OUR OPINION
Ever since Norfolk County took 98 acres of prime land in Braintree near the Holbrook line 91 years ago to build a tuberculosis hospital, the town and its residents have had numerous promises broken and been left out of the loop as the property has fallen into private ownership hands.
Now, the latest owner of the hospital, Kindred Healthcare Inc., of Lexington, Ky., has announced it will purchase the land around the facility for $22.3 million from the Ohio real estate holding company that owns it and sell the whole kit and caboodle to the highest bidder.
In a town like Braintree where open space is at a premium with little available parkland, we hope the town with the state’s assistance looks into ways the land can remain in an undeveloped state.
There are many problems with this sale, the least of which is Kindred never gave Braintree Mayor Joseph Sullivan or other officials the courtesy of a phone call, let alone input. Company officials notified Sullivan by fax roughly the same time company executives put out a press release and statement declaring they were closing the unprofitable long-term care facility and would move the scores of patients.
Nothing was said about what would happen to the 217 workers at the hospital.
There’s also a question, asked many times but never answered in Braintree, over whether land that was taken by eminent domain can be sold by a private entity for private development.
For seven decades, the county ran a hospital for the care of tuberculosis patients until the demand ebbed with the near- eradication of the disease in this country. It was switched to a chronic care facility and, in 1984, a jail facility was added. The town successfully sued to stop housing prisoners although officials reached an agreement that was updated every two years that allowed prisoners at the alternative center until 2000.
When the county sold the hospital to a private healthcare company in 1997, the buyers agreed in writing to place a conservation restriction on the land in exchange for the necessary permits for Olympus to buy the hospital and forego the town’s right of first refusal.
But when the owners filed a plan with the town to subdivide the property in 2002, Braintree’s attorneys could not find any such restriction ever having been filed.
As the saying goes, fool me once, shame on me; fool me twice. . .
With the care and treatment of its patients as the first priority, the state needs to ensure Kindred lives up to its obligations and patients are found beds in facilities where they and their families are comfortable.
There also needs to be a hard look at the original deed when the land was first taken by eminent domain. Under the state constitution and even the most generous court interpretations, land takings are for the sole purpose of “public use.” It’s hard to imagine a development being “public use” and we hope the town presses the issue.
But perhaps the best solution here is for Kindred to open communication with Sullivan and other Braintree officials to bring them into the loop and ensure the town’s needs are not the bottom of the priority list. After nearly a century, it’s about time for Braintree residents to have a voice in the land’s future.
(c) 2008 Patriot Ledger, The; Quincy, Mass.. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.
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