UPDATE: 5/11/17 Petition organizers didn’t collect quite enough votes by the deadline (see Townsman story), so the bylaw and bylaw amendment are set to go into effect this summer.
Don’t be surprised if you get hit up outside Roche Bros., at the Wellesley RDF or elsewhere over the weekend to sign petitions that could put real estate-related rules recently approved at Town Meeting up for public vote.
Opponents of the Historic Preservation Demolition Delay bylaw, which seeks to stem the tide of teardowns in Wellesley, and the TLAG amendment to the Large House Review bylaw, which aims to limit mansionization, argue that the new rules are too subjective and take control out of homeowners’ hands. Some realtors and builders also see lost opportunities, or at least delayed ones, for themselves.
During the recently concluded Town Meeting, the TLAG discussion was much more prolonged and heated than the one on the demolition delay bylaw, but now those who have opposed either or both of the new rules all along or have only recently become aware of them are looking to get a wider public opinion on the pending changes.
It sounds as though the demo delay bylaw petition might be further along, and Town Clerk Kathy Nagle says that a special election could take place in June if nearly 900 signatures are collected by Tuesday. At least 20% of registered voters would need to go to the polls and a majority of those voting would need to go against the bylaw in order to halt it.
This is an outrageous attempt by special commercial interests to do a end run around a duly taken vote of our elected Town Meeting Members. Despite their significant efforts, they failed to defeat these sensible regulations both in the run up to and during town meeting (notwithstanding a shameless and craven misinformation campaign replete with baseless assertions), yet now they seek still another bite at the apple.
What is worse, they seek to have their next bite at our expense – the conduct of this referendum would cost the taxpayers at least $20,000.
Perhaps the most offensive of all, however, is that they seek to conduct this referendum in the middle of the summer, when a substantial portion of the electorate will be on holiday, thereby lowering the threshold necessary for them to achieve their objective. This is an astonishingly cynical and downright disgraceful maneuver that has been carefully calibrated to ram through the backdoor that which these special interests could not shove through the front.
I urge all townspeople to reject this despicable scheme, to stand up for the integrity of our town meeting and the hard work of our hundreds of duly elected town meeting members, our volunteer Planning Board and Historical Commission, and to absolutely refuse to sign this ill-intentioned petition.
Every resident in Wellesley should 100% sign this. Why do you want the government telling you what you can do with your land! This bylaw discriminates against senior citizens. As Elizabeth Warren says “Actions speak louder than words” and this bylaw actions 100% targets senior citizens who have been the foundation of this amazing town as this is typically a large % of who is selling to builders.
Lastly, every residents and town official benefits when a house gets torn down as it increases town revenue and property value.
Shame on the Wellesley Historical Committee who is targeting senior citizens who is in my opinion an anti senior citizens group.
Sign this! Let Wellesley residents own their property!
Townspeople have the constitutional right to make decisions for their own property, not Town Meeting Members. The historical commission has their own special interests but it targets older, smaller homes. These articles should never have been pushed through without a town wide vote. They weren’t properly publicized, and very few people were aware of them before special interest groups sought to “social engineer” on the backs of the elderly. Not one elderly person on my street knew about these articles before they were quickly pushed through; two elders who are presently trying to sell their homes have been offered significantly less since the TMM vote.
We are collecting signatures at the recycle this morning. You can contact me if you aren’t mobile or unable to get out and I will personally get the petition to you to sign.
Maureen. When will you be out to get signatures again? Have a bunch of people on Northgate who want to sign!
Paul- If you can come to 39 Jackson Road, I have the petition ready to sign. On my door.
Or I will come to you tomorrow!
What number Northgate?
Please text me? 617-849-2112
Thank you, Maureen
Don’t want the town telling me how quickly I can sell my house to and who I can sell it to. If I can get more money from a builder don’t think I should “potentially” have to wait longer. Let’s be honest. Many homes built before 1960 are in desperate need of major renovations.
