My blogs about town meetings have generated the most traffic to my site, probably because they are reporting facts, as opposed to essays or regurgitations and commentary on other people’s work about theoretical topics. I wish I could find more time–and more convenient time to actually talk to the people involved and contribute something to this process. I don’t have anything new to report on today, but I’d like to throw some ideas out there and see if anything sticks…
I think the Westwood Station process is the least broken political process going on around here but that is damningly faint praise. The reality is that only people with a direct interest are going to be motivated enough to be involved in a sustained manner and they are going to work within the existing political structures because that’s the best we have. This leads to showdowns with opponents who are then rolled over when we have the votes to do so.
The direct democracy of a town meeting is ultimately an exercise in waiting to vote. I suspect nearly every resident who has made the effort to show up has pretty much decided how they will vote. There is no real discussion because, in the end, you just have to vote yes or no, so mostly what you have are arguments and open ended questions that on one can answer. The town meeting is not the place to decide how to protect families who live on Canton Street from traffic. That is not to say that people who disagree should just shut up, but from a practical, operational standpoint you can’t draft a solution on the fly in a gymnasium with 1000 people eager to get home to their kids.
The argument from the town rests on the fundamental assumption that there is a process in place to deal with these issues–so trust us and don’t kill the deal with obstructionist resolutions and articles that could tie the hands of the people who are working on this. So far, I, and the majority of town residents believe this argument.
I have not attended any planning meetings other than the Economic Development Advisory Board meeting that I blogged about several months ago. I know that a significant number of people feel that they have been ignored or excluded in the process, but isn’t it always the case that some people don’t get what they want? I think people have many different visions of the purpose of the project which makes real consensus even harder. But I suspect proponents have an exaggerated fear of the consequences of failure, just as opponents have an exaggerated fear of the consequences of success–where success is mainly measured by the developer making lots of money.
I think, in the many presentations by the town, they have outlined the why and how of this project very clearly, but the fundamental challenge is that we cannot plan everything perfectly. Opponents want assurances that we’re not going to create this mega mall of trash magnet stores. A good example of that worst case scenario is what you have in Stoughton with the IKEA, Jordans, Costco cluster and a couple of low end strip malls. There is no good example of the best case scenario because it hasn’t been done yet. Westwood Station might be that example if we can get it right.
People like the idea of a Newbury Street in Westwood. But you can’t just create that from empty lots out in the middle of nowhere! And if you really think about it, what’s so great about Newbury Street? If you have trouble finding a $100 haircut in Westwood…is that really a problem? What’s great about Newbury Street is that it is a part of Boston that is pretty and fun to walk along occasionally. On a weekend, there are probably more people on Newbury Street than living in Westwood! So it’s not like anyone could really believe this project was just going to magically transport that experience here.
What it could do is create a new urban/suburban experience. People eating outdoors at restaurants. People walking from store to store as they shop. People living near a train so they can commute into work without driving and having a reason to come home because the sidewalks are no longer rolled up at 5pm. The possibility that you will run into people you know from other parts of town as you walk down the street in the evening.
I agree that building a Target and Home Depot alone is not going to serve that end. I don’t really know what kinds of behaviors people will have…will they drive to Target and then hang out in the smaller stores and restaurants? I doubt it. But the one thing we know, from the developer and leasing agent, is that the smaller stores will not come without some kind of anchor stores.
We can’t orchestrate everything. Each store, each restaurant, and ultimately each potential new resident will behave in ways we cannot predict. There can be no master plan, only ground rules.
Based on what I heard at the town meeting, from the EDAB and Planning Board, they are creating some kind of ground rules. But I also hear that not everyone is happy with those rules, and I can understand the fear that this thing could quickly get out of control. For example, you might create rules that give the town the option to stop everything…but that might be a meaningless option once things get underway because it could prove very costly. Opponents know that if they cannot get the majority of town residents to support basic restrictions now, there is no way this thing can be stopped once it is underway and voting “no” means your tax bill is going to go up $500 next year because we’ve already built the extra fire startion and now there no tax revenue to pay for it because after we canceled one store, half the others backed out.
So what do you do with all that? Trust. Trust is the most important thing here. No set of rules is going to protect everything everyone is worried about. So we need to know that trustworthy people are in a position to manage the growth and development of this project now AND in the future.
Some people are already untrusting of the people driving this process. But it’s not just the people we need to be able to trust, it is also the process itself. What are we getting ourselves into? We know that we cannot trust the developers to act with the best interests of the town in mind–that is not their job. And while I would prefer to believe we CAN trust our elected and appointed officials and boards…I’m not certain they have the power to protect us fully. As circumstances change, what is in the best interest of the town may change too and the danger is that there will be no good choices in the future.
We need an ongoing partnership between all the key players in the project. I was talking to someone at work and they said it sounded like there should be a sort of “mayor” of the new community. I think we need something that integrates more people into the ongoing process now and in the future so this project is not just the town working with the developer, but a collaborative effort to create not just a successful business project, but a successful community project. I don’t know what form that kind of public-private governance/management would take, but I think it is more than can be managed effectively with existing ideas about planning and permitting. It needs to engage people long before there is stuff to vote on.
As is obvious from other posts, I strongly support this project. I think it is a revolutionary development in line with “Smart Growth” and “New Urbanism” principles. But I think there is also a political dimension that needs a better structure than what we have now. The people in this town who have been working on this kind of idea for nearly a decade have been performing a herculean effort the fruits of which are still many years in the future. And it seems like we have something like a 2/3 consensus in town. But I think we need a way to bring more of those people into a system they can trust–and not just argue them away or dismiss them. The concerns will not go away and ultimately, we need to use the criticism to make the project better. We need to get away from the gloom and doom kinds of things I hear from opponents who think we’ve sold the town down the river…
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