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City Clerk responding to #210676 re: discrepancies in abutter notifications in applications from various utilities for Grants of Location.
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Official Text
To the Honorable City Council:
I am writing to address #210676, an Order of the City Council that the City Clerk discuss with the City Council discrepancies in abutter notifications in applications from various utilities for Grants of Location, and propose mechanisms to resolve those discrepancies. The Order arose from a possible discrepancy between two applications for Grants of Location submitted on September 24, 2020 by two companies seeking to do construction in a similar area of Somerville Avenue. One company provided a list of two abutters, and the other provided a list of nine abutters.
Before looking at the specific lists, let’s first consider how the City identifies abutters for proposed Grants of Location.
Companies seeking a Grant of Location to construct lines on or under a public way are required by Mass. General Law (MGL c166 s22) to petition the City Council for permission before they may install those lines.
That same law requires the City Council to conduct a public hearing on the application, and requires the City Clerk to send out a written notice of the public hearing to all owners of real estate abutting upon the work, as determined by the last preceding assessment for taxation.
The term “abutter” is not defined in the state statute, but its most common understanding is a property that touches the way along, across or under the line to be constructed.
In practice, the City Clerk’s Office requires the company seeking the Grant of Location to provide the abutter mailing labels that the Office uses to send out the public hearing notice. This insures that the clerical burden of preparing the labels, which can be considerable, is borne by the applicant.
If an abutter is not provided notice of the public hearing, that abutter may appeal in court the decision of the City Council with respect to the Grant of Location application. If the court determines that the abutter was not in fact properly notified, and the error was prejudicial, it’s possible that the court would invalidate the Grant, and the City Council would be required to hold a second, properly noticed, public hearing.
The threat of litigation and the possible loss of the Grant of Location is what incentivizes the company to provide a complete and accurate set of abutter labels to the City Clerk’s Office.
In the specific matter that prompted the City Council’s Order, the Council received on September 24, 2020 an application from Extenet Systems to install 103 feet of conduit in Somerville Avenue from a manhole to a pole at 411 Somerville Avenue (#210618). It also received on the same date an application from TC Systems to install 295 feet of conduit in Somerville Avenue from a utility pole at Church Street to an Extenet handhole at 411 Somerville Avenue (#210614). The Extenet application included two abutters, while the TC Systems application included nine.
My review of the two applications found that the Extenet Systems application failed to list five abutters that I would have included, and that the TC Systems application listed all of the appropriate abutters.
Further, after consultation with the City Solicitor’s Office, that Office has opined that it’s reasonable to assume that the my Office is responsible for vetting the applicants’ abutter lists to insure their accuracy. I have not previously taken on that task, but going forward, I will endeavor to insure that all abutter labels provided by applicants are complete and accurate before mailing the public hearing notice.
Please contact me if you have further questions on this matter or if I can be of further assistance.
John J. Long
City Clerk