Image courtesy of MBTA

The state Supervisor of Public Records ordered the MBTA to release documents on plans for a new commuter rail station on the Weston-Waltham line tied to a proposed housing development.

BXP submitted designs to the transit agency for a new station in its Jones Road office park, one of three in Waltham in which the office REIT is seeking to build up to 1,500 apartments. The station would replace the existing Kendal Green station, located approximately a mile away in Weston.

The MBTA rejected Banker & Tradesman’s request for the project materials under the state Public Records Law on April 6, claiming an exemption related to “inter-agency or intra-agency memoranda or letters relating to policy positions being developed by the agency.” The agency released only a single conceptual rendering of the project. Banker & Tradesman appealed the response to the Supervisor of Public Records.

In a ruling issued May 4, Supervisor of Records Manza Arthur rejected the MBTA’s rationale for withholding the remaining documents.

“[I]t is unclear what deliberative process the requested records relate to, nor how such a process remains `ongoing and incomplete’ as required by” the deliberative exemption, Arthur wrote.

The MBTA also failed to establish that the records are “inter-agency or intra-agency,” Arthur wrote, citing court rulings that documents from a private party are not protected from the exemption.

MBTA spokesman Joseph Pesaturo said the agency will respond by May 18.

BXP did not respond to an inquiry. The nation’s largest publicly-traded office REIT is seeking to offset declining suburban office occupancy by redeveloping some properties as apartment complexes, such as its Hartwell Avenue project in Lexington.

The Waltham rezoning proposal also includes an office park on Winter Street.