Approved Minutes
January 5, 2005
Town Library, Lower
Level Conference Room
Attendees: Jim Goldsmith (Chair), Michael Baskin, David DePree, Craig Edwards, Jim Glaser, David Gordon, Marilyn
Kahn, Marcia Liebman, Bob Levin, and Joel Tran
Guest: Bob Goldberg
The
meeting was called to order by Jim Goldsmith at 8:00 PM.
In
his opening comments, Jim noted that Jane Desberg was
unable to attend the meeting as she is out of town; the committee will ask her
to attend a future meeting. Also, Jim noted that Ken Michel will be asked
to attend the next meeting to discuss tax credit issues. Finally, Jim
asked the committee to discuss what he called "the Gordon
framework," ideas that David Gordon had suggested for creating four sub-committees to
help the committee reach its goals before the spring Town Meeting.
The
minutes of the 12/16/04 meeting were accepted with a minor amendment -- namely,
that the committee would be seeking input developers, neighboring residents,
and the community-at-large (in addition to input from the Selectmen, the
Planning Board, and the Housing Board).
Discussion of Warrant: Jim Goldsmith said he would urge the
committee to include in any Warrant article three items: a recommendation that
the town abates the
Memo from Peter O'Cain: It was noted that the
site can support approximately 56,000 gallons per day of effluent, and that a
one-bedroom apartment would generate an average of 110 gallons per day.
While it would appear that there are plenty of soils between the property and
the nearest town wells to "filter out" the plume effluent, no
engineering studies have been done to confirm this. A proposal now
pending before Citizens' Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA) in
Discussion of Mixed-Use Issues: The committee discussed the importance
of tax credits for any residential portion of an overall project; indeed, it
was asserted that "the only way for a developer to make money" on a
mixed-use project on the scale of the Wilber would be with applied tax
credits. The committee also reviewed sample figures for
"affordable" and "market" rate apartments, based on a
project off of Route 1 in Walpole (affordable: one-bedroom -- $834 per
month, two-bedroom -- $992 per month, three-bedroom -- $1,144 per month;
market: one-bedroom -- $1,300 per month, two-bedroom -- $1,500 per month,
three-bedroom -- $1,650 per month). Figures similar to these could be
used to estimate the rents likely to be charged on any apartments developed at
the Wilber. There was some concern expressed about the viability of
retail establishments at the Wilber site, given that retail businesses tend to
"turn" every 3-5 years.
Discussion of Possible Mixed-Use Models: One possible model for
the Wilber building could include commercial/residential uses on the ground
floor and residential units (supported by tax credits) on the second
floor. It was noted that it would be "very tough" for a
developer to "make municipal space work" in a redeveloped Wilber
building. For that reason, it was suggested that space might be reserved
elsewhere on the site (i.e., outside of the current building) for future
development as municipal and/or library space. The library would need a roughly
13,000 sq. ft. footprint on the site to construct a two-story building.
If the current library were coverted to use by the
school system and, in turn, the current school administration building were
sold for development, the resulting income stream might be able to support some
of the costs of building a new library at the Wilber site. Even
then, the issue of parking will remain a concern. Several comments
suggested that retail establishments other than specialty shops would have a diffcult time surviving in a redevloped
Wilber building due to traffic patterns (both pedestrian and car) through the
center of
Town-Developed vs. Privately-Developed Project: There was a brief
discussion of the pro's and con's of either approach. The committee
decided to investigate this issue more closely, even though a town-developed
project would not be able to take advantage of tax credits to offset the costs
for developing rental units.
Task Groups: The committee agreed that setting up task groups was
a good idea that could help the committee focus its efforts and
produce a successful Warrant article for the May 2005 Town Meeting. After
some discussion, it was decided that the proposed Public Hearings and Public
Relations task groups would be combined into a single task group and that a new
group, a Feasibility Task Group, would be added to the list to examine
technical issues related to construction and building on the site.
Volunteers
for the four task groups were as follows:
Follow-up Tasks: The sub-committees were asked to confer before
1/10/05. Jim asked members to circulate questions to be posed to invited
guests within the next week. The committee will discuss the advisability
of attending meetings convened by other committees vs. inviting representatives
of those committees (e.g., Selecetmen, Planning
Board, Finance Committee, and Town Engineering) to attend our meetings.
Bob Levin will check with Joel Wolk about the
estimated costs of abatement assessment work.
Next Meetings: The full committee will meet on 1/10/05, 1/24/05, and
1/31/05. The task groups will meet on 1/17/05.
Respectfully
submitted,
David
Gordon