PLEASE DON’T MALL WAYLAND!
VOTE NO AT SPECIAL TOWN MEETING, NOVEMBER 1 & 2, AT HIGH SCHOOL
(Meeting starts at 7:30pm; doors open at 6pm; expect a crowd!)
...AND ENCOURAGE YOUR NEIGHBORS TO DO THE SAME!

Check out the latest cover story from the Town Crier: “Board Votes Against Its Own Bylaw”

Developers’ Pressure Tactics Increase with Two Weeks to Go to Vote

On Friday, October 14, the Board of Selectmen finished drafting and signing the development agreement...draft 13, which they quickly changed to “14,” like the floors of an elevator. But whatever number the BOS gives this final version, there’s no denying that it is a development agreement crafted largely by and for the developers, not the town.

Coupled with the proposed zoning bylaw that will come for a vote at Special Town Meeting on November 1 and 2 at Wayland High School at 7:30pm (doors open at 6pm), this agreement and bylaw, if passed by a 2/3 majority, will green light the single largest commercial/housing development in the history of our town.

The developers are taking off their gloves now. A sheet passed out by developer Frank Dougherty at the Finance Committee on Monday night, 10/17, touts the benefits to the town as totaling $14 million. That’s nearly $6 million more than the sum of the numbers cited by BOS in their cover letter to Wayland Citizens explaining the benefits to the Town if all the relevant conditions are met.

As always, the devil is in the details.

DO THE MATH
Among the benefits cited by the BOS:
• a $3,030,000 “gift” to the town. What the BOS doesn’t tell you is that many, many project related costs will need to come right off the top of this gift, including payments in lieu of taxes during the seven-year build-out and all offsite costs related to the development save for traffic mitigation on Rtes 20 and 27. Sidewalk linking the shopping center to the historic district? Neighborhood traffic mitigation? Permanent increases in public safety costs resulting from the project? Money to actually build the library people keep talking about (Library Feasibility Study estimates new library will cost $11 million) for the empty site the developer is donating? It’s pretty clear there isn’t going to be a whole lot left, if anything, once the town pays for costs associated with the development.

• $400,000 as an “added” gift for costs for consultants to assist town departments and commissions through the review process. Is this a gift or is it a commonsense payment to cover the costs the project is generating? In fact, towns have a right under statute to require the payment of consultant fees for project-related costs. And is it enough to cover the costs of hiring a “landscape architect, architect, code consultant, building inspector, civil engineer, wastewater engineer, wetlands specialist, traffic engineer, attorney, fire protection engineer, structural engineer, and other reasonably necessary consultants” cited in the development agreement? Think about what it costs to do a kitchen these days, let alone a 450,000-square-foot shopping center/housing complex! How big is that? That’s construction going on on a footprint of more than 10 football fields!

• $750,000 as an additional gift from the developer if “certain reasonable timetables are met during the permitting process.” What does that mean? It means a lot of pressure on the various town boards to fast-track the permitting process, creating an inherent conflict of interest between the town’s long-term interests and its short-term financial gain. The BOS argues that this will be icing on the cake, not duress. But with so many financial pressures on the town, does it feel like icing or an ice pick?

•$1.5 million to mitigate traffic impacts. We are just about at the end of the installation of $1.5 million in improvements to the 20/126/27 intersection at Town Center. The “improvements” the developers will cover are designed to improve access and egress to their shopping center, widening the roads and adding traffic lights. Who benefits? Our town, which must bear the estimated 19,000 shoppers on a Saturday traveling our crowded main and neighborhood roads, or the developers? Will Wayland residents even realize improved roads at the end of these expenditures? Unfortunately not, as the traffic engineers admit these will still be failed intersections.

• $2.8 million, plus $200,000 for a study, for a new wastewater treatment plant if the town requests and obtains approval from the state for increased wastewater capacity. There is a significant chance that the state will not approve a larger plant. Any costs above that $2.8 will be paid for as follows: 60% by the developer and 40% by the town. The Town’s Finance Committee is saying the town is not at risk because the existing users (small businesses and homeowners connected to the system because of failing septic systems) will have to bear the cost, not the town as a whole. Does the BOS even have the legal authority to make this commitment on behalf of the Waste Water Management District Commission? That’s not clear.

That all adds up to: $8.4 million on the rosiest day on the planet.

But wait. There’s more.

