April 1 Column

Rosa marks his territory

In the last of my interviews with candidates for the Board of Selectmen, this week I feature incumbent Mike Rosa.

Or at least I tried to.

Mr. Rosa never sent me any answers.  I nagged him twice, but that was all I was willing to do — I was not about to beg.  Our brief e-mail correspondence is reproduced at the end of this post.

Since I only have 800 words in the newspaper, I will expand my comments here.  In addition, the version printed in the paper was edited for content and length.  The unedited version of the column is in the box, interrupted by additional commentary.

Mike Rosa is running for reelection to the Board of Selectmen.

Q. Tell me about two accomplishments in your current term you are most proud of.

A.

Frequently Argued Points on Mixed Use

With the latest disaster at Billerica Mall, the debate about what to do with the place has ignited again.  It’s the same old fight — one group blames the Planning Board and the abutters for defeating the Home Depot project while the other bashes Town Meeting for failing to pass mixed use zoning.

This is a good time to compile a set of answers to the arguments that people often make against mixed use in Billerica Center.

You are an elitist/know-it-all/so-called expert/You think you are better than everyone else/You don’t know what you are talking about/You’re just a blow-in/You have something to gain.

Let’s dispense with this one first.  As a rule, I ignore personal attacks, but in this case there is a question of trust.  I do want the community to respect my opinion on land use planning.  Otherwise, it is a waste of my time to comment.

I have no more financial interest in what happens to zoning in the Center than any other private homeowner who lives nearby.  I only want to see our Center become a more pleasant place to look at and to spend time in.

As for sounding like a know-it-all, that is a risk I take.  There are few ways to speak with confidence about any subject without sounding like a show-off to some people.  I cannot help that.

However you want to look at it, I do have a great deal of experience and knowledge in this area.  I have around15 years of experience in the land development business, either as a consultant (earlier in my career) and from the perspective of municipal government staff (see my full bio).  I have worked on about 250 development projects, ranging from tiny to enormous.  I have worked with (or against) developers of all stripes.  Aside from my professional interest, I enjoy reading about the past, present, and future of the American suburb (see the bookshelf).

In summary, I have a lot to add to the discussion about how to improve the form and function of the town.  I hope reasonable people see my involvement as an asset, not a threat.

Show us a plan first, then we’ll change the zoning.

No developer — especially in a bad economy — can afford to do this.  It is a an an expensive gamble for a developer to propose a project to a community, especially one as divisive as ours.

In my rough estimation, the Home Depot team spent around $1 million on lawyers, architects, several types of engineers, security experts, meetings, travel, supplies, and other miscellaneous costs on their proposal.  The process took more than two years and included one major revision and a handful of minor ones.  Just one PB hearing alone would have cost tens of thousands of dollars.

What was their return on investment?  Zero.  And they didn’t even have to go through TM.

The HD team must have gambled that much money because someone in a leadership position told them obtaining a permit would not be a problem and they stood to make a fortune.

To ask another developer to take the same risk is folly.  Who in their right mind would walk into TM with a expensive proposal, needing a 2/3 majority for a zoning change from a body that doesn’t know what it wants?  It’s suicide.

Wouldn’t you take your project instead to a neighboring community (pick one!) that has already amended its zoning code to allow for mixed use — a much safer, cheaper, and faster turnaround on your investment?

To break the stalemate in this staring contest, we must make the first move.

I don’t trust developers/Developers have hurt this town/We’ve had 30 years of bad developments

There are sleazy developers out there.  Other aren’t.  How do we attract the good ones?

Change the way we communicate with them.  And the primary way towns communicate with developers is with zoning codes.  Our zoning code is an outline for what we want built, and where.  (Cynics in the planning field often say that zoning code says what we don’t want since they generally exclude particular uses — in other words, planning by process of elimination.)

Our zoning code — like many in the suburbs — is old and outmoded.  Many zones are relics of the 1960s and 1970s, and times sure have changed.  An example is General Business, the zone that takes up most of Billerica Center, including the Mall.  This zone prohibits residential use and because of its ridiculously high parking requirement, the only way for a developer to make good money is to build a sprawling strip mall.  So is it any surprise we attract bad developers with bad projects?  Amend the zoning code, and we would have our choice of creative developments.

