CITY WATCH Providence buys back vanishing park for $30K BY STEVEN STYCOS

The Providence Redevelopment Authority last week voted to spend $30,000 to repurchase a West End park that was mistakenly sold — at a loss of more than $255,000 — during a tax sale in 2000. The action settles a four-year legal battle over the two-acre Franciscan Park that sits above Route 10 and just off Broadway next to Bell Street Chapel (see "The strange case of the vanishing park," News, March 26, 2004).

"I’m so relieved," says neighborhood activist Filomena Lupo, "and I know my neighbors are relieved we have a park back there." A lawsuit filed by Lupo pressured Harold Smith of West Warwick to return the park to the city. Under the settlement agreement, according to Thomas Deller, Providence’s director of planning & development, the PRA will pay Smith $30,000 for property taxes he has paid since 2000. In return, he will return the park to the city and be eligible for a charitable tax deduction.

Deming Sherman, a lawyer for the Conservation Law Foundation, calls the settlement "fair." "This is outrageous," says Sherman, who sided with Lupo in court, "that the city could sell its own property for back taxes."

But that is exactly what happened. In 1997, to prevent a housing development, the city bought the property for $261,741. Three small pieces of land were sliced off the parcel and sold to adjoining property owners, including Lupo, for an additional $38,259. Landowner Cheryl Guisti owed $6142 in back taxes at the time of the sale. Although taxes are customarily resolved at real estate closings, they were not in this case, and three years later, the city wrote Guisti to indicate that her property was being put up for tax sale. Guisti did not respond because she no longer owned the land.

So in May 2000, the city sold the tax title to Smith. A year later, in accordance with state law, he petitioned the Rhode Island Superior Court for outright ownership.

During an October 2001 hearing, city lawyer Richard Riendeau tried to reserve the right to redeem the property in the future, according to the transcript, but Judge Stephen Fortunato was not in a mood for hedging and instead asked for details about the parcel. Riendeau described its location, but not its use. Smith’s lawyer, Douglas Smith, offered, "I believe it’s a vacant lot, Judge." Neither lawyer mentioned that it was a functioning park. Fortunato, saying, "The City here has sat on its hands and slept on its rights," awarded the property to Smith. The city appealed, but the state Supreme Court upheld the decision.

In the summer of 2003, Smith advertised the property for sale. Only then did Lupo discover that Smith apparently owned her backyard and the Franciscan Park. Stating that she had never been notified that her land was up for tax sale, Lupo sued. Smith offered to give her the little piece of her backyard, but Lupo refused, insisting that the park must also restored.

Before Superior Court Judge Allen Rubine could issue a ruling in Lupo’s suit, however, the settlement was reached. The next step, says Lupo, is to get the land rezoned as open space, "to prevent this from happening again."