Lastly, I have currently tried to fix up my current house and the paper work, fees and process to pull permits in this town is a joke! I wanted to build a deck and the town told me that I needed to get my yard surveyed along with an asbuilt plan even though I had an old plot plan. They needed an updated one! Well that was $1200. Then a year later I wanted to add central air and was going to need an AC compressor outside my house. The town building department said I needed to get my yard surveyed to ensure it was within (the compressor) zoning requirements as it needed to be 10 feet from my side neighbors properly line. I said here is my last survey from the prior year showing where it will be placed and as you can see I have plenty of room. Nope, would not accept it! They needed a professional surveyor to come out again and literally draw where it was going to go. Well, that was another $1200. My point is that the town wants current residents to fix up older homes but they don’t make it easy, cost effective or efficient!
we were at the Dump this morning and were ready to sign but could not find anyone Maybe they left because of the rain Hope someone will be in front of Roche Bros tomorrow and Monday At least there they can get out of the rain Lets get those signatures !!!!!
Libby- If you can come to 39 Jackson Road, I will have the petition ready to sign. Or I will come to you tomorrow! Please text me? 617-849-2112
Maureen
I wonder how many TM members who voted for this live in houses built in the last 25 years – on the site of a previous home that was torn down? Most older homes are tired and ready to be retired, like the folks in them – who have been there 30+ years. The full value of their property should be available as they plan a transition from house to condo or retirement community – a possible 1 year delay is a major impediment to this orderly transition.
The design of old houses doesn’t appeal to young buyers. A much better term for teardown/mansionization is “reconstruction of the housing stock” that has up to date wiring, plumbing and floor plans for now current lifestyles.
Don’t call my former home a “starter” home! We loved it for over 35 years as just fine for us. Yes, several years ago we sold it to a builder in a clean cash deal that allowed us to move on to easier condo living.
We will be two signatures on the petition!
GerryH- Thank you!
If you need to sign
Could you come to 39 Jackson Road? Iwill have the petition ready to sign. Or I will come to you tomorrow! Please text me? 617-849-2112
Maureen
Reply
About 12 homes on Manor will sign this!! Walked door to door this morning. Just spoke with all of our neighbors and this street 100% supports this! The Wellesley Historical Committee should move to North Korea and impose their dictatorship ways over there!
Hi Sarah M,
If you can come to 39 Jackson Road, I will have the petition ready to sign. Or I will come to you tomorrow at Manor Ave!!
Please text me? 617-849-2112
Thanks!!
Maureen
I really hope that the “Wellesley Historical Committee” reads this! I hope you know that you are the laughing stock of this town. All you did was literally just hurt the seniors in this town! My neighbor who has been in her home for over 30 years had an accepted offer of 950k for her home from a builder. She was going to use this money as her retirement as she had no 401k or IRA. Well the builder pulled his offer after this passed and now will take minimally a 75k hit that she was going to use to help her pay her medical bills! Good going! Really don’t know how any of you can sleep at night knowing what you just did to her! Government knows best though right! Government is the answer to everything!! Right! You all should be disgusted with yourselves!
There was a great discussion of this issue on facebook in the “whats up wellesley” group. It was discussion the issue in depth. Unfortunately, it must have ruffled some feathers because the valuable discussion which was running against the bylaws was deleted with a lame excuse. Hopefully, this discussion survives.
I agree with you TKelly as it was also a way to coordinate getting signatures plus informing people about these laws.
It’s democracy!!
Have you signed the petition to get a Town Wide vote? The petition is on my side door. Please stop. Y to sign! Thanks!’
Maureen
There is more to this story than what meets the eye. I think a set of so called housing advocates are behind the bylaws. Nothing is historical about many of the old small homes in Wellesley. Just an excuse. They have just reduced the price of houses on our backs so their kids can get our houses for a song.
