WALTHAM - Usually an enormous potential for growth is considered a good thing, but for many concerned residents that is not the case.
Residents last night met with City Planner Ted Fields to discuss an almost year-old Community Development Plan that outlines potential growth and provides a mission statement on how the city should respond. Residents want to know why this May 2006 plan has yet to be adopted or approved by City Council.
"This has been in the making for too long and our city is literally going under because there is no control," said Doris Donovan, who organized the meeting and is president of the Waltham Council of Neighborhood Advocates.
City residents have long been worried about development and accompanying traffic on busy streets and intersections. As a result, the Planning Department and city officials held several public meetings starting in 2001 to develop a master plan - outlining where Waltham stands now and defining a collective vision for the future.
A CDP final draft was released in May. The document says that maximum special permits could allow for 42 million square feet of additional commercial development and 12,200 added single- or multifamily homes. By right, the city has potential for 2.9 million square feet of commercial and 5,700 new homes.
City infrastructures, roadways, stormwater systems and emergency workers, would be overwhelmed if development were to reach that level, Fields said. The master plan includes goals for open space, affordable housing, and downtown revitalization. Fields said the key is striking a balance between reasonable development and the other needs of the city.
"That amount of development would hinder all those other goals," Fields said.
City Councilor at large Patrick O'Brien is a member of an ad hoc Master Plan Committee charged with approving the CDP by June. O'Brien explained that zoning ordinances and special permits play a vital role in shaping the city's development and councilors need this over arching plan to think about the bigger picture when voting on a particular project.
"Zoning is the key - that is the power that we have as a people and as a council," O'Brien said, adding that he feels the council should be turning down more special permits and zone changes that come before them.
Former City Councilor Michael R. Squillante was involved in the early stages of the plan's development and said the master plan could be a helpful tool for developers as well as councilors. A comprehensive plan, he said, might deter developers from proposing oversized plans where they are unwanted. Both parties would be able to look at the bigger picture, he said.
"No developer has come in to say, 'I want my building to be smaller,' because it's going to cause too much traffic," he said.
If community members have a vision for the future, they have to tell their elected officials, said WCONA member Bill Fowler. Fowler urged residents to come out to the ad hoc Master Plan Committee meetings and offer input as the councilors go over the plan section by section. Fowler said once the plan is voted on, it needs to be followed.
"Any zoning plan has to have some teeth in it, it can't just be easily overturned by special permit," he said.
The Master Plan Committee will meet at 6 p.m. Monday to discuss the open space portion of the plan in City Hall's Henry Hoover Room. Ward 2 Councilor Edmund P. Tarallo, another member of the ad hoc committee, said it is important for councilors and citizens to agree on the principles in the plan and to use them to move forward.
"You have to know where you're going in order to get there," Tarallo said.
Alex Marthews, executive director of the Waltham Alliance to Create Housing, said the CDP should include "tangible planning" on where and how to build the affordable housing needed in the city. Marthews said WATCH sees people every day who grew up in Waltham and no longer can afford the cost of living.
"As part of the master plan, we need to be making provisions for the working families of the city," Marthews said.
Councilor at large Kathleen B. McMenimen talked about the changes she has seen in the city over her 30 years on the council. She said she has been pro development when it was the right kind of growth in the right areas. For instance, she supported development along Rte. 128 during the boom of the 1980s because the business growth benefited taxpayers and revitalized the economy. However, she said she does not and will not support such large scale development downtown with all of the existing traffic.
Mayor Jeannette A. McCarthy also attended the meeting. McCarthy spoke about a Global Traffic Plan for the city, a parallel effort to the CDP that would consider current and future development and how it would impact city streets.
Some residents at the meeting suggested that all special permits be halted until the master plan is approved. On March 12 the council will hold a special permit hearing for a 551,000-square-foot mixed use complex on Green Street. The project is about twice as large as would be allowed under existing zoning.
The CDP is available on the Planning Department page of the city's Web site.
Nicole Haley can be reached at nhaley@cnc.com or 781-398-8004.
