Barrington Bible College Deal Spawns Lots of Questions

Can Barrington afford to buy the former Zion Bible College campus at the north end of Middle Highway for $5.2 million?

Should the town even be attempting to buy the 39.56-acre property?

What are the costs to taxpayers after the purchase price to turn it into a middle school or other municipal office space or affordable housing?

“We need to provide taxpayers with those answers,” said Town Manager Peter DeAngelis Jr.  on Monday. “We shouldn’t guess. We should know.”

DeAngelis also said he recognizes the tight timetable for completing the due diligence by the Financial Town Meeting in May.  A primary contingency of the purchase is that voters approve it.

Town Councilor Jeff Brenner made that contingency very clear when he announced on Saturday at a joint meeting of the School Committee, Town Council and Appropriations Committee that the town had signed a purchase-and-sale agreement for the property.

Brenner eyes the property for a new middle school even though the school department has not made a decision on either remodeling the 60-year-old facility on Middle Highway or building a new one.

The former campus is zoned for a host of other uses as well. It is a recreation and education district (RE) and it conforms to the R-25 residential areas that surround it.  Permitted uses include households, schools, and community residences. Uses allowed with a special permit include single-family dwellings, parks, and restaurants.

To DeAngelis, that means the eventual use of “the property will have an impact on the town whether we control the property or not.”

The principal question then becomes, he said: “What do we have to do to protect the best interests of the community?”

DeAngelis actually began the due diligence on the property before the deal was announced.

“I anticipated that the vote would be unanimous to approve the agreement,” DeAngelis said.

One of the first steps will be the completion of a two-phase environmental assessment. 

The first phase will identify any possible “red flags,” he said, such as potential hazards like underground fuel tanks or other sources of heating. The second phase will determine what is necessary to eliminate any environmental hazards found and the cost.

Each of the nine buildings on the campus also must be inspected, DeAngelis said. The inspections will determine which buildings might be usable with some rehabilitation and which should be demolished.

“Some buildings could be mothballed,” he said, with the town providing minimal maintenance for future use. “But we need to know those costs.”

There is also the possibility that some of the buildings include asbestos and lead paint, which would require abatement whether a structure is saved or demolished.

Rodents are another possible problem, DeAngelis said. The town would not want to send them into the surrounding neighborhoods when a building is rebuilt or demolished.

The bottom line today?

“We need to find that out,” DeAngelis said. “There are dollars and cents beyond the purchase price.”