The Wellesley Select Board on Tuesday approved language for a Special Town Meeting article regarding the state’s proposed sale of land at MassBay Community College to support the creation of 180 housing units and partially fund future upgrades on the MassBay campus (see Wellesley Media recording).
The board is set to make a presentation about the article at the Advisory Committee on Wednesday, April 2s at 6:30pm, and then reconvene for a Select Board meeting on Thursday, April 23 at 6:30pm to discuss the motion language under the article.
The Select Board, on the heels of the latest communication from the state regarding the future of 45 acres of MassBay property, last week called for a Special Town Meeting on May 11 where the issue will be addressed. The state’s plans to sell MassBay property deemed “surplus”—roughly five acres of parking lot, roughly 40 acres of forest—has sparked concerns from neighbors and users of the adjacent Centennial Reservation as well as enthusiasm from those who say the state’s plans could lead to needed housing, protections for the forest, and improvements at MassBay.
The Select Board’s plan for Special Town Meeting is to put a non-binding question or questions to Wellesley’s elected legislators to gauge what course they and their constituents would like the town to take on the MassBay land matter.
Article 2 language reads as follows:
To see if the Town will vote to advise the Select Board to take the following actions:
A. Pursue an agreement with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts wherein the Town will accept the construction of 180 units of housing on and around the parking lot at 40 Oakland Street on approximately 7 to 8 acres of land in exchange for a permanent conservation restriction for passive recreation on the remaining 37 to 38 acres of land at that location; or
B. Pursue litigation against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts seeking a declaration that some or all of the land located at 40 Oakland Street is not legally available for housing use, and seeking to limit, to the greatest extent feasible, the amount of housing that may be constructed on any portion of the property determined to be eligible for such use; or to take any other action in relation thereto
Town Counsel Tom Harrington presented the draft article language. The Select Board has been meeting behind closed doors for months with attorneys to explore possible litigation over the MassBay matter (the board has also provided public updates and allowed for public comment).
Select Board member Kenny Largess, one of numerous lawyers at Town Hall that night, proposed broader language, fearing that the draft language from Harrington was too narrow. He described a scenario where people who might not be inclined to vote for negotiating with the state might feel forced to do so without having a real sense of how litigation might go. Harrington assured that Town Meeting members would be able to make motions that focused on something in between the goalposts set out in the article language.
Beth Sullivan Woods favored the Largess proposal, and took exception to specifying acreage amounts in the language.
“This sets up a premise that it’s fight the definition of ‘surplus’ or agree that 180 is the right number,” she said. “I have never heard from this community that 180 units on the parking lot is acceptable to anyone…”
Board Chair Marjorie Freiman said that what she has heard from the public over the past year is that the town’s priority is protecting the forest.
“If we can get 37 or 38 acres can we live with the result?” she asked. “Well, that’s essentially the question, that’s the bottom line question. What’s your priority? What are you willing to live with? What are you willing to risk? What are you willing to give up?”
Board member Tom Ulfelder backed the language from Harrington, arguing that it “sharpens the debate.” He stated, “that stark difference between [A and B] is exactly what we want the community and Town Meeting to understand. That we don’t have fine gradations of the state’s offer realistically in front of us that we can push forward. Board member Colette Aufranc also supported the original article draft language, seeing it as “not binary, there’s a sliding scale” within the parameters.
Freiman emphasized a reason for holding Special Town Meeting on May 11 and keeping it to one night is that it will give the town a chance to hit the state’s May 13 deadline for submitting comments on the disposition and reuse of the property at 40 Oakland St. “We don’t want to lose the opportunity to respond to the state within the time that they have given us. Again, they are the state and we’re the town…”
Wellesley Conservation Land Trust retains counsel to protect MassBay forest
Separately, the non-profit Wellesley Conservation Land Trust (WCLT) has retained Hill Law “to represent its interests in matters relating to the MassBay Community College Forest. Among other reasons, WCLT has asked Counsel to determine whether that land is protected under Article 97, which guarantees for all the ‘right to a clean environment including its natural, scenic, historical, and aesthetic qualities for the citizens of the Commonwealth.'”
According to the group, “At this time, WCLT is focused on evaluating the situation and supporting efforts aligned with its mission. The organization remains committed to working constructively with stakeholders and will provide updates as appropriate.”
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Please don’t be fooled into thinking that the construction will only be on the parking lot. The state has never agreed to limit the construction, but there has been a suggestion, reflected in the town meeting questions, that it might be limited to 7 or 8 acres. If so, that would almost double the area of the parking lot, which is 4.3 acres, putting the development directly into the adjacent wetland and into the town’s Water Supply Protection District. According to the proposed state regulations, the state can ignore the towns environmental protection restrictions, which are more protective than the state rules.
We have to start negotiating with the state before they agree to anything. The state has no reason to promise anything as long as we’re still threatening to sue them. The best pathway to preserving the entire forest is to work with the state. They want 180+ homes built and to fill MassBay’s coffers. That’s completely compatible with placing a conservation restriction on all 40 acres of forest. It’s just a matter of giving ourselves a platform to negotiate for what we want. The state would have no reason to listen to us once we sued them, and they certainly would have no reason to listen to us once they inevitably win that lawsuit. But if we acknowledge their goals for the site and work with those goals as a starting point, they have both political and practical reasons to want the negotiations to go as smoothly as possible.
I’m not sure where your 4.3 acres figure comes from, but a rough trace on Google Maps suggests it’s more like 5.2 acres. So a 180-unit project would be less than half the density of The Nines and could easily be done with no more than four stories.
