To the editor:
The grassroots effort Save MassBay Forest is, at its core, about a simple question: what does it actually mean to save a forest?
It does not mean taking a slice of it or surrounding it with an overwhelming 180-unit complex by using a 4.4-acre parking lot to justify density that the land itself cannot support.
Ecosystems do not function in fragments. They depend on continuity, buffering, and the absence of disruption. A development of this scale, through light, noise, runoff, and human activity, extends far beyond its footprint. Whether built within, adjacent to, or looming over it, the result is the same: the forest is fragmented, and its essential functions are degraded.
What is at stake is not an isolated parcel, but one of Wellesley’s most valuable contiguous natural systems, over 370 acres of interconnected habitat, including the 80 acres of Centennial Reservation and MassBay forest. This is rare, high-functioning land that supports biodiversity, protects water resources, and contributes directly to the health of our community. Once this corridor is compromised, it is not replaced. It is diminished permanently.
From the outset, the Save MassBay Forest message has been clear: this land is not surplus. It should not be deemed eligible under the Affordable Homes Act as a mechanism to inflate an arbitrary unit count disconnected from environmental reality.
The Healey Administration frames this as progress toward a 222,000-unit housing goal. In reality, it represents a negligible fraction of that target while undermining the Commonwealth’s stated, “nation-leading” commitment to conservation, including its alignment with the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
We should not accept the tradeoff being proposed. This is not how we build housing responsibly. And it is not how we protect what cannot be replaced. If “saving the forest” means enabling its fragmentation, then we are not saving it, we are spending it.
Laura Robert
TMM Precinct D
