Last week, the Boston City Council voted to accept a conservation restriction for 0 Dale St. adjacent to the Sherrin Woods Urban Wild on the Hyde Park and Roslindale borders.

The move was somewhat perfunctory; Boston Mayor Michelle Wu announced the move to purchase the land back in 2024 through eminent domain. But the full process of acquiring land for public use and then making it conservation land is a bit more complicated than just the city taking it.

If it had remained just public land, there would be no legal reason that the city couldn’t sell the land back to private hands later on. A conservation restriction basically puts the control of the land in the hands of another entity that has no material reason to sell it. So, if the city does decide it wants to sell the land, the holder of the restriction would have to sign off on it.

This seemingly administrative vote brings to an end the decades-long saga of 0 Dale St. The neighbors of the area, especially the Dale Street Neighborhood Watch, have been fighting to keep the land unbuilt and wooded, much like the adjacent Sherrin Woods, for at least the last 20 years, if not longer.

Dale Street Neighborhood Watch co-founder Kim O’Connell worked on keeping the woods from development with co-chair Beth Columbo during much of the Watch’s existence. The area remains a piece of greenspace at least in part due to their efforts.

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At a City Council Hearing on the restriction on Aug. 21, Parks Commissioner Cathy Baker-Eclipse said the acquisition was done through the Community Preservation Act (CPA) fund process, and that the Conservation Agent for 0 Dale will be the Southwest Boston Community Development Corporation, members of which also fought to keep the parcel woodland during a proposed development process for 28 condos back in 2023. The city took the parcel through eminent domain for about $530,000.

The restriction basically spells out how the property can be used by the public and what is there currently.

For 0 Dale, what you see is what you get. Passive wooded recreation.