The town of Wellesley on Thanksgiving Eve announced postponement of the visioning workshop it planned for Dec. 8 to provide the state with input ahead of requesting proposals from developers to build housing on MassBay Community College property. The move was prompted by the town’s consideration of legal action against the Commonwealth.
While the town has been promoting the Dec. 8 session since early November, as we reported earlier this week the Select Board also included an executive session (aka, behind closed doors) item on its Nov. 24 meeting agenda “to discuss strategy with respect to potential litigation with the Commonwealth regarding the disposition of surplus MassBay Community College land.”
The state has deemed 45 acres of MassBay property—a 5-acre parking lot and 40 acres of forest—as surplus and ripe for redevelopment under its Affordable Homes Act aimed at addressing the region’s housing shortage.
Some in town see the state’s plan as a win for housing, the school, and possibly the environment, if a conservation restriction is put on the forest land. Many of those who live in the area have raised concerns about traffic and more that could result from any such plan. (A lawn sign campaign has begun urging protection of the entire 40-acre forest.)
State legislators representing Wellesley recently shared a brief update on the Commonwealth’s developing housing plans for the MassBay property that abuts Centennial Reservation. The state is well aware of concerns in town about protecting the forested land that makes up about 90% of the 45 acres in question, and is open to protecting much of it, per the update.
According to the update provided on Wednesday by the town, “there is significant uncertainty regarding the role the Commonwealth intends the Town to have on the vision for the project including density, design, and open space. The Town has also received conflicting and incomplete information from the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EHOLC) and the Department of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM). At this time, Town officials have determined that delaying the visioning workshop is the only option.”
Due to potential litigation, the town says it can’t provide additional information. Updates about a possibly rescheduled workshop will be shared if and when a new date is set. Questions or comments can be directed to OaklandStreet@wellesleyma.gov
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If legal action is necessary, so be it. But I would hope that our elected officials , Ms. Peisch and Ms. Creem, can get this situation fixed and in a place that protects this 40 acre open space and allows for a reasonably scaled housing project on the 5 acre parking lot. And for the record, 180 units is not reasonable.
I mostly agree with you, Rick. But if the state insists on 180 units or more in exchange for a guarantee of the forest’s preservation, would it still be worth it to you? Because I think that’s the most likely outcome here.
No one has said the forest is “ripe for redevelopment.” The state marked it as surplus so that more housing could be built on the parking lot. Selling the land for twenty units would just not be sufficient to meet MassBay’s capital needs.
I agree the state should make their housing goals for the site clearer. At first I thought they were holding the forest’s preservation as a bargaining chip so that they could negotiate for a higher unit total. But clearly that strategy failed, in part because the town simply refused to negotiate and in part because Secretary Augustus was apparently not on the same page with his staff.
At the same time, the Select Board needs to stop playing games. The legal drama is at best a stall tactic and at worst a black hole for taxpayer money. Either way, creating bad blood with the state is unlikely to lead to better project outcomes.
Town leaders should insist on a guarantee of the forest’s preservation in the RFP, but they need to find the courage to accept that a) they don’t have the upper hand in these negotiations and b) what the state wants in return likely won’t be popular with their constituents. By the same token, the state needs to find the courage to respond coherently to questions about its goals for the site – because they have the upper hand in negotiations, the burden should be on them to first articulate exactly what they want.
Thank you Bob for your excellent reporting on this! Very proud of how our community has rallied around protecting the forest.
I’m extremely tired of hearing politicians and *developers* decimating nature and calling it housing access. CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL!
“What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?” – H.D. Thoreau
The community’s efforts to “rally around protecting the forest” have thus far been completely counterproductive. It doesn’t help anyone to treat building housing and protecting nature as mutually exclusive. And it certainly doesn’t help to overplay the odds that the forest will be developed while completely ignoring the environmental benefits of building dense, multifamily housing on already-disturbed land (i.e., the parking lot).
The best thing for the planet is for the Select Board to start a good-faith negotiation process with the state. The state doesn’t want to destroy the forest either. But we can’t “save the trees” until they release an RFP for at least 180 homes on the parking lot. Keep fighting against that, and the forest’s fate can only grow more uncertain.