidelines part of the blog,) this is just a very general overview. Please email me or chime in with any corrections or additions that you may have.

Mary Eaton, Newburyport