Developers are not evil.  They are in the business of making money, just like your employer is.  If the developer can make money while delivering us a project that we like and is good for the town, everybody wins.

I like the Center the way it is.  Leave it alone.

The problem we get into with this argument is that we are talking about two different centers.  Everyone loves Historic Billerica Center (Center Cafe — Common — gazebo — library — the building with the cobbler — first block of Andover Road, etc.).  Some fear that mixed use will ruin this section.  This a huge and unfortunate misunderstanding.  Mixed use would preserve the look of this part of town, while making it feasible for land owners in the historic part to spruce up their buildings.

Meanwhile, I refuse to believe that anyone enjoys looking at Ugly Billerica Center (Mall — Convenient Plaza — used car place — mound of dirt across from Friendly’s).  This section features broken-down pavement and curbing, no sidewalks, hideous buildings, too many driveways, traffic, and nothing interesting to look at.  This section is where we can see major improvements under mixed use.

New projects in the Ugly part would use visual elements of the Historic part that we like so much.

There won’t be anywhere to park

This puzzling and common fear can be answered simply.  No developer will propose anything that would have a shortage of parking.  The developers gain nothing by not having enough parking spaces for retail or office tenants or residents.  In other words, the developer cares 10 times more than you about this issue.  So fear not.  You will be taken care of.  You will have a place to park.

They’ll build two stories of apartments on top of the Mall or O’Connor’s

This is absolutely false for two reasons.  The first is merely structural — no one (except maybe Fenway Park) slaps two heavy building stories on top of a structure that can barely support the weight of its own roof (see Bllerica Mall).

Second, you can’t make any money doing it.  That’s why in your travels across this great land you have never seen apartments on top of a strip mall.  You would have have to sink a lot of money into altering the first floor anyway (to accommodate egress the dwellings, the Americans with Disabilities Act, etc.).  It’s much cheaper to tear down the existing building (which is old to begin with) and build an entirely new structure.

It will generate too much traffic

Almost all growth in the town center would be what planners call “infill.” That is, replacing old buildings on “underperforming” parcels with modern ones. There are few empty lots in the town center generating zero traffic today.

What this means is that we would be knocking down buildings — that generate traffic today — rather than just putting up new ones in empty lots. If we can replace old buildings that generate a lot of traffic with new ones that generate less, we can actually reduce the amount of car traffic in the town center.

Transportation engineers have been studying how different types of land uses generate traffic for decades. This experience is compiled in an industry-standard reference called “Trip Generation,” and its three-volume eighth edition was just released.

Not all land uses generate traffic at the same rate. There are some very high generators and others that are much lower. Here are some examples:

Land Use Type	Daily trips per 1,000 square feet (approx.)
Residential	5
Office	10
Retail-only shopping mall	50
Pharmacy w/drive-thru	90
Fast food w/drive-thru	500

As seen in the table, there is a very large difference between higher traffic generators and lower ones. A fast food restaurant with a drive-thru window attracts 100 times more trips per square foot as a residential building. Retail is a relatively high generator: the Home Depot mall would have produced nearly 20,000 trips every day. Part of the reason why there is so much traffic in the town center today is because over half the land use among the parcels inside the center is retail.

The bottom line is that if we trade away some high-generating retail space in favor of lower-generating residential and office, there will be fewer car trips and therefore less traffic.

Fix the roads and the traffic first

Public roads and private land must be planned together to manage traffic, create a walkable environment, and maximize safety for everyone. Billerica recently received some money for redesign of Boston Road in the center. (The town has already held its first meeting in association with this work, although it was very poorly attended.)

With mixed use and a re-engineering of Boston Road on the horizon, this is a tremendous opportunity for us to totally improve our entire center, including the roads and sidewalks. I am a professional transportation engineer with nearly 15 years of experience improving roads and intersections. I would very much like to volunteer my knowledge to help fix Boston Road. I have some concrete ideas and I have already met with the Town Engineer (Kelley Conway) to start brainstorming. Again, rather than complaining about traffic, we should take full of this opportunity we have before us.

It will use too much water

This answer is similar to the traffic question. Existing uses (such as the car wash) and former proposals (like the ¾-acre Home Depot garden center) use a tremendous amount of water. Water use in compact mixed-use buildings would likely be less than what we have today. One big reason why the EPA strongly endorses Smart Growth projects (such as mixed use) is because they are generally “greener” and use less natural resources, including water.

