Soccer teams say field needed for practice; Sunstone Housing Development organizers say development would boost enrollment, there are other fields available
By Holly Dillemuth, Ashland.news
The sun shone on a frosty Lincoln Field early Tuesday morning as members of Ashland School Board met virtually by Zoom in a special board session to set the price value range of the 4.12 acres at a range of $1.745 million and $2.25 million, based on an appraisal of the property and compared with Medford prices.
The practice field, which coaches say has been used in season as a practice field for Ashland Soccer Club as well as junior varsity boys soccer and varsity girls soccer teams at Ashland, is at the forefront of public discussion currently as Sunstone Housing Collective moves ahead with plans to sell or lease the property to a developer. The plan is to build a 91-unit apartment development intended to provide housing for school district employees and families and to curb declining enrollment.
The lot is bounded by East Main Street on the north, Lincoln Street on the east, South Mountain Avenue on the west, and residential housing on the south.
“Really the value in the land is what is done with it,” said Dan Ruby, a co-founder of Sunstone and a school board member, during the special session.
Nine proposals were submitted to Sunstone by 10 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 3, the deadline for developer proposals for Sunstone Housing Collaborative, according to board chair Rebecca Dyson. Sunstone founders Jill Franko and Dan Ruby, both school board members, were reviewing the submissions Tuesday.
Ruby emphasized that the school board did not vote on Tuesday to sell the land, but just to put a price tag on it. He also emphasized during the special session that he doesn’t want there to be confusion about the Sunstone project development and budget issues, which he described as separate issues.
“A cool $2 million makes sense to me because that’s easy and clean,” Ruby said of the price range, “not that we’re plugging a $2 million hole in the district with $2 million worth of property … I don’t want people to get confused about that.
Board chair Rebecca Dyson emphasized the difference between the district’s need to cut $2.2 million and the similar projected value of the property – in the ballpark of $2 million, give or take about $250,000.
“We have these two things that are very separate,” Dyson said. “This property that we are selling to potentially develop and we have the budgetary things that are going on in the district, and yes, it happens that those two numbers look similar, but they are not related.
“We aren’t solving that problem by doing this,” she added. “This is something that’s been in progress for years, long before that developed.
Board member Russell Hatch also noted similar sentiments.
“It doesn’t fix the budget — we’ll still have the same problem and the rollercoaster will continue if we don’t do the hard work,” Dyson said.
Ruby noted that it could cost a developer an estimated $250,000 to develop the field, which previously housed a mill pond.
“They used to soak the logs in a mill pond there before they went into the mill,” said Steve Mitzel, a Sunstone board member, and also operations director for the district. “The information we have is, in that era when they filled the property, they just filled it with debris, whatever that looks like.
“There’s some possibility there’s going to be a challenge up front (with developing the site) and they’re going to have to get those (site) surveys done,” he added. “We as a school district, we’re not going to bear that burden because we’re not developing it.
“It’s really the responsibility of the development team and the contractor that’s chosen to take care of those pieces.”
The school district may consider a long-term lease versus a sale of the property, but no actions on this were taken at the special session.
People with concerns over loss of the athletic field have started a petition on Change.org opposing loss of the field. Look for more on this in an upcoming story.
Email Ashland.news reporter Holly Dillemuth at hollyd@ashland.news.
Related story: Accessible housing project proposed for school district playing field property on East Main Street (Nov. 8)
