Development

[Tom]

March 2007
Siemens and the fast track

The $100 million expansion of the Siemens (formerly Bayer) facility on Coney Street shows why it's important for the town to be able to move quickly on a development proposal, according to Don Walsh, the town's economic development officer.

Last summer, a town committee chaired by Selectman Al DeNapoli negotiated with Bayer on a tax break sought by the company under a state law designed to spur economic growth. To move the project forward as rapidly as possible, Bayer started construction on the 116,000-square-foot manufacturing, office and warehouse expansion before negotiations reached a successful conclusion.

For big companies with big projects, "time to market" is a huge issue, Walsh said in an interview, referring to the time it takes from the get-go to starting to earn a return on the investment.

The town's Economic Development Committee has three articles on the May Town Meeting warrant designed to assure potential big investors that their proposals will get timely decisions from Walpole boards. Each limited to a specific site, the articles would have the town adopt a recent state law that generally would require boards to reach their decisions -- whether thumbs up or down -- within 180 days of receipt of a complete application.

The sites are the stretch of Route 1 just north of the Walpole Mall, the Superfund parcels on South Street and the Siemens property, where test kits are produced for the diagnosis of disease. (The mall is planning expansion into the soon-to-relocate Lexus dealership and major renovations within its existing footprint.)

Under the state law, Chapter 43D, the designations would have to be approved by a state panel, which would have to be shown by a town that 180 days is a realistic timeframe for decisions. Once a community applies to the panel, the state offers grants of up to $150,000 for studies that can include an analysis and recommendations on local review processes as well as of the specific project.

Walsh said the town will apply for the state technical assistance grant. Once the state board approves a site and awards a grant, the town would have 120 days to prepare for receiving its first application from a developer under the program.

Walsh noted that town boards maintain their independence and authority under 43D. Adopting the state law would help dispel the lingering notion that it takes longer to get decisions in Walpole than in other towns, he said.

Walsh noted that 43D isn't needed for the Siemens project now under way. Rather, he said, it's being sought to put the town in position to move rapidly if Siemens wants to grow further in Walpole -- and to underline that point to the multinational corporation.

Siemens is precisely the type of business that any community would want, Walsh said. It's a good neighbor as well as being the town's single biggest taxpayer, he said. The property tax break negotiated last summer is worth about $20,000 a year for 10 years on a bill for the expansion of over $200,000 annually.

At a selectmen's meeting in the fall, local Bayer executives said the tax break was important in helping convince the corporation to expand in Walpole at a time when other sites were also seeking growth.

Walsh notes that the tax break, which also enables a state tax credit, was not likely a top consideration when Bayer made its decision. The big factor was that the company was already here, and appreciated a location in a welcoming town within the Boston-Cambridge medical/biotechnology sphere, he said.

With its acquisition of Bayer Diagnostics completed at the end of last year, Siemens Medical Services Diagnostics became the second biggest immunodiagnostics provider in the world.

Whether expansion in Walpole might become part of Siemens' growth plans remains to be seen, Walsh said. "But we want to be ready if it is."

May 2007
MAPC studies Route 1A land

Most of the residents who attended a March 14 forum on a land use study for the southern stretch of Route 1A would prefer to keep wooded state-owned land wooded, Don Walsh, the town's economic development officer concedes.

But something is going to happen to that land, Walsh said in an interview. The state is under pressure, he said, to sell surplus land to raise revenue.

The state, he said, views as surplus 40 of the 67 acres around the Department of Correction (DOC) power plant on Route 1A across from MCI Cedar Junction. That land abuts the vacant former Pondville Hospital in Norfolk, owned by the archdiocese's Caritas Christi hospitals, which are to be taken over by a national operator. The study gets Walpole as well as Norfolk more involved in future use of the Pondville land, he said.

Funded by a $45,000 state grant, the study by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council is taking a looking at potential uses of the DOC and Norfolk properties, possibly for coordinated development. The study, scheduled for completion June 30, is also looking at other Walpole sites along Roue 1A: the MWRA's 94 acres between the prison and Winter Street, the stretch of auto salvage yards and the Walpole Industrial Park. The study is also taking an "unofficial" look at the former Bird Machine land and the South Street Superfund site.

The state funded the study in part because its two-community approach fits in with its smart-growth policy. The state also offers sizable grants and other assistance to help towns pursue smart-growth development.

Much of that statewide assistance is specifically linked to proceeds from the sale of surplus state property, Walsh said.