Many recent mixed-use projects (including the new residences in Lexington Center) are LEED-certified green buildings. We should demand the same in Billerica.

You can’t re-zone so many parcels at once.  It’s too scary.

First, just as a reminder.  The mixed use district would be an overlay so this would NOT be a zoning change. The existing zoning of each parcel remains in place.As  an overlay, it provides additional option for each landowner in the district. It takes nothing away from any land owner.

Now to the question, I would say the opposite. To upgrade each parcel, one at a time, is poor planning. Any professional planner (including our own Town Planner) will tell you that the whole point of land use planning is to take a look at an entire area and think about how you want it to look and how you want it to work. We want each proposal that comes in to fit into an overall long-range plan, so that design standards and details like materials, signs, lighting, etc. are uniform. If these projects come in rag-tag with no direction and they don’t relate to each other, we end up with a town center that looks like it was thrown together at random. And maybe most importantly, it sets an outline for developers that describes what we are looking for as a town before they even hire an architect and start drawing their proposal.

All we really need to do is rebuild the Mall.

We certainly need to tear down Billerica Mall, as soon as possible, before the roof collapses and someone gets hurt.  Or mold makes dozens of employees ill.  Or some other disaster happens there.  The building should have been condemned years ago.  But simply building a new version of the old Mall isn’t going to work, for reasons including:

1. The recession has completely changed retail development.  Fewer developers want to build overgrown strip malls now and there are close to zero banks willing to fund them.  (Funding for the new malls on Main Street in Wilmington was secured before the recession.)  This is in part because big box retail is not a risk-free prospect anymore — witness the utter failure of Linens ‘n’ Things, Circuit City, Tweeter, KB Toys, and Home Depot EXPO, to name a few, in the last few years alone.  Lenders and developers want to diversify a little bit now, and they are either expanding established malls (Simon-owned malls like Burlington) or building new “lifestyle centers” like Patriot Place or Legacy Place in Dedham.  Lifestyle centers are pedestrian-friendly and feature entertainment and fine dining.

2.  Abutters don’t want 350,000 of retail in their neighborhood.  Period.  They organized and opposed the last such proposal en force, and will again even if a developer comes forward with some other retail-only proposal.

A 1980s-style strip mall is unimaginative and creates more problems than it solves.  An idea appropriate for the 21st century — that will be here for decades — is what is required.

Look beyond 480 Boston Road, too.  In land use planning, all it takes is one parcel — and often a small one — to rebuild first, and the rest will follow.  So we improve our chances of the Center taking off dramatically if we open up several parcels to creative development rather than just one.

It’s too easy to build.  It’s a blank check for developers.

This argument is backwards, and dangerously so.  Consider two different projects below, a Wal-Mart coming in under General Business zone (the existing zoning) and a mixed use proposal under the overlay district.  Because of the Special Permit process required by  the overlay, the mixed use proposal would receive far greater scrutiny than the Wal-mart would:

	Wal-Mart with General Business	Mixed use project with overlay district
Review by Town Meeting	No	No
Review by Planning Board	No	Yes, under Special Permit
Opportunity for public input	Almost none	Yes, at several stages
As-of-right development	Yes	No
Level of mitigation expected	Low	High

If Wal-Mart walked into Town Hall with plans for one of their standard warehouse stores in hand, they would walk out with a permit in a few months.  That’s because a Wal-Mart fits within the General Business zone, and would therefore be “as-of-right.”  This is another way of saying they are within their rights to build it as per current zoning.  Even scarier, 480 Boston Road is big enough to squeeze three Wal-Mart stores onto.

Too make another comparison, it would be far easier to build a Wal-Mart in a General Business zone than a 40B apartment complex, and we know how fast those get through.

Put another way, developers have less power with mixed use zoning, not more.  Mixed use returns development power back to the citizens, where it belongs.

I don’t trust the Planning Board.

Town Meeting is not a land planning body.  I recognize TM (and only TM) has the power to alter the zoning code.  But the planning segment belongs to the PB (and the Master Plan).  That’s why we have the PB — and a professional planner (Peter Kennedy) on staff, I might add.  And a Master Plan.  If TMMs don’t trust the PB (or any other boards or commissions) than we have bigger problems.  If we do not trust the Town Planner, we should wipe out the planning department altogether, since he is wasting his time and our tax money.

