Warrant Committee votes to recommend Shalom article to Town Meeting
After a brief but vigorous discussion the Warrant Committee voted last night to recommend the zoning overlay article that will be on the Special Town Meeting warrant in February by a vote of 7-3.
Tom Hurley, chairman of the Warrant Committee, began the discussion by having Emily Innes of the Planning Board join them to answer some outstanding questions from the previous session. These pertained to how the current proposal compared to the Fruit Center Marketplace regarding the size of the commercial footprint and parking spaces. The Fruit Center is approximately 32,826 sq ft including both floors and has about 222 parking spaces.
It was also confirmed that:
the overlay would also apply to two other properties in Milton; St Mary’s (the school not the church) and St Elizabeth’s (on both sides of Reedesdale). These properties both satisfy the criteria specified
this is the first change from commercial to residential to come before the Planning Board. The Fruit Center did not come before the Planning Board. It was handled by Board of Appeals.
Michael Coffman of Coffman Realty also addressed a request from the committee regarding on the level of activity the drive through might generate (the anchor of the proposed development is a CVS pharmacy with a drive-through). Coffman reported the following:
CVS pharmacy said similar stores get on average 93 cars per day
Traffic engineers consulting state guidelines project an average of 170 cars per day
By way of comparison, a Dunkin Donuts drive through averages 750 cars per day
Another question that came up from Hurley was the general timeline for project completion. It was estimated that the special permit process could take up to a year followed by an appeal period and then construction. Coffman said this was typical. The key question was to the temple: can they manage financially until the new temple is built? Buddy Packer, a Synagogue member, said, “That would stretch us; but assuming completion was pending. . . you do what you have to do.” Packer reiterated that the temple at this time has no Plan B. Asked what might happen if the project fell through at a future point (e.g. if Planning Board determined mitagation efforts if needed weren’t satisfactory), Packer said, “We’re in trouble.”
Tom Hurley, having committed to having something out before the night was out, moved the committee forward. A motion to recommend the article was made and seconded and the discussion began.
The discussion was a slightly abbreviated version of arguments that have been made before the Planning Board. Those members who spoke against recommending the article cited the impact the development would have on the character of the neighborhood and town, the pace of the project (it is too fast) and lack of a peer review of the traffic study, and the fact that the people who moved there did so with the reliance that it would be a residential neighborhood and only a residential neighborhood and that faith was a more compelling reason to not recommend the article than the potential loss of the temple was to recommend it. Not all members agreed, particularly on the last point. The loss of the temple would be “a real loss” said one. In addition, members who supported recommending the article cited that fact “something is going to happen” and this offered town best opportunity to control what happens (as opposed to a possible 40B development which allows developers to step around local zoning regulations). There was one additional line of argument. One member, noting that “we got a sobering request” from members of a congregation that want to stay in town, said that the committee needed to “think carefully about voting against a recommendation of an elected board, the Planning Board, after all the time and work they put into it.” Unless there was something “fundamentally flawed. and I am not hearing it,” he recommended voting to recommend the article to Town Meeting. Hurley called for a vote and the motion carried 7-3.
The article will come before the Special Town Meeting scheduled for 2/22 with recommendations from both the Planning Board and Warrant Committee (note: the article would appear regardless of how these boards voted). It will require a 2/3 vote of Town Meeting to approve. If that happens the developers will then apply for a special permit. At the conclusion of the special permit process which is lengthy, the Planning Board will vote whether or not to grant it. A special permit requires 4 of the 5 members to vote yes.