Last Wednesday, October 22, the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) met for the third time this year to discuss plans for the northernmost part of the development where the historic Northampton State Hospital once stood. Before them was a proposal for an additional hundred housing units, which, to be built, required their approval.
After years of passively accepting much of what the developers presented, regardless of how far the revised plans deviated from stated goals, this time the CAC didn't let the double-speak go down so smoothly.
MassDevelopment, the state agency managing the development, had been busy this summer overseeing construction of the 207 units already approved for the site. In order to make the development eligible for state funding incentives that promote green building practices, last year the agency had proposed that instead of construction taking over the entire hilltop, as originally planned, they would build the approved homes closer together. At the time, there had been some concern that the actual agenda behind the compact construction was to make space available for more units later, but the city and the CAC had been assured this was not the case.
In June, the CAC had been asked by its chairperson, Mayor Mary Clare Higgins, to spend the summer contemplating how or whether they'd like to see the remaining vacant space used. When they met again in September, however, architects presented a plan they had worked on without the CAC's input, and it addressed none of the ideas or concerns the committee previously voiced. Instead, they had filled the fields and forests with the hundred newly-proposed homes.
The CAC offered some hesitant resistance to this proposal at the September meeting, expressing concern about the lack of promised commercial development, the near-complete loss of open space on the hill and the failure to plan for a community center or a historic memorial—just more brand-spanking new houses. A representative from Arrowstreet architects, the firm hired by MassDevelopment, said the plan was a draft, and it would be updated based on the CAC's reactions.
A month later, the new plan presented to the CAC for a vote last Wednesday night was nearly identical to the draft plan. Except that some of the rectangles representing the houses had been turned into squares, there was no difference in the scheme, and, again, none of the CAC's concerns had been addressed. Instead, MassDevelopment and Arrowstreet had simply retooled their sales pitch.
The first slide of the presentation opened with a barrage of bullet points and jargon justifying this approach, such as a statement that the plan minimized "site disturbance through site design and construction"—an odd claim for filling a field and forest with houses, but the committee members held their comments until the end of the presentation.
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Next, the architect showed pictures of the grassy fields and giant beech trees that had once surrounded the Victorian-era hospital, saying that their long history on the site brought them an undeniable "grandeur." This, he explained, was why it was important to preserve them in creating a network of paths around the new houses. These proposed paths, snaking between the back yards of private residences, he described as preserved "green space," and he continued to point out a succession of nooks and crannies amongst the proposed dwellings where they'd planned "parks."
While the layout of the plan hadn't changed since the previous meeting, the architects had been busy naming the handful of undeveloped spaces crammed between the buildings. Where last month there had been a smidge of green on the diagram between the rectangles representing housing units, there were now the "North Park," "Large Oak Park," "Westview Park," "Coach House Park," and "Pathway Park," among others.
Spitting in the face of a hundred years of landscape architecture and urban design, MassDevelopment and their architects sought to redefine a public park as simply space upon which nothing is built. Taking this premise to its logical conclusion, they tallied the space covered by these "parks," most of which were around a quarter-acre or less in size, and boldly declared that after carpeting the fields and forests with new construction, with all their parks and paths, they would actually be preserving 60 percent of the available open space.
The committee had only interjected occasionally, but then Mayor Higgins piped up. Wouldn't the homes built there have excellent southern exposure, she asked. Wouldn't that mean those homes would be able to use solar panels to greater effect than elsewhere? MassDevelopment and the architect agreed that building in the open field would certainly be the most eco-friendly choice.
The presentation ended with a review of what had already been built, what was in the process of being built, and what remained to be done to fulfil the originally approved quota. The presenters then opened the floor to questions.
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After years of timidity, the committee seemed to awaken from a long, passive slumber and suddenly realize this emperor might not, in fact, be wearing any clothes. Worse, he was stark naked. Joe Blumenthal, one of the representatives from the neighborhoods surrounding the site, asked what would happen if the committee broke with long-standing tradition and rejected MassDevelopment's proposal.
If that happened, Beth Murphy responded, MassDevelopment would then not build the remaining approved homes as densely as previously planned. With all that flat, open space not being built on, it wouldn't make sense to cram the buildings all together. Instead, they'd return to the plan originally approved in the late 1990s. If they weren't permitted a hundred new units, they'd fill the remaining space with 28 "estate" lots—essentially, mansions.
Again the chairperson chimed in. Obviously, Mayor Higgins said, mansions would be undesirable. As the city had gotten considerable flack for proposing them in its initial plan over a decade ago, it would be best not to rock the boat now.
Harriet Diamond, another representative from the neighborhood, was the first to register her surprise that this new plan "was the same as last time," and she felt there was something out of balance with the proposal. She guessed the total residential buildout, including the newly-proposed 100 homes—300-plus units, all told—would eventually house roughly 1,000 people; she had grown up in a community of 2,500. Her home town had had two churches, a grange, a community center, a library and shops. This proposed village was mostly just houses, and it had no center. There was nothing that would pull the residents together as a community.
