The role of Wellesley’s Planning Board “is to make short and long term decisions related to land use in the Town of Wellesley.” The Planning Department and its board are always busy, but it sounds as though things could pick up even more in the months to come.
Those tuning in for the June 6 Planning Board meeting might have wanted to catch the latest on the large house review of a property near the Brook Path (case continued to a future meeting) or get up to speed on Beacon Capital Partners’ plans to convert 93 Worcester St. into a bio lab facility (along with Park 9 (Sun Life) property across Rte. 9.
But it was those who stuck around until the end of the 3-hour-plus meeting who got to hear Planning Board Chair Jim Roberti’s rapid-fire update on other properties in town that could be up for redevelopment. After asking Planning Director Don McCauley if he had anything to mention as part of the director’s report, and being told “Nothing more to add,” Roberti said “I don’t think I have anything either…there’s one thing though, yes…”
At which point he shared the following:
- The Sisters of Charity are interested in potentially developing their property on Oakland Street near Centennial Reservation. The property currently includes the Elizabeth Seton Residence nursing home and rehabilitation facility and Marillac Residence residential care community. Roberti said there had been previous interest in doing so, but that the outfit ran into wetlands issues. McCauley described this as being in a single residence zone, but with a religious exemption for the Sisters’ support of retired nuns.
According to Sister Roberta Kerins, Chairperson of the Elizabeth Seton Residence and Marillac Residence Board of Directors:
The Sisters of Charity themselves are aging and looking towards the future. The hope is to continue providing the same exceptional senior care on the campus that the 5-star Elizabeth Seton Residence Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Facility and Marillac Residence residential care home have provided to the community for the past 41 years.
- A bunch of Haynes Management properties could be going on the market. “Ten people have called me,” Roberti said, adding that this could happen over a matter of years. “That could have a fundamental change and effect on the time, that’s definitely something we’re going to be looking at planning wise.”
We did the rounds with the aforementioned parties, and will update this post if we hear back from any of them with more details.
Please send tips, photos, ideas to theswellesleyreport@gmail.com
At least 90 other communities in MA, including Lexington, Cambridge, Newton, and Belmont have created and enforced biosafety regulations, permits and committees in order to protect the health and safety of their residents and first responders in the event of an accident, incident, spill, or fire.
Wellesley needs similar biosafety regulations, permits and committees in place to help guide the review of biosafety lab proposals such as those by Beacon Capital Partners to convert office space to level 2 biosafety labs that study infectious agents and toxins.
Concerned residents have urged the Planning Board to pause the forward march of Beacon Capital Partners’ proposals to allow time for all issues, most importantly the health and safety issues, to be thoroughly researched, and have provided research on regulations and accidents to the Planning Board.
In order to protect the health and safety of Wellesley residents and first responders, Wellesley should immediately create a biosafety committee, regulations, and a permitting process to review biosafety lab proposals, assess associated risks and hazards, and control the types of biosafety labs, toxins, and infectious agents allowed into our town.
Diane. Thanks for your comment. Do you know if there’s an organization that tracks what these other communities have done in terms of establishing rules, committees, etc?
Bob, Swellesley
Hi Bob, I don’t know of an independent or unbiased source – I think I’ve heard about some sort of biolab marketing association which may list towns with biolab-friendly or easy regulations, but I’m not sure of the name.
Cambridge is often cited as having comprehensive regulations in place to protect the health & safety of the community https://www.cambridgepublichealth.org/services/regulatory-activities/biosafety/