The parcels add up to one of the biggest collections of undeveloped and underdeveloped land in the metropolitan area. Walsh sees the potential of landing one or more big enterprises along the stretch. (Town finance officials estimate it would take a development of the size of the Siemens facility or the Walpole Mall to add $500,000 a year to the town's tax collections.)

He hasn't heard recently from a company looking at an industrial park site for a power plant at the junction of a big natural gas line and heavy power transmission lines.

In addition to development, jobs and tax revenue, Walsh adds that he's equally interested in sound planning, putting the town rather than developers in the position of directing land use. The MAPC effort is being overseen by town planner Don Johnson and health director Robin Chapell as well as by him, he noted.

Much of the land is in the aquifer protection district and the Main Street sewer line stops just north of the study area. The study will take a look at extending the sewer and other environmental matters.

"Imagine Route 1A cleaned up," he said.

The outline of the MAPC study calls for preparation and analysis of "two potential corridor-wide mixed use concepts." There will be a presentation and discussion on alternatives at another two-community forum before the study concludes.

And before that, Walsh said, there will be a meeting just for Walpole residents to discuss points so strongly raised at the March 14 session.

In response to concerns raised at an earlier forum and in working committee sessions, two big wooded tracts along Route 1A in South Walpole are excluded from "smart growth" possibilities to be presented tomorrow night (Wednesday, June 6.)


June 2007
MAPC to host forum

The joint Smart Growth Planning process for Route 1A on either side of the Walpole and Norfolk town line, conducted by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, will host its second and final forum at the Johnson School at 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 6.

At the first forum in March, South Walpole residents indicated they'd prefer not to see development pushed for 40 acres of state Department of Correction land between the DoC power plant across Route 1A from the prison. The study originally was to look at the potential of that tract in conjunction with reuse of the abutting former Southwood Hospital site in Norfolk.

In addition to residents' concerns, Town Administrator Michael Boynton has echoed Sen. Jim Timilty's point that transfer of that land could undercut prison mitigation money the state pays the town -- $750,000 this fiscal year. Boynton has also advocated focusing on downtown and Route 1 rather than looking for new adventures.

Also gone from the study is the MWRA "sludge site" between the prison and Winter Street, That parcel, which the town has been eyeing for playing fields, was added to the study by MAPC planners.

Meanwhile, Walpole economic development officer Don Walsh said in an interview, Norfolk participants have gone from looking at just an age-qualified village for the hospital site to considering a range of options, including bringing in job-creating companies.

If Norfolk attracts companies, then there still could be an option of seeking state money to extend the sewer line that now stops at Raffael's in Walpole south down Route 1A to the town line, Walsh said. An extension would put the town in a better position to attract the kind of companies it wants to the Walpole Industrial Park and the salvage yard stretch, he said.

With little vacant land left along Route 128, there is a real potential of attracting a company that would create another campus like Siemens on Coney Street, Walsh said. He noted that Organogenesis, a major biotechnology company, is looking for a site within 15 miles of its Canton headquarters.

Thursday's forum will begin with a presentation by the MAPC and then open to questions and discussion. All Walpole residents are encouraged to attend and voice their opinions on what types of land use would be beneficial and why, Walsh said,

The MAPC's final report will be part of the considerations of a committee that's now working to revise the zoning bylaw townwide with the goal of getting recommendations to the fall Town Meeting.

[Tom]

Talking about development

There is not a project in town, economic development director Don Walsh said June 12, that will not have some opposition.

What’s good for the community might be bad for me as an abutter, he said, and how those competing interests get reconciled has to be resolved at the selectmen’s level.

Walsh’s statement came at the end of an economic development committee (EDC) meeting and reflected positions taken earlier by members of the panel. South Walpole residents in attendance, concerned about the prospect of a power plant, said they objected to remarks they saw as painting them and their neighborhoods as NIMBY.

Competitive Power Ventures, a national company with an office in Braintree, has been looking at a site next to the Walpole Industrial Park off Route 1A south of downtown for a 500-megawatt gas-fired plant, according to town officials. (CPV has not responded to requests for an interview.)

Asked whether someone has been encouraging a current zoning study to consider changing the bylaw to allow power plants, Walsh responded, “I’m not.”

Later, he noted there are two ways to win approval to build a power plant: go through the town process or go directly to the state. CPV, he said, has indicated it would rather not go the state route.

(An open forum on the townwide zoning study is scheduled for 7 p.m., Thursday, June 21, in Town Hall. The study’s objective is to have a revised bylaw ready for a Town Meeting vote in October.)

