The recent proposals for well over 100 units of multifamily housing in Lower Falls have landed like a thud, and the neighborhood reaction has been loud, clear and quick to point out that our Town is being gaslit. The proposals represent an effort to sell our Town a series of fantasies.
These Residential Incentive Overlays (RIOs) are not based on planning. They are developer-driven, just like 40B projects. This means that instead of careful planning, a developer simply finds a relatively inexpensive site, seeks to cram down over 100 units of luxe housing and brings forth an RIO. This results in locating condo developments in areas where a developer can maximize profit, as opposed to where such developments might be better suited. In Lower Falls, the bylaw is specific. Any RIO must comply with the design standards and guidelines that the Town paid a nationally recognized architectural firm to develop. That effort actually showed where a RIO should go at Lower Falls. The developer-driven RIOs now proposed are not in that location.
The next fantasy is that the RIOs are supposed to be transit-friendly. The proposed Walnut Street RIO is anything but. It is located on essentially an island in the Charles River, filled in long ago, and isolated from the transportation network. It is ridiculous to pretend that anyone living there will walk, drive or ride a bike to the distant (well over a mile) commuter rail station. You are prohibited from turning left onto Washington Street from the site. You cannot turn left off of River Street onto Washington Street during morning or evening rush hours. You literally cannot “get there from here” via car. Similarly, to walk or bike the distance, one has to go up multiple steep grades. One need look no further than the fact that the Planning Board and Planning Department claim that the new “Uber-like” Catch Connect system represents transit for the site. Catch Connect is a paid service that is available to any location in Wellesley. According to our planners, every house in Wellesley is a transit hub. And if anyone thinks that the Green Line at Woodland is a convenient, walkable and viable commuter option, they are indeed living in a fantasy world. Gaslighting.
Fantasy No. 3 is that hundreds of RIO units will add to our tax base. What will happen when Schofield is jam-packed with students from these 3-bedroom condos? Schofield already “features” so-called mobile classrooms. How much will RIOs cost us in terms of new school construction? And what about extra infrastructure?
Fantasy No. 4 is that Wellesley needs to fill up every available square foot in Town with multi-family housing in order to do our bit to solve the Commonwealth’s housing crisis. First, multi-million-dollar condos in “Swellesley” are not going to address that crisis. They will make developers wealthy, but they will not house the poor, homeless or those attempting to climb up the housing ladder. Second, this argument needs to be carefully evaluated. Of course, there should be a place for different types of housing in Wellesley. But many, if not most, of those who live in Town could have chosen to live in Brookline or Cambridge. They chose Wellesley because of what it is—a tranquil suburban village as opposed to a bustling urban scene. Dumping 100+ condo units in mid-rise structures into a small, quiet residential neighborhood does not fit that description.
The final fantasy is that those of us in Lower Falls who oppose the RIOs are just NIMBYs. Nothing could be further from the truth. Lower Falls is home to Wellesley’s first 40B project, a multi-story apartment (not condos) building. We have many units of public and private elderly housing. We include public housing. There are townhouse condos and two-family homes. We have a mix of housing and commercial development. In short, we have done our part. Let those who call us NIMBYs do theirs. The Town has appropriately rejected plans for expanded housing options on Cliff Road and Pond Road. Why do those very wealthy neighborhoods get a pass, while Lower Falls gets saturated? Is this housing equity? Is it really housing diversity?
This is gaslighting on an industrial scale. It needs to stop.
Neal Glick
Wellesley resident
