MAY 3 SPECIAL TOWN MEETING, DOORS OPEN AT 6PM, ARRIVE EARLY

Read On to Learn About Parking/Voting Logistics, Highlights of Just-Released Traffic and Fiscal Studies, and the Much-Talked-About Access Road Amendment.

I. PARKING/VOTING LOGISTICS
Although Special Town Meeting officially starts at 7:30pm on May 3, the doors to the High School Field House will open at 6pm. You will want to arrive as early as possible to secure a convenient parking space, register, and take your seat.

The meeting will begin on time. Once the Field House is full, the overflow will be directed to the Little Theatre (on the High School grounds). You must be seated to participate.

The Cafeteria (Commons) has been designated a “family friendly” venue to accommodate families with children who still want to vote.

Parking: The High School parking lot can accommodate 382 vehicles. Capacity will be reached quickly. Once the High School parking lot is full, you will be directed to park at one of three satellite parking facilities. For those coming from Cochituate, the Town is asking people to park at the Middle School. For those coming from North and Central Wayland, the Town is asking people to park at the Wayland Town Building or St. Ann's Church. Six school buses will be used to transport participants to and from the Field House. Each bus can accommodate 65 adults.

Shuttle Buses: We've just learned from Police Chief Irving that the shuttle buses from the satellite parking lots will begin running at 6pm.

The Best Way to Ensure Your Vote Counts Is to Arrive Early.

II. NEW STUDIES SHOW MAJOR TRAFFIC IMPACT FOR MINIMAL FISCAL GAIN
You’ve heard the hype that this project "fits our town - funds our future." But now, with Special Town Meeting just days away, two long-delayed independent studies commissioned by the Planning Board have been finally released, and they show that this project fails on both counts. Visit the Planning Board's Web site, for copies of these studies and see for yourself.

• Does not fund Town's future: Town consultant Judi Barrett's April 24, 2006 report shows annual net tax gain AFTER full buildout (at least five years from now) at $450,000...less than $100 per year per Wayland household. Bottom line: the project will have minimal impact on our $55,000,000 annual budget

• Updated traffic report just released:
--1,000 percent increase in traffic on Saturdays (9,500 NEW trips; 13,000 total trips)
--Weekday evening commuter traffic will double (8,400 NEW trips every weekday; 11,000 total trips)
--What about the developer-promised improvements to intersection at Rte 20/126/27? Intersection will still earn an “F” weekday evenings
--40B alternative will have no perceptible impact: 1,157 cars daily

• Still no studies on adverse impacts on public safety, water supply, wastewater capacity, neighborhood roads, local businesses.

• Size meets developer’s demands, not Town’s needs: 332,500 square feet (165,000 s.f. commercial with large chain stores); 167,500 s.f. residential units (100 units, 75% luxury, 25% affordable); will strain Town roads and services. Town's own fiscal consultant recommended shrinking the commercial portion and increasing the residential portion to a 30:70 ratio. "You just don’t see the volatility of residential values that you do with commercial."

• Reject developer’s 40B scare tactics: Won’t be “low-income” housing, but 75% luxury units and 25% “affordable” units that our Town employees--firefighters, police officers, teachers--would qualify for. Project limited by state to no more than 200 units, but wastewater constraints will reduce even further.

• Zoning bylaw ties Town's hands: Town's promise to let developer build 332,500 square feet precludes ability to mitigate negative impacts by reducing project’s size.

III. A WORD ABOUT ARTICLE 3
As you may know, there are nine neighborhood roads the developer has said will be most adversely affected by this project (Bow Road, Claypit Hill Road, Glezen Lane, Millbrook Road, Moore Road, Pelham Island Road, Plain Road, River Road, Training Field Road). More than 100 residents signed a petition to amend the proposed zoning bylaw to continue to limit access to the property from the Route 27 driveway to emergency vehicles and project residents only. This restriction has been in effect for more than 50 years to protect our neighborhoods from commercial traffic.

There have been no studies on the extent of this adverse impact and whether sufficient steps can be taken to adequately mitigate it. Wayland CARD is therefore recommending that you support the Access Road Amendment, which would keep the current zoning limits on access to and from the Wayland Business Center Property in place until the impacts of lifting those limits are understood.

WAYLAND HAS A LOT, AND A LOT TO LOSE. PLEASE VOTE NO ON ARTICLE 2!
Bring a neighbor, bring a friend! Your vote matters!
Questions or comments: contact waylandcard@comcast.net

A PICTURE (OR GRAPH) IS WORTH A 1,000 WORDS

How much traffic will the proposed shopping center/housing complex generate compared to a fully re-occupied office use or the 40B residential proposal? Check out the following graphs derived from the Town consultant's indepedent traffic study and decide for yourself. You can click on an individual graph to see an enlarged, easier-to-read version.

Wayland CARD is doing all we can to get the word out about these newly released studies, but we need your help. We hope you'll share this information with your neighbors and friends, and invite them to visit our blog at www.waylandcard.blogspot.com Thanks!

JUST RELEASED STUDIES FUEL CONCERNS ABOUT PROJECT

With less than two weeks before Special Town Meeting, the Town's independent traffic consultant's report on the impact of the proposed shopping center/housing complex was finally released, leaving little time to get the word out about its disturbing conclusions. At a Planning Board meeting last Thursday, traffic consultant Kevin Dandrade reviewed the report's findings, generating loud grumbles and questions from the project's proponents, most notably the developer's engineer, Frank Dougherty.

That's because the study paints a grim picture of the traffic impact of the proposed mixed-use development (MUOD). The traffic report states that during Saturdays, "the number of trips associated with the 2006 MUOD is expected to increase substantially...an increase of more than 1,000%."