The Tuesday EDC meeting (June 12) was attended by two selectmen, Michael Caron and Cathy Winston, to exchange thoughts in advance of what is to be a full meeting between the two panels to, as selectmen put it, “get on the same page.”

Selectmen called for the meeting after the EDC lobbied vigorously (and unsuccessfully) for May Town Meeting to approve a Walpole Redevelopment Authority that could take the South Street Superfund site. Tuesday, An EDC member said the panel had been trying for months to get on the selectmen’s agenda but was refused, perhaps because of considerations involving the June 2 town election.

Winston said she opposed a WRA because it would be beyond control. EDC member Ken Fettig said the effect of the WRA defeat is that rather than trust townspeople on an elected WRA board, Walpole continues to leave the fate of the property in the hands of a Florida resident who hasn’t paid taxes on it for years even though he’s collecting rent. EDC members indicated there could be another try for a WRA.

Selectman Caron said that while a power plant would have high revenue impact, the idea is “not popular” and would have negative environmental consequences. (One estimate is that a plant like the one CPV envisions would bring a town $2 million a year.)

Such a plant would require 1 million gallons of water a day, far beyond the ability of the town to supply. Winston noted the town’s sewer and water commission has not backed the CPV idea.

A longtime resident there herself, Winston said that South Walpole is not NIMBY and is used to traffic and business, including Walpole Park and the once very busy Bird Machine. “What we want is input,” she said recalling that the EDC did not heed residents’ support for an age-qualified village on the Bird Machine site that would have brought the town more revenue than commercial use.

Winston noted that the MAPC study of Route 1A on either side of the Walpole/Norfolk line, now wrapping up, provides little in return for the $45,000 in state money it cost.

Advocated by Walsh, the study was to have considered the potential for joint development of the former Southwood Hospital in Norfolk with adjoining state Department of Correction land in Walpole. But Walpole took the DoC land off the table along with consideration of the “sludge site.”

At a forum last week on the MAPC study, EDC member John Hasenjaeger said the elimination of two of the few potential commercial sites in town was a “tragedy.” An MAPC planner responded that staffers were obliged to follow the lead of the local steering committee.

The steering committee’s rejection of development of the wooded land last month was in line with Town Administrator Michael Boynton’s view expressed earlier in the spring that Walpole doesn’t need battles over development proposals that don't have community support.

For Norfolk, the study opens the door to consideration of more commercial use of the Southwood site rather than focusing largely on an age-qualified village. The MAPC considers that the market for AQVs is headed toward saturation.

Tuesday night, economic director Walsh said that if Norfolk can create 100 or more jobs on the hospital site, the state might pay to extend the Walpole sewer that now ends at Raffael’s south along Route 1A.

But at the forum last week, MAPC staff said an extension to Norfolk would be expensive because of the hills, that MWRA approval for service to a single parcel in a non-MWRA town might be hard to come by and that on-site disposal has environmental advantages.

At the MAPC forum, Cliff Snuffer said a sewer extension would attract Chapter 40B housing projects. Tuesday, Hasenjaeger said an extension would encourage prison expansion.

MAPC planners noted that a short sewer expansion to the industrial park area would not be expensive, and that infrastructure improvements would encourage a higher use of the land. (The town is also prodding the state to live up to its commitment to rebuild Route 1A all the way from Norwood to Norfolk.)

At the EDC meeting in response to a question, Walsh said that he has heard Allied Recycling wants to build “some kind of a facility” at its Route 1A location.

[Tom]

Up to 15 acres of vacant or underutilized property next to the train station offer a "unique opportunity" to create a mixture of new housing and commercial space under a local-option state law that offers sizable grants to communities that build under it, according to a consultant working on recommendations for changes to the town's zoning bylaw.

Speaking at a forum on the zoning project last week, Nathan Kelly said that the Kendall building is the best candidate he's seen for redevelopment under the state's Chapter 40R. The nearby Foundry also offers possibilities, he said.

Kelly works for the Horsley Whitten Group of Sandwich, hired by the planning board for the $60,000 project that aims to bring proposals for chages to the bylaw to the October Town Meeting.

As with any zoning change, to make 40R possible downtown would take a two-thirds majority vote by Town Meeting. Kelly, who's been advised by the planning board, master plan committee and affordable housing committee, sees the zoning change coming in the form of an overlay district that among other advantages would help the town meet its obligations under Chapter 40B for subsidized housing.

