February 10, 2026 – Economic Development Committee – Video & Transcript
February 10, 2026 - Economic Development Committee
Great. So, Michael, we'll just start the meeting really quickly, and then you'll be able to public comment.
So, this is the February 10th meeting of the Economic Development Committee.
Location for in-person meeting is wheelchair accessible. If you need other accommodations, please see our agenda. This meeting may be recorded, and if recorded, will be made available to the public on WACAM as soon as possible after the meeting. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted in person and or via remote means in accordance with applicable law. If this meeting has only remote access, no in-person attendance by members of the public will be permitted. If this meeting has remote access, one may watch or participate remotely with the meeting link that can be found on our agenda. So, with that, I will call to order. It is 837, and we are fully remote. So, as a quick roll call, Becky Stenizzi as chair, Karen Kelly, Nidhi Mahajan, Ali Pollat. Let's see. We have Jeff, right? Jeff Vecchio as members. And then Tom Fay is our liaison, who is joining us to discuss. So, with that, inviting any public comments. So, Michael, is it? Welcome you to take a comment if you'd like to. Thank you very much. I came into possession of a slide you had prepared or someone had prepared for your meeting in November regarding 50 townhouses on Orchard Lane. And I just had some questions as to, you know, in terms of when you developed the information on the slide, it spoke to basically $800,000 in tax revenue, but it didn't have any information regarding potential costs as well. Like the $4 million price. And I've been told by people on the select board that this was just a sort of a shot in the dark kind of thing and putting it out there. But, you know, when these things are put out publicly and someone's talking about building next to your house, you really want to try to understand the thought processes in terms of what people are going through, how real are things. And, you know, as a taxpayer for 42 years, I want to understand more what you folks are thinking because there's a lot of hysteria in town about all the Oxbow and, you know, people are just quite nervous and no one's really doing much to help calm people down and reassure people that, you know, their voices actually count. It's more just, Hey, we're going to add your stuff to the, for the warrant or whatever it's called. And, but it's, you know, when the town goes out and decides to spend $200,000, I guess they rely on you in terms of putting information together because you folks are the real estate experts. And so I wanted to ask you when I went through some calculations, which I did send to you Friday, um, by email, uh, to the EDC board and to you personally, actually George Harris gave me your email address and I, I did some calculations in terms of the cost to the town and the cost of the town based on the calculations that are in the letter, which I don't need to go through unless you'd like me to. I just took the town budget of 111 million, subtracted out the 13 million that wasn't taxes, tax related information, which came down to $97 million divided it by the 14,500 people live in Wayland coming to a cost of about $6,750 a person. Um, and then I took the 50 townhouses and just tried to figure out, you know, how many people might live in a place like that. So Michael, if I can interrupt you there. Um, so, um, I don't have an email. Did other board members receive an email? I sent it to the, I sent it to the EDC. You got it, Jeff? All right. So it was Friday? Yeah. Friday. And then I sent it again yesterday and the select board got it as well as finance committee. Okay. So with a lot of this, uh, again, the November was a discussion with the finance committee because we are facing financial straits in town. We're facing prop two and a half. The question is how can we potentially create some growth in certain areas and looking at a whole host of different options. So part of it is, you know, some of the excess town land that we have, the 13 acres of Orchard Lane is too small for a school. Um, but ultimately is sort of just sitting there and not doing much for us as a town, except for being sort of wooded open space. Right. And so the, the article and Tom, you can speak to it as more of the select board. Um, what should we do with that parcel? So from EDC's perspective, we would recommend, um, townhomes there. Um, they are sort of low impact. Nobody's proposing an Alta Oxbow there. It's literally, you know, townhomes. So, uh, it came up. Yes. Uh, when, when, uh, Bill Whitney was talking to one of the residents here in Orchard Lane, he mentioned three alternatives. One would be potential building lots, one would be townhouses, and one would be something, something dense, similar to Oxbow. Okay. Well, that's definitely not what we were proposing. And so part of this is really looking at that site and thinking through exactly all the questions that you just had. Because our November thing was sort of looking at it from perspective of what could it do potentially for the town. But clearly there's a lot of work that should be done. Um, looking at the site, what about the infrastructure? What about, I doubt there's any contamination up there. Well, how do we look at that site and sort of siting and setbacks? And how do we make it something that is palatable for everyone in the area, as well as doing something for the town? So we had proposed that as an idea. Um, but ultimately that's the article that's at town meeting that the select board proposed to really dive into all the issues and look at it and figure out, okay, well, what, what might go there? What could go there? Um, or nothing at all, ultimately, you know, but let's do our homework on the site. Um, Tom, do you want to speak to that at all? Well, is that, that's the genesis of what you guys have been looking at, correct? That's correct. I mean, you, Becky, you described it well, that this is the largest parcel that has an opportunity to improve tax revenue. You know, and it is under the jurisdiction of the schools, Bill Whitney reported last night at the Slack board meeting that, you know, he's chatted with the chair of the school committee. And she even suggested maybe putting school department on there as a possible, uh, beneficiary, if you will, of the land. And they're still exploring whether they would give up jurisdiction. So maybe it'll be a school, uh, but this is a, simply a exploratory effort to really do due diligence. So we can appreciate what could go there, what can't go there. If we did it differently, if we said, uh, you know, if we went at it as, okay, let's, let's, let's come up with one or two ideas to develop that property. Uh, people would say, well, have you even explored what could go there based on, based on the topography and, and utilities and that sort of thing? And the answer is no. So we think we're approaching this the correct way to appreciate what, uh, higher professionals to appreciate, you know, what, what, what could go there. And then, then the discussion would, would, would go from there.
