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Landmark Rte.
138 zoning article heading to TM
Proposed
bylaw was two years in the making
By Jay Turner
Citizen Staff
Canton
residents could begin to see major changes along significant
stretches of Route 138 if a new zoning bylaw, proposed by the
Rte. 138 Corridor Study Committee, wins approval at the upcoming
annual town meeting.
Unveiled at a
Planning Board hearing last week by the committee’s chairman,
Selectman Sal Salvatori, the so-called “Route 138 Economic
Opportunity Overlay District Bylaw” would not only greatly
expand the number of permitted uses within the new EOD; it would
also encourage the construction of taller buildings and parking
garages as a way to shrink each landowners’ “footprint” while
increasing the amount of open space available for use by the
general public.
“I think we
have a great article,” said Salvatori in a telephone interview
Thursday, a day after facing a string of tough questions from
Planning Board member George Jenkins.
The bylaw,
which is detailed in an 11-page article that took nearly two
years to draft, would overlay the existing zoning in two
separate sections of Rte. 138: an area defined as “sub-district
A,” which runs from the Milton town line to the Interstate 93/95
overpass and includes Royall Street, and “sub-district B,” which
runs from the southern side of the Randolph Street intersection
to the northern side of the Tracy Wood Road intersection.
According to
Salvatori, the nine-member committee had initially considered
including the entire stretch of Route 138 from the Milton line
to the Stoughton line, but decided against the area between
Tracy Wood and Stoughton because it is already “sufficiently
developed.” The committee also left out the area between the
overpass and Randolph Street out of respect for its distinctly
residential character, which Salvatori said has a “unique,
rural, country feel to it.”
“It seemed
like what was there was working fine for right now,” he said.
The other two
areas, however, including the approximately 2.3 mile stretch of
138 in sub-district B, are substantial enough in size and would
potentially be magnets for various developers and business
owners if the EOD bylaw were to secure the necessary two-thirds
vote at town meeting. Specifically, the new zoning would
encourage such uses as restaurants, catering services,
scientific or research laboratories, and pharmaceutical or
medical facilities in sub-district A.
In
sub-district B, a combination of residential and commercial uses
would be encouraged, including mixed-use and multi-family
housing developments. Examples of other permitted uses include:
retail stores, shopping centers, offices, banks, restaurants,
spas, health clubs, live or motion picture theaters, bowling
alleys, pool halls, dance halls and arcades, among others.
The EOD bylaw
also proposes dramatic height increases — a maximum of 60 feet
or five stories in sub-district A and a maximum of 84 feet or
seven stories in sub-district B. The maximum is reduced to four
stories if the structure “abuts a building used primarily for
single-family residential purposes.”
Although the
bylaw was designed to attract new economic development and
investment in the Route 138 corridor, Salvatori noted that
existing property owners within the designated economic
opportunity districts would also be encouraged to take advantage
of the zoning changes, but only if they choose to.
“This is an
option that any property owner would have,” he said, “but they
have no obligation whatsoever to use the overlay.”
At least two
Planning Board members, however, have expressed significant
concerns with the proposed article, including Chairman Jeremy
Comeau, himself a member of the Rte. 138 study committee.
Upon
reflection, Comeau said the article lacked adequate citizen
input, which he said is critical for a change as drastic as the
one now being considered.
“Looking back
there really wasn’t that call to action for citizens to come to
meetings,” he said.
He added that
he voted for the article as a member of the committee, but only
to move it to its “rightful place before the Planning Board so
the Planning Board could discuss it.”
That process
began last Wednesday, and by far the most vocal critic was
Jenkins, who said after the meeting he was surprised by the lack
of questions posed by other members.
“Here is an
[11-page] document that is completely changing the face of that
area of town, and not one person speaks up about it?” Jenkins
said Friday.
Jenkins took
issue with several components of the article, including a
provision that would allow a builder to count a portion of
wetlands as a “bonus buildable lot area” when calculating
density in exchange for building a parking garage. He also
questioned the permitted uses, calling them “too loosey goosey,”
and insisted that the building heights were simply too high for
Canton.
“We have
fought this battle for a long time,” he said. “For the most part
the town is really not interested in height.”
Particularly
disturbing to Jenkins was the amount of discretion given to the
zoning board, which, as the “special permit granting authority,”
would have the authority to make exceptions to certain
requirements outlined in the bylaw.
“If we’re
going to institute discretion into it, then throw the whole
article out,” he said.
Both Jenkins
and Comeau agreed that the article is simply too complex and
involves too wide of an area to be discussing for the first time
just months before the start of town meeting. They both pointed
to another article that involves Rte. 138, proposed by developer
Pat Considine, as an example of “responsible zoning.”
“I feel that
Pat Considine’s article is the better of the two articles as a
starting place for revitalizing Route 138,” Comeau said Friday.
Considine is
asking town meeting to take an existing zoning district — the
mixed-use overlay district — and apply it to a property adjacent
to the Arboretum complex so he can build a mix of over-55
housing and commercial buildings.
“It does look
like, in my eyes, a good use for the property and a good test
balloon for revitalization,” Comeau said.
Jenkins also
noted that Considine had met informally with the Planning Board
on at least two separate occasions to discuss his proposal,
whereas no such prior meetings occurred for the much larger EOD
article. He added that the board did not receive the final draft
of the 138 article until the night of the hearing, and that
draft involved substantial changes compared to the one they had
received weeks earlier.
But Salvatori
stressed that the entire two-year process was open to the
public, and that a number of the committee’s meetings were well
attended.
“That’s what
the democratic process is all about,” he said. “We took two
years of public meetings, deliberations, research and draftings
to come up with what we have.”
Furthermore,
he said the committee itself was created by a vote of town
meeting in 2007, proving that the effort to revitalize Rte. 138
is not simply a product of a particular interest group, but a
reflection of the will of the people as a whole.
Salvatori
added that he is proud of the article, and believes it will go a
long way toward realizing the full potential of the Rte.138
corridor — that of a highly developed, “successful and vibrant”
area that remains respectful of its neighbors and preserves open
space.
February 26, 2009
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