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Selectmen Want a Successful Legacy Farms Fruit Street School price tag, $36 million
by Muriel Kramer December 8, 2010 — The Board of Selectmen debated the wisdom of amending the Legacy Farms Host Community Agreement (HCA) at their work session last night; in preparation for more formal discussion at next week’s Board meeting, the Board considered the implications of accepting the document as a “living document” open to changes in the future. Selectman Ben Palleiko made the point that it shouldn’t be considered a “living document”; “I personally believe that is a bad path.” He continued that the town shouldn’t set the precedent that the developer can simply and freely negotiate changes to the HCA in order to address future changes in the economic climate.
John Mosher spoke in agreement. “I don’t interpret this as a living document.” He did advocate accepting however that there has to be room to talk about changing the document, “...to get everything right on the first swing with a huge project is against the odds.”
Chairman RJ Dourney stated, “In concept I agree with Ben, but what we ultimately want is a successful development.”
Legacy Farms has a proposal before the Town to make some changes to the rental component of the project, and the town has asked its consultant from Community Opportunities Group Judi Barrett to analyze the impact of those requested changes. That analysis is in its final revision and will be available for consideration before next week’s meeting. Developer Roy MacDowell has requested modifications that include increasing the percentage of one-bedroom units, decreasing the percentage of two-bedroom units and eliminating altogether the three-bedroom units in the rental component of the proposed development.
The HCA was negotiated in 2008 and established agreements intended to benefit the project and the Town; the central premise is that the overall development at Legacy Farms needs to be revenue positive for the Town. Understanding that some components of the overall project are revenue negative or neutral for Hopkinton, the agreement sought to ensure that the town’s financial interests were protected throughout the development phases. The Selectmen next week will entertain whether or not the HCA should be modified, if so then how should it be modified. They will also consider at next week’s meeting how to direct the negotiating team if changes are to be made.
Palleiko asserted, “I can get comfortable with this if it is in the interest of advancing the interests of the town in some way.” Continuing, he argued that the town should benefit in some way if changes are to be negotiated at the request of the developer. Not to be punitive but rather protective, “...a bit costly to keep the requests from getting too frequent.” He further made the point that the changes being requested don’t seem to be within the original framework or matrix used in the original negotiation; “They are not asking us to rework the matrix; they are stepping outside it and asking us to re-cut the matrix. I think the request is contemplated outside the HCA.”
After a break for executive session for contract negotiations, the Board continued its work session meeting with the School Committee to discuss the upcoming request for a Special Town Meeting and Election to consider the new elementary school being proposed for the Fruit Street site; that school is now estimated to cost just over $36 million with the State reimbursing at least 40% of that cost.
The new school at Fruit Street will allow the School Department to retire Center School and use that building for other uses, possibly town offices and/or school administration offices. Building the new school will also allow the School Department to more easily forward their long term goal of districting the younger grades using the new school, Elmwood and Hopkins to accommodate grades k through 5 in three separate town wide districts. Additionally, School Committee Chair, Rebecca Robak, added that the School Department hopes to utilize Center School as a “swing space” to house students when future renovations are done to Elmwood School. Those renovations were last estimated to cost $12 million.
School Superintendent, Jack Phelan made the point that it is “a prudent investment to spend $12 million to maintain and improve the existing structure versus replacing the school at an estimated cost of $40 million.” While improvements to Elmwood School are not reimbursable from the State as part of the current project for the Fruit Street site, the town could contemplate a separate Statement of Interest for State re-imbursement for that work in the future.
Dr. Phelan addressed the belief that the new school was being proposed largely to support districting. “The new school presents an opportunity to re-district, but that is not the reason for the new school. The School Department remains committed to districting the elementary schools and will pursue that initiative even if the new school is not approved at Special Town meeting this year. Dr. Phelan made the point that districting the elementary grades is universally seen as a positive approach in the education community.
The arguments supporting districting include reducing the number of educational transitions for students, improving staff ability to provide for students needing additional academic support, and developing stronger ties between parents and the schools given the students will remain in the facility for six years. Further, transportation costs should be reduced and better controlled, professional teacher development will be easier given all elementary teachers will be on the same schedule and educational accountability will improve given that the principal and staff will have control over the students’ education for six consecutive years.
The School Department is committed to retiring Center School. School Committee member Troy Mick commented that as part of the MSBA process in considering the 1800 school building projects proposed, they toured all the facilities and considered Center School to be one of the 50 worst facilities under discussion.
Looking forward to scheduling issues, the School Department expects a final answer from the Massachusetts State Building Authority on February 9th and will seek the Selectmen’s support for a Special Town Meeting with an election following in March 2011; the MSBA guidelines require a decision from the Town within 120 days of issuing their approval.
The group also discussed the challenges onsite with several stakeholders invested in using the site in the future. Ultimately it falls to the Board of Selectmen to manage future development at the site. The difficulties balancing the water protection issues, the existing access road and current DPW storage barn, as well as future development of the school were briefly discussed. Selectman John Mosher made a pitch to work hard to preserve the existing “temporary” fields on site that may or may not be salvageable depending on development constraints of future uses at Fruit Street.
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