Normally, the loudest springtime screaming in Wellesley happens along the Boston Marathon route. This season, it’s about a modest housing proposal and a suspiciously passionate panic about 40 acres of state-owned woods. iStock illustration
As Wellesley Hills neighbors fight to stop a MassBay Community College parking lot from being developed into badly needed housing, more than a few people see another sad display of NIMBY nuttiness.
After all, opponents seem to be saying that now we can’t build housing on state-owned land. And on an underused parking lot at a community college overlooking Route 9 – in one of the state’s most expensive suburbs, no less.
And if that truly proves to be the case, it’s fair to ask how we can ever get a handle on a housing crisis that has already driven median home prices past the million-dollar mark in dozens of Boston-area towns and cities.
No One’s Bulldozing the Forest
The Healey administration has proposed to turn a 5-acre parking lot on the Massachusetts Bay Community College campus into 180 housing units, taking advantage of a clause in the 2024 housing law that streamlines the sale of excess state property in the service of housing construction.
The state has said it has no plans to develop an adjacent 40-acre tract of woodland, which it has offered – informally, in comments to the press – to preserve permanently. Money generated from the development of the state-owned parking lot into housing would be used to pay for work on the MassBay campus, under the governor’s proposal.
Sounds like a win for everyone in town, right? After all, the median sale price of a home in Wellesley is well over $2 million, while renting a tiny, 1,300 square foot Cape or an apartment will put you out $4,600 a month or more.
Not so, say town officials and neighbors, who are gearing up to stop the project through litigation.
A new group called Friends of Centennial, taking their name after the 40-acre woods, say on their website they’ve raised $35,000 to date. And they’ve hired a law firm to fight the state’s efforts to build housing on the MassBay parking lot, according to Greg Reibman, president and CEO of the Charles River Regional Chamber, writing in in the biz group’s must-read newsletter, “Need to Knows.”
Wellesley municipal officials have also hired their own outside law firm, Phillips & Angley.
Residents Have Lawyered Up
Opponents of the proposal insist they are fighting to save the so-called “MassBay Forest” from the bulldozers.
Which begs the question: What meanie out there is threatening to level the beloved Wellesley forest?
In comments to the local media, state officials have said they aren’t interested in building on the adjacent tract of forest – and it’s hard to imagine a developer could take up 40 acres with only 180 apartments.
Still, while the concerns of the would-be project’s Wellesley neighbors seem overblown, they aren’t completely groundless. The state’s former housing chief told The Boston Globe in February he supported the idea of permanently preserving the woodland, but he has since left the post.
And, at the moment anyway, there is no formal legal agreement in place putting the state’s pledges in writing.
Reasonable people can debate whether a formal preservation pact needs to be hashed out right away – or even inked at all. It’s highly unlikely Gov. Maura Healey will order the clearcutting of dozens of acres of woodland in Wellesley, reelection year or not.
Scott Van Voorhis
Town Overreaction Shows Problem
But what doesn’t seem reasonable is the furious reaction of Wellesley officials after Reibman’s popular local newsletter poked fun at the spat in its April Fools’ Day edition last week.
Readers of the Need to Knows newsletter were informed that the Healey administration had come up with a brilliant compromise.
To spare the beloved MassBay parking lot from the ravages of development, 180 “luxury tree-houses” would be built in the neighboring forest.
“According to preliminary details, the proposal would open up part of the forested land for a new form of low-impact luxury residential development, with elevated structures designed to minimize disturbance to the forest floor,” the mock-story notes.
However, the last line, which states that the Wellesley Select Board will hold an emergency meeting on the morning of April 1 to discuss the luxury tree-house proposals, appears to have pushed town officials over the edge.
Corey Testa, assistant executive director for the town of Wellesley (equivalent to an assistant town manager in other communities), fired off an irate note to Reibman, warning some residents might show up for the fictional emergency meeting.
“I look forward to your prompt and clear retraction,” Testa writes.
Reibman and the chamber responded by affixing a note to the top making clear that the goofy “story” was indeed an April Fool’s joke.
Wellesley officials say the whole situation is so contentious that joking about it should be off limits.
“Even if the message was sent under some ‘April Fool’s Day’ joke ruse, our residents are so concerned about the MassBay project that they will not find it funny…they will likely believe it and start showing up for the Board meeting,” Testa wrote.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist and publisher of the Contrarian Boston newsletter; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