PB members are elected.  If we truly do not trust them to handle the Mixed Use Special Permit process correctly, we are free to vote them out of office and replace them with people we do trust.

There will be too many school kids.

The residential component of mixed-use developments would most likely be studio and one-bedroom apartments or condominiums of between 800 and 1200 square feet.  Some may be two-bedrooms. These dwellings generally attract young professionals, empty-nesters, and retirees — in other words, few children.

Besides, the mixed-use zoning language explicitly allows the PB to set the number of bedrooms, which should directly affect the number of children.

It’s too dangerous for children to live there.

The largest-scale mixed use community in the US — Manhattan — has tens of thousands of children.  If New York parents thought the city was too dangerous for their precious kids, they would run screaming to Long Island and Westchester County. They don’t, and kids live healthy, happy lives in the Big Apple.

What we are thinking about here in our own Billerica, is on a much smaller scale.  In addition, mixed-use features plenty of open space, much of which will be used for parks and playgrounds, safely far away from the road.

Besides, the market will decide this.  If parents don’t want their kids playing in Billerca Center, they won’t move there, which solves the problem in the previous section.

Mixed use might be applied in places outside the center.

It might.  But TM will have a chance to vote on that, too.  And if abutters speak against such a proposal, I can’t see  many TMMs supporting it, if any.  Without the neighborhood’s support, trying to expand mixed use to places outside the Center would have no chance of getting 2/3 of the votes.

Selectmen Debate a Little Bit

I was able to watch the entire debate last night.  I missed most of the undercard — the School Committee — because I was chasing a toddler around and around the couch in the family room.

So here is a brief report of what transpired among the BOS candidates — two incumbents, two challengers.  Before getting into it, I want to express my appreciation to BATV for organizing and filming the debate live on TV.  Without the broadcast, I would have missed the event, as would a lot of other voters, I imagine.

Attendance was light — a few dozen in the audience at Buck Auditorium, I would estimate.  Family and friends, really.  Quite a contrast with the HD hearings in the same space, when a couple hundred would routinely show.  Or even the galleries full of Parker School folks at last Fall’s TM vote.  Reminds us that on the local level, it’s issues and projects that get people’s attention, not the election campaigns.  So while we in the press spend time and energy covering election season, let’s not lose sight of what ordinary citizen really care about.

And so much for “Scott Brown momentum.”  I thought there might be a renewed interest in public service after his historic victory.  Guess not.  This election feels like a sub-15% turnout again.

That’s party because, like the Red Sox spring training, there have been almost no hot stories.  And last night, none of the four candidates said anything we didn’t know before.  There was a lot of what I call “hand waving:” saying things like “we need to…” without following that thought with anything specific.  For instance:  Everyone said “we need to bring in more businesses into Billerica.”  OK, but that’s true every year.  Not one candidate had any ideas on how to specifically do that.  No demonstration that they understand what exactly business are looking for in a site and how we as a town can provide those things.  (As an aside, I believe that is goes beyond tax breaks and highway access — It requires new building infrastructure, which no one talked about.)

Overall, a rather dull evening.  If you were supporting Your Guy or Your Gal before the debate, you probably feel the same this morning.  It’s also doubtful The Show attracted any “futilsts” — people who are bored, indifferent, or fed up with politics.

And before I evaluate individual performances, I do want to mention that participating in a debate like this is not at all easy.  It might look easy to ask a few questions before a small audience, but it’s not.  Aside from the specter of speaking in public, which scares many non-professional politicians, there is a strict time limit which can totally throw you off.  I can imagine how frustrating that is to not be able to get your entire message out in just 60 seconds.  So please consider that before reading the following.

Mike Rosa

Style. Joyless.  Has the demeanor of someone who treats his position like a job and is entitled to have it back.  Small-town part-time elected people should not have that attitude at all.  Also sounds like he thinks he knows what he is talking about (which is good for a lot of votes when only 1 out 7 citizens bother to make it out to the polls).  If you spend 12 years in the same seat, you are bound to pick up a few things along the way.  But if we elected people on that basis alone, incumbents  would never lose an election.