All reasonable people accept limitations on the use of their property. We have zoning rules, we have setback rules, we have noise ordinances. It may well be that you could tear down a home and replace it with a multi-story parking garage and make a mint doing it–but the zoning rules (thankfully) ensure that doesn’t happen. The teardown law is another reasonable limitation on the use of property that preserves our town.
These teardowns are a real problem in Wellesley. The McMansions that are being put up are almost exclusively ugly, schizophrenic pastiches of architectural idioms that are incongruous the the neighborhood (have you seen the towering monstrosity on Clifford that towers over the rest of the houses on the street?). The houses sit on top of each other, with the minimum distance between them, changing the fabric of our streets. Young families–which are the future of the town–are frequently priced out of the market. And if you’ve been in these houses, you likely have seen the shoddy construction–I’ve yet to meet someone who owns one of these new houses that is truly satisfied with their contractor.
Newton has a teardown law. Needham is finalizing theirs. It’s about time we have one.
You said: “Young families–which are the future of the town–are frequently priced out of the market. ”
That is what I was saying in my post. A major driver behind these bylaws is to bring down prices on older homes. This is not zoning policy. This is social policy. Since when does the historical society start promoting social policy which is being paid for by reducing home values of current owners.
Were you soliciting signatures when the Town required the Belclare to include affordable units in their luxury development? Should we, as a community, be indifferent to the rapidly rising rents at places like the seniors-only Phillips Park Apartments? The top news item on the Town website is an “Affordable Housing Opportunity” at the Wellesley Place apartments on Worcester Street. It’s a notable listing, given that Wellesley is, according to one survey, more expensive than Honolulu(!), and is the 13th most expensive municipality in the nation. Cite: https://www.coldwellbanker.com/hlr/2016
That’s a dubious distinction.
Will no teachers in the Wellesley public schools be able to live in town? No firemen? No police officers? I personally find that a sobering prospect.
And of course the role of government extends to social policy; we live in a society. This is all the more true in a place like Wellesley, which is run by a town meeting of volunteers elected by their neighbors.
Pleaseeee. The teachers, police officers and fire fighters live in “make believe land” and are doing just fine. They have it better than most Wellesley residents. Guarantee you that the vast majority of Wellesley residents don’t have the following like they do:
1) Guaranteed yearly salary increases’ regardless of job performance! Must be nice! Think about that for a second. You get a guaranteed raise every year regardless of your work quality.
2) Pretty much guaranteed job security (it’s impossible to fire a bad teacher unless they break the law). Must be nice! There is a 4th grade teacher in Wellesley who will remain nameless who has had over 25 complaints from parents but can’t get fired. Instead students suffer from a poor teacher for that FULL year.
3) Abusive pension systems that guarantee 80% of their highest earnings “salary years” for LIFE regardless of what the stock market does on the backs of tax payers.. Many of them are retiring in their 50’s with six figure pension systems while the tax payers who are paying for this having to work into their late 60’s just to get their SS checks that are 1/10th of this.
Must be nice again!
Your cause is noble and moral. That is not the problem.
The issue is the damage the bylaw does to many older residents who were counting on that equity in retirement. Essentially, the bylaw reduces the value of their homes which results in either less cash on a sale or a smaller reverse mortgage. So, the older folks living on a fixed income are the ones cutting back just so a teacher or police officer can obtain a Wellesley home at a reduced price. To me, this is just an unfair solution and it should bother everyone in this town. You just can’t take advantage of the older people who may not even be aware what has happened to them.
If you want to do SOCIAL ENGINEERING, everyone should
share in the expense. Not just the small, older “Historic” houses owned by the elderly. (Not that anything ” Historic” took place in those homes).
We bought a brand new home on MacArthur Road (former tear me down) and we were 100% satisfied with our builder. Top notch quality (no short cuts) and could not be more happy.
Our best friends also bought another tear me down off of Manor (moved from Concord) and also were 100% satisfied with their contractor/builder.