Again, Beth Murphy reminded the committee to think of the development as half empty. The 5.5 acres of "parks" spread throughout the proposed development, she insisted, would provide that glue. If the estates were built, the millionaires living in them would have more private green space than the parks in their hundred-house proposal.
City planner Wayne Feiden was in the small audience, and he corrected Diamond, saying the city anticipated the 300 units would only house 500 to 600 people.
Representing Northampton's Chamber of Commerce, lawyer Bruce Fogel asked for the rationale behind requesting an extra hundred units. It wasn't clear to him why anything additional needed to be built, and if so, why was 100 the magic number? Why not 98 or 110?
Murphy assured the committee that her company's request wasn't just about numbers—it was about accomplishing a goal. In order to complete their vision of a compact, walkable community, they needed the homes, and the figure they selected was just a ceiling.
The representative from the Department of Mental Health, Rutherford Platt—who is also professor emeritus of geography at UMass and author of The Humane Metropolis: People and Nature in the 21st Century City—was alarmed that while the layout of the new homes seemed set in stone, the location and size of a community center was still speculative. He had visited the site on a recent cold autumn day, and pointed out that for almost half the year, the parks would be covered in snow and ice. It didn't appear to him that much thought had been put into amenities, and he shared Diamond's concerns. He suggested a subcommittee be formed to explore these issues.
Committee members asked how the new plan would affect traffic and the amount of commercial space. The "good news" was that only 6,366 trips were going to be added to downtown traffic each day, as opposed to the nearly 9,000 projected in 2003. The bad news was that with the new focus on housing, the initial projection of 476,000 feet of commercial development ("wishful thinking," Murphy said) would be reduced by nearly 200,000 feet. The dream of a mixed-use, tax base-increasing development was apparently just that: a dream.
Fogel said that if this had been made clear before, he must have been asleep. He was "flabbergasted" and had "a real problem" with these figures.
Committee member Jack Hornor asked for figures on how the new construction might affect the ratio between market-rate and affordable housing, but neither MassDevelopment nor the architect were certain. The person in charge wasn't available for this meeting.
Several CAC members indicated that they were uneasy about voting on the proposal at that time, and Hornor proposed that the committee delay the vote for one more meeting. He suggested that the regular 5:15 p.m. meeting time was inconvenient, and that perhaps the next meeting should be held later, with an opportunity for the public to provide feedback.
The city's economic development director, Teri Anderson, interjected next, reminding the committee that they were voting on two proposals. One was for the hundred extra units, but the other was to move a roadway a few hundred yards in order to better accommodate the new plan. If they didn't vote positively on the roadway, the money granted by the state for construction might be lost. After some discussion, the committee was assured that voting to move the roadway didn't assume acceptance of the new development, and they approved it.
The next meeting was planned for November 17 at 7 p.m. at the Kennedy Middle School community room. As always, the meeting is open to the public, but for only the third time in the 14-year history of the CAC, the public will be invited to address the committee.
After that, the vote on the new construction will be held.
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The irony behind MassDevelopment's sales pitch is that the land they want to slice, dice and sell off as a hundred timber-and-vinyl-clad units was made vacant only after taxpayers spent $5.5 million to demolish the hospital on the site. By trucking the vast pile of brick, granite, slate, ironwork and old-growth beams that made up the historic building off to a landfill, the city and developers have already violated the first rule of sustainable building or smart growth: reuse and recycle materials. Instead of minimizing site disturbance, they have maximized it, saddling the city with an eco-debt it's hard to imagine any number of solar panels or geo-thermal construction techniques will ever pay off.
If, rather than using rickety reasoning and vague threats to convince the CAC to let them build houses only the builders and realtors will profit from, the city had saved the historic buildings, the developers would now have a priceless piece of architecture to work with that could accommodate as many people as Wayne Feiden now predicts the whole site will house. Further, their claims of wanting to preserve the historic grandeur of the site would seem less like a con job.
The CAC, made up of a wide variety of representatives of the public, was originally formed to ensure that what happened on Hospital Hill would serve the public's interests, but the city has acknowledged that the property tax collected from new housing developments doesn't go far beyond paying for the infrastructure to support the new residents. Only one new business has relocated to the site. The city and developers often crow about the many acres they're not building on, but they mischaracterize this space as being preserved for public use. As reported this summer in the Valley Advocate ("Is This Land Our Land?", Sept. 4, 2008), the meadows and woods where many walk their dogs and play Frisbee golf have been leased to Smith Vocational School for a hundred years, and the public who visit there do so as "uninvited guests." There is no provision for what should happen after a century has elapsed, or should the school close before then. There is no funding for maintenance.
While it's a relief that the CAC members finally choked on the double-speak being fed them, rather than simply arguing for or against the new housing at the November 17 meeting, the public might well ask for an accounting of how and why millions of their tax dollars have been spent to sell off public land for private gain.