The developers are claiming the additional following “Benefits”:
• A bike path worth $250,000 (How long is this path? Where is it on the site?)
• A municipal pad (20,000 square feet for a two-story, 40,000 square-foot municipal use) valued at $3 million...BY WHOM? That’s half an acre next to a water treatment plant for $3 million. Can we sell you a bridge in Brooklyn? By the way, there is NO MONEY to actually build a municipal facility, so this gift is likely to remain an empty lot for a long time. How much would it cost to build a new library? The Library Feasibility Study estimates $11 million.
• $200,000 for a municipal building septic system. Because the developers do not want to give up a gallon of their own 45,000 gallons of waste water capacity for municipal use, as the Selectmen asked them to do, they have chosen to do a septic system. Is this a town “benefit” or a choice that serves the developer?
• $120,000 for a municipal parking lot
• $2 million in Affordable Housing Program. The logic of this value is unclear. The developer is going to build 120 units, 80 of which will be sold at full market-value for around $900,000 each. They will be generating enormous profits for themselves, and in return, they have agreed to make 25% of the 120 units (30) affordable. What they’re saying, we think, is they could make $2 million more profit if they didn’t have to do this...but is their loss our financial gain? We think not.
•$200,000 for a town green construction (okay if you say so, but everything else you’ve told us has a tinny ring)

It all adds up to a whopping $14,150,000, according to the developers. But you can decide what’s real, and what’s fuzzy math.

If You Don’t Play Ball with Us, You’ll Be Sorry
The developers have put up a new sign outside the former Raytheon property. It says: “Town Center or Call Center?” & “Town Center or Office Building?"

For some time, there has been a rumor circulating that BJs was interested in a call center. But according to a BJ’s vice president for property development, the company was only interested in locating their corporate headquarters in Wayland. And further, the BJs official said he would never locate a high-volume enterprise at this location because of its long distance from an easy-to-access interstate.

Rather than actually work with the town to create a smaller commercial center that we’d all be happy with, the developers are seeking to squeeze maximum profit. This is not a town center, much as we’d like one, but a commercially driven development. There’s nothing wrong with that. We understand the development is worth a minimum of $100 million if the zoning bylaw goes through. The question is, what have we gotten in return for handing the developers this windfall? And is this major shopping center/housing complex something that we want to live with for the rest of our lives?

HERE ARE SOME FACTS TO SHARE ABOUT THE PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT, IF THE ZONING BYLAW PASSES AT SPECIAL TOWN MEETING ON NOVEMBER 1 & 2:

CHARACTER: Shopping mall, not New England “town center.” Does not comply with Wayland Master Plan.

SIZE: 450,000 square feet (200,000 s.f. shopping mall, 210,000 s.f. housing complex with 120 units, empty lot for 40,000 s.f. municipal)
This mixed-use complex would be more than half the size of Shoppers’ World, and include...
--a 48,000 s.f. grocery store (big as Stop & Shop)
--30,000 s.f. box stores (same size as Barnes & Noble in Shoppers’ World)
--chain stores 10,000-20,000 s.f. (Wayland’s Einstein’s Bagel is 2,774 s.f.)

FISCAL: Town’s net tax gain from shopping mall/housing complex after build-out estimated at $445,774 annually (Town fiscal consultant Judi Barrett’s Sept. 20 report). The developers are asking to be allowed to string the full build-out to 2012, so those net revenues may not come in for at least seven years. Barrett also warns that key facts, including a market study requested of developer, were not provided, and that public safety costs likely to be higher.

LOCATION: Route 20 across from Russell's. By comparison, since 2000 all 10 major shopping malls (200,000 s.f. and up) built in Massachusetts have been sited less than one mile from major interstates (Rtes 128, 95, 495, and 3).

TRAFFIC: Developer’s own traffic study says mall will generate 19,000 car trips on Saturdays (Sunday, big shopping day, data not supplied by developer); 16,300 trips on weekdays. Bottom line: lots of traffic all the time, not just commuting hours.

NO STUDIES on impact on public safety, public health, water supply, neighborhood traffic, and local businesses.

As always, thank you for your interest. We encourage you to share your thoughts and concerns with your neighbors and friends by telling them about this Blog site and giving them our e-mail address: waylandcard@comcast.net.

TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
VOTE NO ON NOV. 1 & 2!