Content. Bragged that he was someone involved with getting 15 tenants for empty space, but didn’t give an example and didn’t say how.  Didn’t say how 25% of our commercial space became empty over the course of his last 4 terms in office.  Best exchange of the night was when Chris Camire of the Lowell Sun asked Rosa if he would give up his town funded health insurance.  “If it would make a difference in a $120 million budget,” he said dismissively.  Every penny counts in a recession, eh Mike?

Paul Marasco

Style. Cluttered.  The time is perfect for a challenger and Marasco did not take advantage.  At times he came off as mildly disinterested, never taking shots at the people he is challenging.  Hard to defeat incumbents when you don’t explain why you’re better than them (or why they are worse).

Content. Light on substance, and said “teamwork” way too many times and he gave one answer that was entirely comprised of cliches.  Reminded me of the SNL sketch with Dana Carvey playing Bush Sr., saying “stay the course… a thousand points of light” over and over.  (Dan Lovitz as Dukakis responded, “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy.”)  Probably didn’t win too many votes with his performance.  Very disappointing, which is too bad because he is an excellent challenger.  He just didn’t show it on the dais last night.  His best moment when Camire asked about Billerica Mall.  While the other 3 panelists lamented the PB’s (read: former chairman Marasco’s) vote against Home Depot, he had an opportunity to set himself apart.  He pointed out that it the private citizens that killed HD  without (and even despite) the BOS — great point!  He said we have intelligent people in Billerica (although he didn’t finish the thought, I think he meant we are smart enough to recognize bad projects).  Then he read a section from the 2003 Master Plan (brilliant!) that says we are tying to get away from big box retail development.  Great setup… but no punch line.  That was the time to hammer Rosa for railroading mixed use, and he turtled.  Could have made his campaign.

Bob Correnti

Style. Solid.  If Obama “looked presidential” during debates, Correnti “looked selectman-ish” last night.  Again, he has the incumbent’s advantage, but he is the master of neutrality.  Says little to offend, which should be enough to get him reelected.

Content. Mostly treaded water.  Called up the sprawling strip mall developments in Wilmington as what we should do.  Played the “coulda been a contender” card with regard to HD, then later said the PB hearings were a “good process.”  So which is it then?  Was the PB’s denial of the HD permit good or bad for the town?

Pat Flemming

Style. Shaky.  She may be the one person on the panel that cares the most about being on the BOS.  I can see why people support her.  Exudes passion.  She told a rambling story about how her neighbors begged her to help with a water tower that needed to be fixed, and she did even though she was not an elected official at the time.  But during the debate she lost her place and her train of thought more than once.  Not selectman material.

Content. Like Correnti, said noting worth reporting.  Still have no idea what sets her apart from the incumbents.

Lots of:  Sewer talk, business development.  I know sewers are an important issue to people, but is there anything pressing on this right now?  The sewer project has been going for years and it will continue for years more.  Waste of debate time.

Missing: 40B, power plant, Parker School, creativity.  Why no questions to Flemming, who supported the Aspen 40B as a ZBA member vs. the other three who want no 40Bs at all?  Wanted fireworks there.  And where were the Parker parents challenging Rosa on his crusade against the new School?  Now that the Parker is going forward, have the Partners put away their considerable political power?

Debate winner: Chris Camire, Lowell Sun.  Asked the best question of the night about the mall.  When School Committee asked who would give up the stipend and insurance, Rosa evaded it.  But Chris followed up and got Rosa to admit he wanted to keep it.  Now that’s good reporting.

A final question.  Do the debates matter?  I hope they do, but consider that a year ago Michael Moore was the only soul to show up for the PB debate, and he came in third place.  Maybe the voters are watching, and maybe they are not.  But even if they are, last night’s moribund show won’t exactly electrify the electorate.

2010 TM Election Guide

I have opened up the 2010 election guide for Town Meeting seats.  I promised I would do this and now that the ballot has been released, I wonder why I even bother — there are races in only 2 precincts: #4 and #5.  In other words, in the other 9 precincts, there are fewer people running than there are open seats.  Of the 73 total candidates townwide, only 16 did not serve TM in 2009 and just 4 will not win a seat.

In precincts #3 and #8, the situation is pathetic.  I don’t like to use this word because it is so harsh, but interest in those two districts barely registers.  In #3, 6 people (all incumbents) are running for 15 seats.  In #8, 4 people (all incumbents) are running for 11 seats.  After the election, 9 of the 22 seats in #3 will be empty, 7 in #8.  Does anyone care?

