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“We cannot adopt this zoning,” member Alexander Whiteside said after the board closed its fourth night of public testimony March 31. “As it is written, the current article has no standards to speak of. Zoning should define, specifically, what kind of businesses are going to be there. We don’t have that right now.”
The article is included in the Annual Town Meeting warrant, which has already gone to press.
While he considers the Temple a “valued and respected” member of the community, board member Peter Jackson said he can’t support the article because it lacks specific details – such as buffers and setbacks – that a zoning article should have.
He said a lack of community consensus regarding the proposal factored into his decision.
“It is important to our town that Temple Shalom stay here,” Jackson said. “However, I cannot support this article as it is written.”
Jackson said the article contains “much less than Town Meeting has historically expected” when considering rezoning proposals.
Board member Ed Duffy agreed, saying the town rarely rezones districts and when it does it usually “follows on strict historic lines.”
He indicated that the Temple’s development proposal, which would involve downsizing to a smaller structure and sharing the land with two commercial buildings, might not be right for that area.
“It’s an extremely nonconforming area as it is now,” Duffy said of the neighborhood that surrounds the Blue Hill Avenue property, near Mattapan, where the Temple is located. “This is a very, very dense neighborhood with narrow streets.”
“I think I’ve heard all I’m going to hear,” member Bernie Lynch added. “I say no [to the proposal].”
Planning Chair Emily Keys Innes said the board has few options since the article was submitted by petitioners, but can simply state its recommendations to Annual Town Meeting, which begins May 4. It will be up to voters to either support or deny the zoning language, or refer it back to the board for more examination, she said.
She agreed the article has “significant flaws” she could not support. But she said time could play an important role in how voters decide.
“If Town Meeting votes no, [a similar article] can’t be brought back to Town Meeting for two years,” Innes said.
She said Town Meeting would have to recommit the article to the Planning Board to keep the process going.
Attorney Ned Corcoran said the Temple, which is struggling financially to maintain its congregation, can’t afford for the process to stall.
“If the Temple runs out of time to pursue this [commercial] development, it will be forced to sell this land to the highest bidder,” he said. “You can do other things with this land. The question is, do any of them include the revenue necessary to maintain the Temple?”
Other Alternatives
One option for the Planning Board would be to adopt a different set of zoning language, which Whiteside proposed, in its recommendation to Town Meeting. Among the things Whiteside, a lawyer, proposes is defining set hours of the pharmacy operation from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., with no overnight parking; there would be 60 parking spaces for each new building on the property under his guidelines.
There would also be a 30-foot set back from Blue Hill Avenue; a design committee consisting of an architect, landscaper, Selectman and two area residents would review and recommend all design work.
Whiteside said his proposal still “needs work” but is a more detailed document than the one petitioners have presented, which he would not support “in a million years.” Corcoran agreed that Whiteside’s document is “significantly better.” The Planning Board has not voted to recommend it.
Another plan proposed at a prior hearing that would suit the dimensions of the property would involve selling the entire four-acre parcel and have up to 80 affordable residential units being built, Corcoran said. That proposal would satisfy the Temple’s financial needs but would mean it would have to build its new religious center in another town, he said.
Coffman Realty, the same Brockton-based firm that is involved with the commercial proposal, would likely buy the land to build 40B affordable units in that case, company President Jeff Coffman told residents at the hearing.
Coffman said that he doesn’t agree the process is being rushed, as some have suggested. He said the Temple is simply asking Town Meeting to let the process return to the Planning Board – with proper zoning language – where a formal site review process can begin.
“This will enable us to go through what would probably be an 18-month process,” involving a site review committee, said Coffman.
Even with an efficient review process, permitting and construction wouldn’t begin until spring 2011, he said.
Coffman said the assessed value of the current project, which would include a drive-through CVS or Walgreens and another building with retail and office space, is around $10 million. Each of the three buildings, including the new Temple, would be around 15,000 square feet. It will reportedly bring in around $170,000 in new tax revenue.
The Neighborhood Response
In a prepared statement prior to the Planning Board closing of the public testimonial, Selectman Marion McEttrick disputed much of what Temple officials claim about the development, including what she called the “speculative revenue estimate.”
“The [revenue] numbers are too small. The budget is too large,” she said of the commercial proposal.
McEttrick said she speaks for a group of neighbors who oppose moving forward without exploring other options. The group calls themselves the Tucker School Neighborhood Group, after the elementary school nearby on Blue Hill Parkway. McEttrick lives near the Temple on Crown Street.
She said the development being put forward “alienates the neighborhood that values the Temple.”
Former Milton resident and architect Donald Hunsicker, now of Canton, was asked by neighbors to present an alternate plan for the site. The plan he showed the Planning Board would have up to 60 assisted-living units built along with a new Temple. He said he doesn’t know whether it would work “economically” but said such ideas should be considered in public before new zoning is proposed.
“It’s just one example of an alternate proposal,” said McEttrick, who said only through a “full public planning process” can the right development be found.
“Even if you support this plan, I think you’ll have to agree it’s not ready to go to Town Meeting,” she said.
However, Corcoran said he knows of “no alternative that exists currently in the market” that would allow Temple Shalom to rebuild in Milton. He said the proposal is the only one that allows the town to maintain some oversight of the property, which would be lost under a Chapter 40B affordable-housing development.
The Planning Board did not take a formal vote. It continued the hearing to Monday, April 13, at 6:45 p.m. at the Senior Center, 10 Walnut St.