“Smart Growth”?
Let’s compare a tale of two towns and the fate of large parcels of land:
Weston:
In a show of unity, nearly 800 Weston citizens voiced their unanimous support to acquire the 62-acre Case Estates at a Special Town Meeting on November 8. Selectmen now have been given the authority to purchase the Case Estates by year’s end and have until June 2007 to determine the destiny of the parcels of the property that are not automatically preserved under the approved plan. These parcels may be sold or preserved depending on the financial abilities and desires of the town, as well as the fundraising efforts of the Case Fund.
Natick:
Several months after Natick Paperboard closed its doors, town planners said they would consider a zoning change to make the property more marketable.
Several developers have expressed interest in the North Main Street property, and the town’s Director of Community Development is working with Selectmen, Zoning, and Planners, to do what is termed “smart growth”, or 40R, emphasizing a need to increase the stock of affordable “apartments” aka “condos” close to the downtown. The vision, or at least what’s expressed to the public, is a dense cluster of living quarters where people can walk to the train, and get a cup of coffee or pizza within walking distance of their home.
That, in a nutshell, is the difference in vision between two neighboring towns.
Weston, 62 acres for sale, Natick 7 acres for sale. Weston considers smart to be preservation of open space by purchasing, Natick goes for the tax revenue they know residential will bring. For isn’t that really what’s behind it all? I think so.
Residential units usually cost the town more in services than they produce in tax revenue, so I don’t think that’s the motivation. The difference with Weston is that we have a downtown location that makes sense for housing. The Natick Paperboard site will allow more people to live in Natick, with 20 percent of the units designated as affordable, on an industrial site, not on open space. In fact, by putting most of the parking underground, the current plan provides much open space, which can complement the abutting rail trail and the Mechanic St. land that the Town is in the process of purchasing.
I don’t see a grocery within walking distance. I also don’t see the logic in how one can consider Natick’s North Main St. more suitable for dense development. The traffic impact hasn’t even been mentioned. It’s also a half mile from downtown Natick, not around the corner. It’s kind of like saying that pimping a Sherwood colonial makes the neighborhood look like a Brookline mansion. Maybe the folks who are trying to convince otherwise, should visit downtown Medford. That’s a vision to strive for, not what they’re trying to sell the Natick neighborhood on Washington Avenue.
It’s all about the money.
It would be ridiculous for the town to purchase an abandoned factory and restore it to open space when there is a developer ready to build medium-density, transit-oriented housing.
Let’s analyze that.
First, the factory was not “abandoned”. The owners begged for tax relief, much like that given Mathworks, just 2 miles up the road, and they were rebuffed.
Second, why not just buy the land and clean it up, with the $millions of dollars in the “open space fund”? Or do the open space proponents have another neighborhood in town that deserves the favor more?
There certainly is a cast of characters in a town whose most historical bit open space is a shack on Rte 135 that sits on 1/4 acre surrounded by oil companies, convenience stores, gas stations, and real estate offices. The money that was put into that place over the past six months would have paid for another ambulance. But those are the choices they make.
Martin said “the current plan provides much open space, which can complement the abutting rail trail and the Mechanic St. land that the Town is in the process of purchasing.” Let’s see, the plot of land formerly owned by Josh Ostroff, and the planned rail trail sponsored by the 360 fans? I think we all understand what’s behind the Paperboard development.
Smart Growth was downtown Natick in the 1950s, with a couple of blocks of storefonts surrounding a common. A grocery, hardware store, beauty shop, clothing, shoe store, and pharmacy, all within a block. Houses around the square, close to the streets, and local schools like the High School, Lincoln, Johnson, all within a short walk. Town Meeting was even held in a real movie theatre. There was bowling at Kemps on Washington St. A library, small restaurants, and a couple of tailors and stores for sundries rounded it out. There were a couple of places to work, and if needed, one could grab the Boston & Worcester bus line that went through all the downtowns and into neighborhoods as well. You could take a bus from downtown Natick, into downtown Framingham, up to Saxonville, and more, all where factories existed. And they employed thousands.
Then something happened. Developers started building large tracts of houses, distanced from the downtown, and off the bus lines. Three industrial parks, one on Rte 9 behind what is now Sherwood Plaza called the West Natick Industrial Park, another behind the Drive In on Superior Drive, and the third off Oak St all employed people who had to drive to work. There followed some strip malls and the folks were immersed in a new modern world different from their small town. That’s where we are today. Upscale moderns proudly see Natick as an urban copycat. However, the downtown has little of interest to do; there’s a dependence on the car no matter how close to downtown you are, and schools and activities are all as far away from the downtown as one could get. The closeness of what it used to be is gone, with planners stretching with a ruler to prove otherwise.
The so-called smart growth projects now going up are false, as the original intent of close-knit community doesn’t really exist. It’s a developer’s sales tool, intended to convince the naive among us, that putting a few hundred condos in a cluster, are a way of turning a sprawling suburb, into a faux Medford/Alston/Beacon Hill, with Nouvelle as the disneylike creation of a huge corporation called General Growth. Wake up folks, it’s Natick. Wellesley is a few miles east, and no matter how fancy the condos at Paperboard or the Mall, they’re not going to return your town to the way it was, unique in personality and style.
..continued…
Weston can afford 62 acres but Natick can’t afford 7 ? I think it depends on who holds the cash, the board of officials called the Open Space Committee in Natick, vs the residents of Weston. I think we all get the picture.
As for the request for a TIF, let’s be honest with the voters. Paperboard asked for tax relief. Whether they specified TIF as the method or not is irrelevant. We all know the TIF is a state loophole with small repercussions to the town. So in fact, the mincing of words, by our Selectman in another blog, is exactly what has occurred. Mathworks, the big corporation with a white collar employee is handed a huge tax incentive, while the blue collar factory is given the door. In a town constantly working the angles, the vision of an upscale cluster of condos replacing “a dirty old factory”, (as described by one of those proponents) must be wonderful.
Which brings me around to the comments immediately above. Elimination of the old fashioned jobs close to downtown in conjunction with expansion of a job base in modern upscale offices requiring a car, has continued. Replacing jobs with housing sounds more like sprawl to me. How hypocritical can they be?