People are so quick to invent worst-case scenarios for this project and incredibly hesitant to opt into a collaborative process that would likely produce a much better outcome. The only real alternative is wasting taxpayer dollars on a lawsuit that only delays the inevitable by a couple of years and foments more bad blood with the state. Clearly, a collaborative approach is better.
37 questions submitted, none of them answered by the state. Fact. When someone tells you who they, best to listen.
That’s on town leaders for flirting with legal action without even trying a collaborative approach. As soon as you start threatening to sue someone, they have little reason to tell you more information than they have to. Here’s hoping Town Meeting keeps its head on straight on the 11th and votes to start negotiating with the state in good faith.
Naive choices. Folks need to realize we are in a rock fight. We cannot believe anything that the state says. The state is driven by the Healey administrations gubernatorial re-election campaign. Healey pivoted from bio diversity emphasis to housing without any concern about collateral damage. Wellesley residents are a leading contributor to Healey ‘s first campaign, to what end? Time to smell the coffee. We need to take care of ourselves and our community values.
The state will fight any and all challenges to the Affordable Housing Act regardless of merit to prevent any and all other challenges. We cannot trust any suggestions of “splitting the baby” alternatives.
The answer is Article 97 protection. No building as the land is protected. Town “leaders” need to do their job, representing the towns interest, irrespective of potential impact on their political future as relates to state politics. Same holds true for our state representatives who are quiet as crickets. Thanks for arranging a meeting to hear the towns concerns which were summarily dismissed three months after 37 direct questions went unanswered . WE HAVE ENOUGH INFORMATION. Fight for what is right.
I’d think that if the state were truly “driven by the Healey re-election campaign,” they would give up and avoid the controversy this project has caused entirely.
And Healey has not given up her emphasis on biodiversity. She just understands that building new housing and preserving biodiversity aren’t mutually exclusive. We’re talking about building on a parking lot.
You say you don’t trust “splitting the baby” alternatives, but I’d argue that negotiating with the state is ultimately the best option for all stakeholders involved.
The Article 97 argument is dubious at best. The land is not officially protected: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massgis-data-protected-and-recreational-openspace. So suing the state would likely waste hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, delay the inevitable housing development by perhaps a couple of years, and ultimately give the town less say in what the housing development looks like. And of course, the state administrative agencies and MassBay would prefer to move forward with the project sooner rather than later.
The right move is to work with the state to make this project the best it can be. It’s going to happen one way or another. And to be clear, it should happen. We need the housing, and we need to permanently conserve the forest too. This doesn’t have to be a rock fight. It can be a win-win. But first, the town needs to stop pretending that it can delay and obfuscate and sue its way out of this.
The Select Board, working with a law firm developed a list of 37 questions. After 3 months the state’s response “did not answer any of the questions”, per the Select Board. Nothing has been committed to by the state, hence it’s really not possible to state the 180 units are being built on a parking lot.
We are essentially negotiating with ourselves. The state’s behavior has been consistent, messaging that they will do what they want. There has been legal assessment which supports the Article 97 characterization of the land in question.
Afraid that unless we are honest with ourselves in interpreting the communication and actions of the state we get whatever the winning developer proposes with no certainty of any town input.
Housing yes, but in the right place without destroying virgin forest used daily by residents of Wellesley and surrounding communities.
Those 37 questions were, at best, a stall tactic and, at worst, a pony show for the town’s lawyers. As soon as the town threatened to sue, the state had a big reason to be less forthcoming.
But the #1 reason that “nothing has been committed to by the state” is because the town hasn’t agreed to negotiate with them in good faith yet. We are negotiating with ourselves out of choice, not because of the state’s behavior.
Watch the Advisory Committee meeting from Wednesday night: https://wellesleyma.gov/317/Advisory-Committee. That discussion makes it pretty clear that the Article 97 characterization argument is on shaky ground.
You say that if the town works with the state, “we get whatever the winning developer proposes with no certainty of any town input.” But if we sue the state, we waste taxpayer dollars and give the state a big reason NOT to work with us on the RFP. Right now, the state has good reasons to work with us, even if it’s not “certain.” Healey doesn’t want this to be a political firestorm come November.
“Destroying virgin forest” is an unlikely worst case scenario. If the town is smart about this, they will give themselves a platform to insist on the full protection of the forest and housing development only on the parking lot. Suing the state does the opposite: it establishes Wellesley as uncooperative and empowers the state to move forward with the RFP on their own terms after we inevitably lose in court.
Who will the 180 units be available to. I am not sure what this all about.
That depends on the development proposals that come forward. The first step is for the state and town to agree on the criteria for the Request for Proposals. Then presumably there will be multiple responses from developers to choose from. So it’s not yet certain whether this development will be owner-occupied or rentals, geared towards seniors or families or young professionals, etc.
The state and town do not have to agree on the details of the Request for Proposals regarding development. The state has 100% control over what happens. Hence all of the interest in this topic.
The state does not have 100% control over what happens. The Affordable Homes Act guidelines clearly enumerate at least five zoning powers the town retains under the State Land for Homes program: https://www.mass.gov/doc/affordable-homes-act-section-122-surplus-land-guidance/download.
Maybe I was a little optimistic in my characterization of the state and town having to agree on the RFP criteria. But when it comes to permitting the development itself, the town has at least some control. And I seriously doubt DCAMM or EOHLC has a strong specific plan of what they want to see built. They want 180 units and they want to fill MassBay’s coffers. They’ve given the town a chance to opt into a negotiating process and help fill in the details of what this development looks like. Squandering that chance and suing the state would be a big mistake, essentially robbing Wellesley of the say we would have had in that RFP criteria.