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Residents
dominate Plymouth Rubber hearing after no-show
By Jay Turner
Citizen Staff
Planning
Board Chairman Jeremy Comeau accomplished one of his two goals
Wednesday night.
Just as he
had hoped and called for, more than 50 residents and town
officials showed up at Town Hall on June 11 for a hearing on an
industrial subdivision plan, filed by the owners of the Plymouth
Rubber property.
The owners
themselves or their engineers, however, did not, forcing the
board to postpone what it had expected would be a discussion of
four requested waivers, and ultimately a vote, until a meeting
scheduled for July 2.
Promoted
heavily by Comeau for weeks, the hearing was billed as a
landmark event that would go a long way in deciding the future
of the property, and by extension, the fate of the historic
Revere barn and rolling mill. But the meeting quickly morphed
into a citizens’ forum after Napleton attorney Paul Schneiders
informed board members that his clients would need more time to
respond to a lengthy report prepared by the town’s engineer.
Schneiders
called the report, which he said included 104 questions for his
client’s engineers, “very, very, very extensive” and the largest
he has seen in his 40 years as a zoning attorney. He said it
would not have been professional for the engineers, from the
firm VHB, to provide answers “off the top of their heads,” and
requested that they be given an extension until June 23.
Both Comeau
and Planning Board Clerk George Jenkins were offended by their
absence, however, with Jenkins calling it “presumptuous” and
Comeau calling it unfair to the citizens who came out to ask
questions.
Yet dozens
still stepped up to the microphone, including Comeau’s brother
and historical commissioner, George Comeau, who garnered a loud
applause after speaking out against the possibility of losing
the historic buildings.
“The rest of
the country looks to us now to see what we’re going to do with
this site,” he said, “and that flag would not be hanging on that
wall but for the patriots that fought the American Revolution
and built this country and left a legacy.”
Those who
followed Comeau also addressed the Revere buildings, including
Wallace Gibbs, the chairman of the Historical Commission, and
fellow commissioner Patricia Johnson, who demanded that the
Planning Board “take every possible measure available” to ensure
the buildings are saved.
“They are a
national treasure,” Johnson said. “They are of national
importance.”
Schneiders,
meanwhile, defended his clients at every turn, insisting that
they have the same respect for American history that people in
Canton have. He noted that Napleton had promised to spend $2
million to preserve the structures as part of its proposed
mixed-use development — that is, until the town chose to keep
the site zoned for industrial uses.
“We worked
our tails off,” Schneiders said at one point, referring to the
residential/retail project. “We put our hearts into it, to try
to sell what we thought was one of the most beautiful dreams
that Canton’s ever had, and we just didn’t get a two-thirds vote
[at town meeting].
“So there’s
no spite. There’s no hard feelings. There’s nobody mad at
anybody. It’s just reality. It’s an industrial piece of land.
That’s what the town meeting said it should stay, and that’s
what we’re trying to market it as.”
Schneiders
wasn’t the only one to bring up the town meeting decision,
either. Despite repeated attempts by Jeremy Comeau to keep the
discussion focused on the subdivision proposal, many speakers
seemed more interested in the possibility of “going back to the
table” to get another residential development approved.
Comeau
himself said he would “go back tomorrow morning,” as did
Jenkins, although Jenkins said it would require a four-fifths
approval from the Planning Board if the plan was substantially
similar to the original.
“I’d be more
than willing to go back to the table,” Jenkins said, “but I am
not ready to do another 18 months of futility, and that’s what
it turned out to be. We got agreements up and down the line, and
it was washed down the toilet.”
Addressing
the failed rezoning attempt, resident Lindsay McHugh somewhat
defended Napleton, noting that she was originally from the
owners’ home state of Illinois, where she has seen some of the
“wonderful” work they have done.
“Who can
blame them at this point when we have snubbed our noses at the
only idea that has come forth?” McHugh said.
One
resident who did propose a new idea was Marcy Venezia, who cited
a track record of “out-of-the-box thinking.” She suggested that
residents have a kind of competition, in which they develop
plans for mixed-uses and then present them to the owners in a
science-fair format.
Despite
numerous remarks, however, some critical and some more
optimistic, Schneiders continually went back to the same point —
that his clients tried, but unfortunately failed.
“All I know
is, my people don’t have the heart, they don’t have the spirit,
they don’t have the money to come back,” he said. “They’ve got
to cut their losses.”
“There’s no
good guys at town meeting and there’s no bad guys at town
meeting,” he later added. “There’s just difference of opinion.
And all these people are trying to do is save their shirt. They
gambled on something and they lost big-time. Now they’re stuck
with a big, ugly, contaminated piece of property that they spent
$8 million on and they don’t know what to do with.”
Schneiders
also reminded the audience that Napleton, while hoping to sell
the property, does not intend to sell it to six different
buyers, as is outlined in the subdivision plan. They are only
requesting it, he said, because that is the way the state allows
an owner to freeze the industrial use for eight years, so as to
prevent the town from rezoning it “out from under them.”
As for the
waivers they are requesting, which represent the only leverage
the Planning Board has in the approval process, the board had
previously opposed three of the four in an informal vote, and
will vote again on July 2.
Schneiders
said Wednesday night that he did not expect them to be approved.
June 19, 2008
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