After 20 years, Waltham explores taking 67 Crescent St. lot by eminent domain

The City Council voted this week to use eminent domain to take a lot at 67 Crescent St. that has been drawing residents’ attention for almost 20 years.

The lot has been vacant since approximately 1975, according to Ward 9 councilor Robert G. Logan. The city attempted to buy it in 2008 and again in 2016, both times aiming to use the land for a South Side pocket park. City agents were not able to reach an agreement either time, and in both cases the funding approved for the purchase expired after a year.

This time, Logan and Ward 8 councilor Cathyann Harris have requested the council take a more definitive step: taking the land by eminent domain.

“[It’s] just the fact that it has dragged on for so long. At some point we need to acquire that property,” Logan told The Waltham Times.

In a 2016 funding application, Logan and then Ward 8 councilor Stephen Roarke proposed taking the property by eminent domain. If the city did that, it would compel the owner to sell the property to the city for a price determined by city officials.

Logan said he’s generally reluctant to use eminent domain, but he told the City Council that Mayor Jeannette A. McCarthy had tried to open negotiations with the property owner as recently as 2025 but had not received any response. 

Councilors voted 11–2 in favor of requesting that McCarthy take the land by eminent domain. Ward councilor Anthony LaFauci and Ward 5 councilor Joey LaCava voted against the motion.

LaFauci additionally requested a Law Department opinion on the taking of the land by eminent domain.

The path so far

Logan said he first heard of the property in 2007 from resident Susan Brown, a former member of the Conservation Commission. The Waltham Community Development Plan, created by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in 2004 and adopted in 2007, wrote that the site had been identified by nearby residents as a potential South Side park.

In 2008 the City Council approved the use of Community Preservation Act funding to purchase the lot, but the attempt to purchase it didn’t work out.

The city continued to keep an eye on the property, receiving an assessment of its value in 2012 and then again in 2015, when Community Preservation Committee documents listed its sale price as $227,000. Waltham once more attempted to purchase it in 2016, when Logan and then Ward 8 councilor Stephan Roarke again requested CPA funding for the purpose.

At the time Logan estimated it would cost $675,750 to both purchase and develop the park. The City Council in 2017 offered to pay $400,000 for the property. The owner refused, and the city refused to raise its bid.

67 Crescent St. is small enough that Logan and Harris consider it “unbuildable”, because it would require a zoning amendment to build residentially. “[The owners’] idea of what they could build on it would be based on the City Council granting a zone change and a special permit, which is unlikely,” Logan said. “It would be cost prohibitive.”

Still, according to City Council documents, a real estate agent representing the property owner in 2017 turned down the city’s $400,000 bid, pointing to the lot’s “highly desirable” waterfront location along the Charles River and existing residential construction on even smaller nearby lots.

Logan and Harris both referred to the lot as a “blight,” claiming that it has been used in the past as a site for dumping refuse. They said they had received constituent complaints about rats on the property, although the Health Department reported that it does not have a file of complaints about the site.

South Side’s need for green space

Neither councilor offered specifics about the park the city hoped to build on the land, but Harris said the site would keep some of its current trees, clear some brush and be managed in a way to encourage the health of local wildlife and the Charles River. 

“This would take what I see as an unbuildable eyesore property and restore it to a beautiful green space,” Harris said.

The 67 Crescent St. parcel appears in the City of Waltham’s 2015 Open Space Master Plan as the only suggested site for a pocket park on the South Side.

Logan said South Side residents need more parks, but it’s difficult to find space for them. “It’s the more densely developed urban core of the city, and there just aren’t that many properties,” he said.

He admitted that the City Council hasn’t fully explored other options for pocket parks. “There may be some other places that we could look at, but given the fact that we haven’t gotten anywhere on this one yet, it’s a little early to be turning our attention to try to get something else,” he said.

Logan and Harris said lots like the nearby 220 Moody St. would be poor choices for green space, because their central locale would make them very expensive to purchase and converting them to parks could interrupt the downtown Moody Street environment the city is cultivating.

Although the state Department of Conservation and Recreation maintains the Riverwalk and Forest Grove Park, 67 Crescent St. would be the first city-owned green space on the Charles River’s south bank.

“We’re working diligently to put in parks,” said Harris. ”They’re so critical to people’s daily life and way of life that … there’s wild support for this on the South Side, and I know citywide.” 

She added, “I think [67 Crescent St. is] truly a unique greenspace. It’s not a huge footprint, but its impact would be huge to the neighborhood.”