In Kelly's overview and questions and comments from those in attendance at last Thursday's forum, Town Meeting could face a big job in October.

Planning board Chairman Jack Conroy started off by noting that the existing bylaw is difficult to interpret. The town keeps adding to it, he says, but the back-end cleanups haven't gotten done. Later, Conroy added that major provisions of the bylaw -- the rules for an age-qualified village, for instance, were written by business ventures seeking to block competition.

On the residential side, John Hasenjaeger, a builder and member of the Economic Development Committee, said that zoning goes back to a philosophy that emphasized big lots, not other considerations.

Kelly pointed out that Walpole requires a minimum of 20 acres for an Open Space Residential District development that allows for smaller lots if some of the total parcel is put aside for conservation, recreation or other purposes. In addition, the rarely used OSRD in Walpole encourages the open space to go into a buffer to separate the development from its neighbors, rather than being used, say, to enhance wetland protection. The consultant said Walpole got it "backwards" by barring OSRDs in the aquifer protection overlay districts. And unlike most towns, Walpole allows a developer to add a foot to the height of land in a flood plain, he said.

As a matter of practicality, Kelly said, the effort downtown, which he sees as involving multiple reviews of design and of other fatcors, should be limited in area. In East Walpole, though, he said he favored continuing to allow businesses "by right" rather than special permits as a way to foster the commercial diversity of the area.

Participants in the forum said in a related effort, the town is working to come up with a housing production plan, as defined by the state, that would offer a reprieve of a year or two from 40Bs if Walplole came up with 75 or 150 "friendly" 40B units that meet the state's definition of "affordable."

Speaking in general, Cliff Snuffer said at the forum that despite fine work by the town, "state mandates come in and croak you."

[Tom]

Aerial photos from 1982 indicate that there has been some filling since then at the Walpole Woodworkers site on East Street, which is under consideration for more than 200 units of rental housing under Chapter 40B, the state's anti-snob zoning law.

Representatives of the company told the conservation commission Thursday, Sept. 27, that they'll excavate in the fill area to determine whether it was originally wet. If so, the representatives indicated, the company will do restoration work.

Noting that the state's wetland protection law took effect in 1983, Conservation Agent Landis Hersey said it would not be productive to research further back than the 1982 aerials. Hersey also said the company has been removing debris in compliance with a commission enforcement order. Recent aerial via Google.

The hearing was continued until 9 p.m. Oct. 24. Its purpose is to determine how much of the 16-acre site is protected resource area -- a determination that could influence the number of apartments to be proposed.

At the Sept. 27 meeting, the commission received an update on plans for Southridge Business Park off South Street.

The development, for which David Wakefield is an applicant, would create 10 additional lots of a 1,400-foot deadend road, 650 feet longer than permitted without a waiver.

Atty. Philip Macchi said the developer would straighten the South Street S-curve in return for the waiver and relief from a sidewalk requirement to create a roadway like Merchants Row off Route 1. The planning board is holding hearing sessions on the proposal and waiver requests; selectmen also would have to approve the trade-off in their capacity as road commissioners.

[Tom]

Neighbors briefed on mall plans

http://www.walpolenews.com/images/mall3.jpg
The area in white is the existing mall; proposed construction is in olive. At the far left is a space for a single large tenant. Between it and the existing mall would be new space for five or six smaller stores. Five freestanding buildings -- drug store, bank, restaurant -- are shown along Route 1 and one on Coney Street. The Coney Street entrance/exit would be moved east to align with the roadway along the front of the stores.

The owners of the Walpole Mall propose to create space for one large tenant and several smaller stores at the north end of the existing building and locate six free-standing businesses, including a drug store, bank and restaurant, along its street fronts.

The expansion would add 140,000 square feet to the 305,000-square-foot mall. The facade of the existing building would be unified and there would be other renovations. The mall would remain one-story; the addition also would be a single story.

A team of consultants talked about the project Thursday to dozens of Walpole and Norwood residents who asked questions but raised no objections to the plans.

Because no firm commitments have been made pending approval by Walpole boards, the identity of potential tenants was not discussed.

The addition will be at the rear of the Lexus property, under agreement to be sold to the mall. The two buildings on the Lexus land will be demolished.

There will be a 70-foot buffer between the north edge of the addition and abutting property. Trucks will turn around at the rear of the addition, and not loop around on the northern edge. The existing wooded buffer around the mall will be renovated and filled with new plantings, including western red cedars resistant to insects and unappealing to deer.