I suppose it has always been this way in some regard.  Not easy to find 240 people out of about 23,000 voters to put in the time.  Still, competition always, always, always makes a better government, and there is little challenge to the ruling class in Buck Auditorium.  Make you wonder about the quality of leadership of those who snooze through the election and lurch in the Town Hall door, unimpeded, on opening night.  One indication: the precincts with the worst attendance records are those with the fewest people running.

Makes you wonder if representative TM is the right form of government for Billerica.

Two stories in the paper that question, with all the supposed outrage after the health care vote, whether the general public truly is engaged in politics.  In the small western Massachusetts town of Hawley (population 336), not one soul is on the ballot for the spring election.  There will be a ballot, but it will be blank, and seats will be filled by write-in — that is, if the people written in accept the jobs.  The other was an excellent op-ed in the Globe.  Political Exhaustion says that with all the ink the Tea Party has gotten, a vastly larger group is the “futilists.”  That is, people who have given up, are tired of the noise, or can’t be bothered any more.  Among the facts he reports: a CNN poll that says 60% feel democracy is not working anymore.

Maybe the cost of ObamaCare scares you.  But loss of faith in our form of government leaves me petrified.

Billerica Roll Call Updated

At long last I have added TM attendance records to the 2009 page of Billerica Roll call.  You can see if representatives in your precinct showed up last year.

Stay tuned to BRC this week — I will compile the 2010 election guide in that space.

Restating the Mission

Everyone once in a while some self-reflection is needed.  Often this comes in the form of a comment to the blob.  Recently Richard M wrote the following, and reminded me why I started doing this in the first place:

Jeffrey, you have a nice blog going here. I must say that while the coffee emporium was very conducive to relaxing and lingering it was simply squeezed out by the deluge of dunkin donuts and the fact that the townfolk of billerica are simply not into gathering together for coffee, friendship, and general town banter. This is not cambridge or somerville or even winchester where people are out and about on foot and look forward to meeting, greeting, and schmoozing with the locals. There are dense pockets of students and folks who are within walking distance of these other little places….and therefore they flourish. Not so in Billerica…..it is not a walkable town or center….thus the demise of coffee emporium.

While I don’t mean to sound negative…..there is simply no reason to hang out or meet anywhere in town center. It simply has nothing to offer. Unless the people, planning boards, and gov’t in general are prepared to turn town center into this type of place, there is no point in waxing poetic on the closing of a nice townie cafe closing. The reasons are obvious.
The town is shortsighted, the residents are apathetic, and town gov’t is woefully unable to push forward any vision for this town.

I hate to say this but I’d rather see Home Depot and a revitalization of the mall. People would come, the area would be cleaned up, and I’m willing to bet it would become a town meeting place where people see and greet each other again as in the past when the mall was relavent. Sorry, but I think thats the reality of Billerica. We are not and never will be Davis sq. or Harvard sq. or Lexington sq. or any other type place like them. We are what we are…..Dunkin Donuts, Demoulas, and drug stores. Whose fault is that? Our Own!

First, thank you for the compliment.  I started writing for the Minuteman opinion page about two years ago, and the blob is around 9 months old.  I still believe that just one person can make a difference in whatever he or she cares about.  My interest is to improve the town in which I’ve chosen to live and raise my kids.

I want my kids to have Places to meet their friends — not vast, empty parking lots edged by stores a kid has no reason to visit.  In order for Billerica to be “a great place to raise kids” — which I hear often — it must have more than a top-notch sports program.  It has to have attractive, family-oriented public spaces.

If you don’t believe me, just ask BMHS senior and fellow Local Voices columnist Dan Peltier, who tells us there is Nothing to Do in Billerica.  A letter to the Minuteman written by a student the previous week said the same thing.  Are we listening?  If you were 16, what where would you go in town on a Friday night?

And before you say “teen center,” we have thousands of retired people who need things to do, too, and a way to get there.  The answer is to make public spaces suited for everybody, a concept called Livable Communities.  (I first wrote about this earlier this year.)

