Garden Center Leasing Wrinkles Are Worked Out

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By Richard Kaufman
Sentinel Reporter

On Monday night, the RTM held its June meeting at Central Middle School. The 90-minute gathering focused primarily on the lease renewal of the Greenwich Garden Education Center and the center’s desire to sublease part of the building, known as the New North Greenhouse or Horticultural Building, to the Greenwich Tree Conservatory.

As a whole, the item was overwhelmingly approved by a vote of 164-7-1, but not without a few amendments and some debate.

The town of Greenwich has had a lease with the GEC since 1957. The lease is set to expire on Oct. 3, but the GEC has exercised its 10-year renewal option. The current lease does not address subletting, so a new 10-year lease with a subletting provision is being proposed for a 10-year term from Oct.1, 2017 through Sept. 30, 2027, with the same 10-year renewal option.

The RTM Finance Committee, while taking up the matter in recent meetings, came up with three motions.

“Some finance committee members had suggestions that eventually became motions as to how the lease might better reflect the intentions of the parties, the desire of the RTM members to give the town more options to use the property, and to give the RTM more control over approving subleases,” said committee chair Michael Warner at the meeting. “Subsequently, there were three motions.”

The language of the new subletting provision originally said “any sublease agreement must be approved by the Board of Selectmen.” The finance committee issued a motion to add RTM approval as well. There was some disagreement as to the importance of such an amendment.

“I fear the RTM is once again venturing into the area of micromanagement,” said David Detjen of District 10, who pointed out that RTM members already know who is likely going to be the sub-tenant going forward. “I think is an unnecessary addition to a process that quite frankly has worked in other instances for many years. I don’t think this is really a necessary amendment at all.”

Rob Perelli-Minetti of District 12 supported the motion, saying it’s important to give the RTM a voice in subleases. “The language says they can sublease it to anybody,” he said. “Nobody is objecting to the proposed sub-tenant. What we’re saying is, if you want the ability to sublease without other limitations, that it should come back to the RTM.”

The motion to add RTM approval of the sublease passed, 132-43-3.

The second motion called for clarifying who qualifies for the sublease. The finance committee wanted the language to state that only non-profit organizations would be eligible. After a discussion about making sure the wording had no loopholes, the motion passed, 140-33-5.

A third motion called for eliminating the 10-year renewal option, and leaving the lease at 10 years. “Rather than lock into a 20-year obligation with this current 10 and 10 arrangement, we just make it a 10-year lease and renew subsequently at that time period,” Michael Warner offered.

Margaret Freiberg of District 7 agreed, saying that although the RTM has the ability to cancel the lease, it would be unnecessary to let it continue for two decades on “autopilot.”

Freiberg likened the motion to picking a contractor. “When you go out for bid you pick a contractor to do some ongoing function, you contract with them for a fixed term of years, and at the time that that is finished, you go out for bid again,” she said. “You don’t keep going on and on and on unexamined with the same contractor.”

Freiberg also said the GEC has had 60 years on the lease, and the new 10-year lease gives the center a reasonable amount of time to make whatever case they want to make at the conclusion in order to get another contract.

Rommel Nobay of District 8 disagreed, and said that eliminating the safety net of the second 10-year option also eliminates stability for the tenant.

“This is a tenant of Greenwich property that couldn’t be described any better as being a pillar of the community,” he said. “I think that denying them the opportunity to have stability in their lease agreement in the town would be a detriment to the community. I am in support of giving them the 20-year option.”

“We’re not putting them in any worse position,” Pirelli-Minetti countered. “I don’t see any benefit that the town gets for giving an extra 10 years right now by doing a new lease in order to accommodate the Garden Education Center.”

Motion three passed, 104-69-2.

Despite some disagreement between members on the motions and amendments to the lease agreement, everyone came together to approve the item when the amended proposal was voted upon.

Elsewhere on the agenda, items one, two and three were combined. Items No. 1 and 2 dealt with reappointments to the Parks & Rec Commission and Board of Ethics respectively, and No. 3 dealt with the town of Greenwich/Board of Education accepting a grant of $13,500 from the Asia Society for “Confucius Classroom.” The RTM approved all three, 168-1-0.

Items No. 4, 5 and 9 were combined as well and passed 173-4-1. Of note, the RTM approved the acceptance and installation of a new sound system from the Greenwich Athletic Association, which is valued at $10,458.

Item No. 12, which had to do with an ordinance prohibiting waste associated with natural gas and oil extraction, was referred back to the legislative rules committee and the land use committee, who will report back to the RTM in September.

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