The Coney Street entrance/exit will be relocated to get it further away from the Route 1 intersection and provide a straight connection to the main mall roadway. The mall's traffic engineer is estimating the expansion will attract between 150 and 200 additional peak-hour vehicles.

Atty. Philip Macchi told the residents that the plan required approval by the zoning board of appeals, planning board (for a site plan) and conservation commission. In a hearing scheduled to begin in July, the ZBA will be asked for a variance from the zoning bylaw's requirement for 50-foot setbacks from the roadway. The plan is to use much of that space for parking.

Macchi said that if all goes well, the necessary approvals could be in hand by year's end. (The mall and its neighbor Siemens are the two sites eligible for Walpole's new fast-track approval process. But if Macchi's schedule holds, fast-track would not be needed.)

In response to questions, Macchi said inclusion of the McDonald's restaurant just north of the Lexus site in the mall plans has been considered, but that there is nothing definite. He noted McDonald's is in Norwood and that working with that property would require approvals from that town. A Norwood neighbor said that adding the McDonald's site to the plan would not provide a workable additional mall entrance.

http://www.walpolenews.com/images/mall2.jpg
An architect's sketch showed a unified look for the mall, but it was noted the look could change depending on the requirements of individual tenants.

[Tom]

Consultants expect to come up with recommendations within two months for the next two sites that could be put on a fast track for industrial or commercial development.

At a Town Hall meeting last month that gave some hints about potential sites, the VHB team went through 22 possibilities that meet state fast-track criteria. Many of them, the consultants noted, seem unsuitable -- Adams Farm, for instance, and the prison power plant and MWRA areas on Route 1A in South Walpole, ruled out by a recent MAPC study and other factors.

Sites that appear to have potential in the preliminary run-through include Walpole Industrial Park, Bird Machine, two South Street locations, the clocktower in East Walpole, the Grossman's/Boston View Motel area on Route 1, salvage yards along 1A and three areas downtown: the Kendall Mills buildings, the old Foundry and the mall with the CVS at Main and East streets.

The recent state fast-track law allows communities to designate certain areas where development proposals will be decided on, one way or another, within 180 days of the receipt of a complete application. Spring Town Meeting designated the Walpole Mall and Siemens campus as fast-track sites and the state came through with a $150,000 planning grant for the town, as offered in the new law. Part of that grant is funding the VHB study. Another incentive in the law: Communities that participate get priority for major transportation and development grants.

At last Wednesday's meeting, Town Meeting representative Cliff Snuffer questioned how the Industrial Park site could work under fast-track when a power plant is under consideration at the end of Industrial Road. The response was that for complex proposals, the law offers extensions of the 180-day deadline. (If the plan goes forward, the company could be asked to extend the Route 1A sewer

On Bird Machine, Don Walsh, the town's economic development director, said Baker Hughes, the Texas company that owns the land, wants out and that action is likely by spring. (The September draft of the proposed zoning rewrite appears to rule out the age qualified village proposal favored by residents for the site. Beyond that, the draft appears to rule out an AQV anywhere in town unless it's part of a complex that includes both a nursing home and assisted living facilities.)

On South Street, one area is at the S-curve, for which applications are pending for creation of Southridge Business Park that would add 10 lots. The other is the Superfund site, for which a long-awaited EPA cleanup plan is anticipated soon. Walsh said the town's economic development committee is considering recommending that Walpole petition the Legislature for creation of an Economic Development and Industrial Commission to take title to the Superfund site. Unlike the redevelopment authority shot down earlier this year, the EDIC would be restricted to a specific site.

At the clocktower, Hollingsworth & Vose's vision of a mixed-use development continues to be affected by a question of ownership of part of the land, consultants said.

Consultants and audience members alike extolled the potential for the Grossman's/Boston View area with its strong highway access and striking views. In response to a question about why there's no action there, but speaking in general, Walsh said he tries to convince owners that there are superior uses than what's on the property now. He indicated he's not been entirely successful in conveying the possibilities of a joint redevelopment effort by all owners in the salvage stretch.

Downtown, the Kendall Mills complex could be heading toward reuse as one- and two-bedroom apartments, mainly for Boston rail commuters, Walsh said. Snuffer said that change seems to be ahead for the mall at Main and East.

Before they get down to the final two possibilities, consultants said they'll come back with a list of six to eight. Town Meeting approval would be needed to put any additional site on the fast track.