MBTA agrees to pay New Bedford $3M more for land
New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell along the city's harbor walk. (CommonWealth Beacon file photo)
BOSTON — The MBTA agreed to pay New Bedford seven times what it originally offered the city four years ago for a series of eminent domain land takings to make way for a South Coast Rail station and a train layover site.
The dispute has been simmering for years, with the T low-balling the city initially and then refusing to budge. The fight spilled over into the political arena, with local lawmakers accusing New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell of being too greedy and endangering the long-delayed South Coast Rail project.
In the end, the MBTA and New Bedford avoided a court fight and struck a deal, with the T agreeing to pay New Bedford and three other municipal entities a total of $3.5 million, seven times the $486,627 the transit authority originally paid. The T has settled similar challenges with private landowners and is still battling in court over other pieces of property in New Bedford and Fall River.
“Our position all along has been simple: New Bedford taxpayers deserve to be fairly compensated for the land taken by the MBTA,” Mitchell said in a statement. “This settlement achieves that goal, and I am grateful for the efforts of Governor Healey and the MBTA to make it happen.”
Rep. William Straus of Mattapoisett, the House chair of the Legislature’s Transportation Committee who represents part of New Bedford, issued a statement on Facebook that also praised the T and Healey and criticized Mitchell.
“In the end the MBTA acted legally and within its authority to take land for the purpose of expanding South Coast Rail,” the statement said. “While I have little doubt that the city will try and polish up this outcome a bit, the win here is for public transportation and thanks goes directly to Maura Healey for holding firm and defending the state against the city’s excessive claims.”
Straus, who is stepping down at the end of this year, said New Bedford at one point demanded $10 million and also threatened to sue the MBTA, alleging some of the original land-taking was illegal because at the time New Bedford was not part of the MBTA service area. New Bedford officially joined in 2022.
New Bedford never sued the MBTA, but a draft complaint was shared with the MBTA last year and then leaked to the Boston Globe. The Globe ran a story on April 30, 2023, portraying New Bedford as trying to throw a wrench in the gears of South Coast Rail, which has taken decades to build and has been delayed several times in the last couple years. The project is currently scheduled to open in May.
In the Globe story, MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo was quoted as saying “the MBTA appropriately exercised its eminent domain powers as provided by the Legislature and paid fair market value for all the properties taken.”
Pesaturo on Tuesday praised the settlement. “The MBTA is pleased that this matter was settled in a fair and equitable manner after a mediator’s review of the positions of both parties,” he said.
The MBTA and New Bedford have haggled over the true value of the land, with one appraisal that included similar Boston-area properties coming in at more than $10 million. The two parties eventually agreed to bring in a neutral appraiser and exclude Boston-area properties. The neutral appraiser pegged the value of the properties at somewhere between $1.9 million and $4.2 million. The two parties eventually settled on $3.5 million.
This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