I disagree with you, Richard, that people here are not interested in gathering or bantering.  When I went through the public process for my zoning amendment last spring, I met dozens of people, all of whom had strong opinions and weren’t shy about sharing them.  If we had a real, inviting gathering place where everyone felt welcome, it would be full.  See the Yankee Doodle Dandy day turnout as an example.  Rick’s cafe is a decent example, too, which is crowded even during the week.

Did Coffee Emporium fail because Billerica is not Cambridge or Somerville?  I don’t think so.  There is nothing magic about the people in those cities.  They come out because the places — and not just the Squares (Davis, Central, Harvard, Porter, Inman, etc.) — make it easy to come out.  Shopping and gathering places are close to home, and there are sidewalks.  The places are built that way, and we can do that also, in our own way.

I will grant you that Billerica, like most suburbs, is a classic bedroom community.  Almost half of all households have kids, and I can tell you from experience there’s just not much energy left at the end of the day to go out for a drink.  But there are countless other bedroom communities that have nice, thriving town centers in spite of their parent-heavy demographics.  Take Reading, for one.  Look around; you will find plenty of others, some which have a lower average household income than Billerica.

The idea that it can’t be done here because the place is to far gone makes me bristle.  Back in the day, Newburyport was called “Dresden.”  Look at it now.  I bought a house in Roslindale in 2000.  The village there was a so bad a few years before I moved in, no one wanted to be there at night.  Enter the Boston Main Streets program, which helped build a small market, and nearly overnight it was a destination.  It won national planning awards.  We complained that people from more upscale West Roxbury were stealing places our tables in our restaurants because they didn’t have enough of their own eating places.

Home Depot is not a meeting place.  It is a warehouse.

We can do better, as many other communities already have.  They’ve proven it is possible.  Yes, some people here don’t care because they never leave the house.  But there are enough people who do care, and they need leadership.

And, of course, a positive attitude.  So to Richard M, and the rest of you readers, have faith!  Trust yourself and your neighbors.  Years of stagnation is discouraging, but that is no reason to quit.  It’s your town.  Make it what you want.

This blob is my way of helping.  To provide information, answer questions, and give direction to people who do care. When political action is required, this can be a virtual meeting place.

Carry on.

Mixed Use Success Story — Newburyport

Interesting story in the Globe North section this past Sunday on Newburyport.  This town is an excellent day trip with nice stores, walkable streets, pleasant architecture, and great eating places.

But it wasn’t always that way.  This is a story of a group of people in the 1960s who went against convention to create something nice.  Rather than allow “urban renewal” — a rampant planning trend at the time that tore down attractive but downtrodden buildings — the group decided to preserve the structures and turn it into something positive.  They succeeded while other towns were making bland sprawl.

Today, that same group sees that Newburyport needs some touching up again.  They are starting a new group, raising some money, and generally just getting things done.

When I moved to Billerica, people told me that if there’s one thing about the place I should know, it’s that citizens are always willing to “roll up their sleeves” and get to work.  I’m sure this is true, but I guess I’m still waiting for that big moment when 100 people show up in the Mall parking lot, defiant, with 20-pound sledgehammers and a set of new plans.  Not yet.  Just a smattering of protest signs and contorted faces (“No to Home Depot!”; “Down with Mixed Use!”).

I will continue to post examples of places that have created Places with a capital P.  Maybe one of them, eventually, will inspire us to stand up and say, “Hey, we can do that here, too.”

March 5 Column

This is the first of a series of interviews with the candidates for the two open Board of Selectmen seats. The first is with incumbent Bob Correnti. The edited version appears in the newspaper, but here you can read Mr. Correnti’s responses unabridged.

Mr. Correnti’s answers are in boxes. I’ve added some of my own comments as well.

Q. Tell me about two accomplishments in your current term that you are most proud of.

Advocating the automated trash system is one recent example that comes to mind. Our solid waste budget (trash pickup services) is over $3 Million dollars with the costs increasing annually. Also as a community, we had not been doing well with recycling.. Something needed to be done. The automated trash collection system has been gaining acceptance by many communities. Working closely with Billerica’s solid waste contractor, our DPW Director evaluated the program. As I had noted at one of our Selectmen meetings, other communities realized significant savings after adopting an automated system. Further, with an automated system recycling participation increases, thus providing another cost savings as it reduces unnecessary trash in our waste stream while benefiting the environment. Therefore, these savings have helped the residential taxpayer by offsetting the increases in waste disposal fees. While change may be difficult to accept, I have been most impressed with the acceptance and adoption of this new system by Billerica residents. One other point: take notice on trash collection day and you’ll no longer see trash piled all over the curb with debris blowing around the neighborhood. So this became a “win/win” for all.

