Wilmington Finance Committee Unanimously Recommends $10.75 Million Open Space Purchase

WILMINGTON — April 22, 2026 — Wilmington Finance Committee unanimously backs $10.75 million purchase of the Strap of Farms, the town's last large open space parcel. The committee voted to recommend all four articles headed to Annual Town Meeting on May 5, including an additional $6.31 million appropriation from free cash to complete a negotiated friendly taking of the roughly 60-acre property at 333 Woburn Street, where $4.44 million from two prior Town Meeting votes remains on hand. Town Counsel explained that a hostile eminent domain taking would have triggered two to four years of litigation at 12 percent annual interest on any jury award above the town's pro tanto payment. Environmental testing found a PFAS plume traced to an offsite source to the south — not expected to impede recreational or development use — and no buried contaminants requiring supervised cleanup. The committee also unanimously recommended three tax-exemption articles that would index asset limits for surviving-spouse and senior-citizen exemptions to the annual Consumer Price Index and double all qualifying exemptions for blind residents, veterans, surviving spouses, and seniors at 100 percent, at an estimated net cost to the town of roughly $25,000 to $30,000 for the senior portion alone, funded from the existing overlay account.