The study further concludes that evening commuter traffic will double, and that the project will elevate Saturday traffic "to a level that is closer to that of the typical weekday commuter peak hours." The report also states the proposed 40B alternative would generate the least traffic of all, with essentially no impact on our roads. When pressed by project proponents, Dandrade said that the study reflected a "conservative/worst-case scenario" estimate of numbers, but he did not back away from the study's overall conclusions.

Dandrade stated the project will generate 8,400 new trips on weekdays and 9,500 new trips on Saturdays. Dougherty argued that the study failed to consider the impact of any developer-funded improvements to our main Town Center intersection: Routes 20/126/27. But this independent traffic study shows that this is a failed intersection and that it will continue to be one even after any improvements: "During weekday evening peak hours, [it] will still operate at LOS (Level of Service) "F" as an intersection with long queues on each approach."

Meanwhile, the long-awaited fiscal report is also in, and it shows that the net tax revenue gain from this project after full build-out will be $450,000, less than $100 per household per year, hardly an amount that will put a dent in our $55,000,000 annual budget and 8% annual shortfall. And finally, consider the fact there have been NO studies on the impact of this project on public safety, water and wastewater, neighborhood roads, and local businesses.

Fits our town? Funds our future? Unfortunately, the answer to both questions is NO. But please don’t take our word for it. Check out the traffic and fiscal reports on the Planning Board’s Web site: www.wayland.ma.us/planning.

Please share this information with your neighbors, and mark your calendars for Special Town Meeting on Wed. May 3. We urge you to Vote NO on Article 2.

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN

Mark Your Calendars for May 3 & 4 for Special Town Meeting

When the Town voted down the zoning change to the former Raytheon site in November 2005, many of us had hoped that the Town's officials and the developers had gotten the message. The Town would accept, even welcome, a reuse of the former Raytheon site, but the proposed project was too big for the site, with its environmental constraints, and too big for the size and layout of the Town's roads, generating thousands of new vehicle trips seven days a week, not just commuter hours Monday through Friday.

So How Big Is It This Time?
This time, the process for drafting the zoning bylaw and development agreement was supposed to be different. The Planning Board would make its decisions based on facts: What are the traffic ramifications of different square foot scenarios for the retail/residential mix, the impact on water resources, wastewater capacity, schools, public safety, and Town budget?

Without answers to any of these questions, the Board of Selectmen pressured the Planning Board to guarantee the developer that he could by right build a 332,500 square foot shopping center/housing complex (see last week's blog for details), plus 40,000 square feet for municipal use. By committing to these numbers in advance of any studies (fiscal, traffic, water, wastewater, public safety, schools) the Town has essentially eliminated the Planning Board's capacity to mitigate negative impacts during its Special Permitting process by reducing the project's size.

Here are the store sizes the Mixed Use Overlay District bylaw would allow:

Size Category	Maximum Gross Floor Area	Maximum # Allowed
A	45,000 square feet	One
B	15,000 square feet	Two
C	10,000 square feet	Three
D	7,000 square feet	Five
E	5,000 square feet	Unlimited

Some frames of reference:

WAYLAND
Whole Foods	18,000 s.f.
Luigi's	6,210 s.f
Villa Restaurant	4,020 s.f
Finagle	2,470 s.f.
Starbuck's	1,750 s.f.
Especially for Pets	3,940 s.f.
Morn's Plaza	8,000 s.f.
Mel's Plaza	9,930 s.f.
SUDBURY
Sudbury Farms	40,000 s.f.
(entire plaza)	55,000 s.f.
Sky Restaurant	6,660 s.f.
Brooks/Choices	14,750 s.f.
Shaw's Market	40,000 s.f.
(entire plaza)	51,600 s.f.
CVS/Thunder/bank	23,400 s.f.
WESTON
Omni Plaza	30,000 s.f.
Puopolos/Stitches/Kitchen	4,500 s.f.
Citizens Bank/Struts	3,840 s.f.

What kind of stores can we expect?
Some "prototypical stores" presented by Selectman Bill Whitney in his December 20, 2005 memo to Members of the Board of Selectmen included: Talbots, Orvis, GAP, Hallmark, Victoria's Secret, JOS. A. Bank, Anne Taylor, Coldwater Creek, J. Jill.

Does this sound like a town center, or a major shopping center that will have to draw shoppers (and vehicles) to Wayland seven days a week? Wayland resident Phil Kling, a shopping center development expert with more than 30 years' experience, writes in the 4/13 Town Crier that this proposed shopping center "will need to do at least $75 million in retail sales to be viable. That sizable volume will require a significant number of patrons from outside Wayland." He also states, "Replenishment truck traffic and substantially increased car counts will create chaos in Wayland, requiring substantial mitigation." Kling is not opposed to a shopping center on this site, but not one of this scale. He points us to
Groton, where a 110,000 square foot COMMUNITY shopping center was built, as a model Wayland might follow.

Kling adds, "The Board of Selectmen and the Planning Board have tied their own hands. Once the studies are done and the impact is clear, the most effective mitigation control of the size of the project won't be available to Wayland." (See Wait for a Sensible Alternative on Project for the full story.

And What about the Numbers?
With a little over two weeks to go before Special Town Meeting, residents remain in the dark about the fiscal impacts of this major development on our community. Last fall, the Finance Committee said that a larger mixed-use development would produce annual net tax revenues of about $190,000, about $40 per household. The fiscal 2007 proposed budget is $54.8 million (Town Warrant, page 6). Now the Finance Committee is telling us the annual net revenues will be somewhere between $550,000 and $632,000, despite a reduction in project size from 410,000 to 332,000 (not counting the 40,000 designated for municipal use). Yet many Town costs associated with the project have not been factored in. For an in-depth analysis, read attorney Alan Mandl's guest column in this week's Town Crier: Town Center Doesn't Fund Future.