The recent arrival of Verizon FIOS in town is another example. As a member of the Cable Advisory Committee, I have been involved seeking to bring the benefits of cable competition to Billerica. For over a year, the Committee negotiated with Verizon. Through the hard work, patience and persistence of the Committee and the leadership of the Committee’s Chair, Kevin Conway, these efforts were realized and today residents have a choice and the opportunity to save money. In some instances, the cost savings for cable, internet and telephone are significant to residents!

Recently, I had the honor of bringing forth a “Community Covenant” reaffirming Billerica’s commitment to those serving in our military services. While Billerica has always had an active outreach to veterans, this covenant increases our determination to do all we can to support our military forces and their families. In turn, members of the military armed forces have committed their support to Billerica’s youth. For me, this covenant was another demonstration of our resolve to assist Billerica’s men and women in the service of our country. Through my efforts, unused funds were located and put to use to assist families of those actively deployed

I do enjoy that automated trash collection and the money it saved us.

Zombie Stumbles Again

The drip goes on

The Zombie Mall (AKA Billerica Mall) sprung some bad leaks during the big rainstorm. (I’ll wait while you recover from shock.) The Lowell Sun deftly reported the problem with photos.

This includes the one on the left. People of Billerica, this is your flagship retail center. As I have written before, it is only a matter of time before a flat roof that large, that old, and that poorly maintained will completely collapse. It survived the winter — there was not as much snow this season in previous winters — but its day is coming, and soon. Now amount of “refurbishing” will belay total structural failure of the roof, and replacing the entire thing would be expansive and — from a business point of view — a stupid investment by Zombie keeper, NYC-based RD Management.

This recent problem seems to be centered in the hallway that leads to the KMart and the newsstand. A few inches of standing water closed four of the business for the day on that end of the 335,000 square-foot building. The other end of the building (Market Basket, Dollar Tree) was not affected by this incident.

I don’t know how businesses can possibly operate in this environment. One of the members of the Board of Selectmen, Bob Accomando, owns Ma’s Dry Cleaning, which was one of stores that was forced to close. Bob is responsible for clothes belonging to hundreds of people. If the roof springs a leak above his space and ruins those articles, what will he say to his customers, most of whom are also his constituents? If I was him, KMart, the newsstand, or Burlington Coat factory, I would be furious.

When is enough enough? Are these businesses actively looking for new homes? If you broke your lease and RD Management sued you for unpaid rent, would any judge rule against you? How can the mall possibly attract new tenants? The latest rumor is that a gym is coming in, but would any sane businessperson sign a lease with this place? None of this makes any sense.

I have stopped going to Mall for anything except groceries. And it’s too bad, because Ma’s is a good business, and Burlington Coat has a lot of baby stuff close to home. We have to drive out of our way to get stuff we used to get there now. It’s not safe.

Makes you wonder how close it is to being condemned, for real this time.

An aside — the anonymous prairie dogs on the newspaper message boards always come out when the Mall makes the news. Their favorite comments:

“Blame the people that opposed Home Depot.” These people do not cause rain nor absentee landlords. We might have never even heard of Home Depot if the Zombie keepers had put some money into fixing up the place.  But in the Sun follow-up story, Mall tenant/Selectman Accomando made this very argument: “Everything would have been brand new. We wouldn’t be having these problems now.”  Thanks for playing, Bob.

Here’s a new one: “HD would have built a new mall for FREE.” Bingo! Except all private development projects are paid for by private funds and are “free” to the taxpayer.

The second Sun story tells us that the Town sent angry letters on official letterhead to RD Management.  I bet that gave the boys at corporate a good chuckle out of that, right before they filed it in the circular bin next to the last one they got after the mold story hit the local papers.

So this is the new guy’s problem now.  Good luck, Town Manager John Curran.  You’ll have a migraine-inducing choice to make over the next few months: 1. Close the place down for a mile-long rap sheet of safety violations, or 2. Lather, rinse, repeat.