Well, if I could ask the question, when you look at revenue, that's all well and good. I'm a bean counter. So, I mean, it just, I also look at expenses and to me, it becomes neutral to negative in the budget based on the fact that if you end up with 50 townhouses with between a hundred and 140 people living there, which is two people. Or if you take the number of homes in Wayland, you know, divided into the population, it's 2.8 persons home, which would be 140 people, um, times the calculation I just did in the budget. It's 6,750 a person. Then it's going to come up with $900,000 worth of cost or somewhere between eight and $900,000 worth of cost. And you're going to collect $800,000 worth of revenue. So that'll be part of the analysis, Michael, is looking at that. We did a very similar thing at all to Oxbow. People were freaking out. We're going to have so many school children. And so we actually did an analysis with a third party. How many school children do we anticipate there to really look at what are those tax revenues and what are the costs? So that would be part of that analysis. So I definitely respect your question. Those are exactly the right questions to be asking because some things, you know, if this is all single family home lots, we're going to be in the negative, right? Because if you have more than one school child, then, you know, per house, you're basically going to be overspending, right? So it's really that financial analysis and figuring out what works. So definitely hear your questions. These are great questions. And this is exactly what an analysis, kind of a step back. And it's not EDC. It's sort of a third party professionals looking at it and saying, let's look at this parcel from all the different perspectives. Great. Now, that's interesting in terms of what you mentioned. Then who is the company that does the analysis? And you mentioned the Alter Oxbow analysis that was done. I'm very interested in that as well, just because of the fact that people have mentioned Alter Oxbow. Potentially going into our backyard.
There's 238 people that live there, supposedly, according to the census, in 218 apartments. Michael, I apologize. We only have like half an hour and some people have to drop off at nine and public comments only a couple minutes. But I would definitely hear you. And so the Alter Oxbow, all of our analysis is on the planning board site. But it would be third parties. And it's really looking at this very methodically, exactly as you're doing. That's exactly what should be done. And I think it should be fair from EDC's perspective. We are not proposing an Alter Oxbow there. It doesn't make sense financially, et cetera. You know, I think that that is just it is maybe technically feasible, but nobody would ever do it. So I think that I would just hesitate in planning that in anyone's brain. But I think it is the question of, you know, could we have some townhomes that financially could do some great benefit for the town? But it needs all of that analysis. That is exactly what the article would be at town meeting to really look at that and figure out whether it's townhomes, whether it's playing fields, whether it's something for the school. That analysis has to be done on the site anyway. So let's do it. And then you can, with eyes wide open, make some decisions about what we'd like to do at that site. Okay. So planning board has the information that you talked about for Alter Oxbow? If you look at it, it's called River's Edge. Yep. And all the data is in there. If I can, I can send you the link because I know it's kind of hard to navigate our website. I'll find the links and I will definitely send it to you. Okay, great. And how old is that? Is that when you proposed the project or was that when the more current in terms of people who actually live there now? So that is the study beforehand. And then we know what the data is now. And I'm happy to discuss offline and I can share that with you. But it's definitely, we've only had approximately 10 to 15 school kids. So it's been a complete home run in terms of added tax revenues. So. Oh, I'd love to see that. Actually, if you could share that with me, that'd be great offline. Terrific. All right. Thanks for your help, Michael. Thanks for the comment. All right. Bye now. Okay. So, Tom, you wanted to just chime in really quickly. You guys had a select board meeting last night with the planning board. You just want to relay that as your public comment. Yeah, we had a good discussion on a number of issues. Most pertinent, I suppose, to your committee is we had a discussion on the establishment of a task force. And the members of the planning board expressed their concern about it and doing their points relative to jurisdiction. And we, you know, made the point that the planning board is very busy. And, you know, one of the planning board members acknowledged that. Most recently, of course, they're dealing with Dover amendment projects, which take up a lot of time. Um, so, uh, it was a good discussion and we'll, we'll, we'll see what, see what comes of it. My hope is some compromise can be made where task force can be established to recognize some of the concerns the planning board has. But, you know, my, personally, my main point was we need to move this along and get buy-in and expertise from staff in town, professionals in town. Um, so, we'll see, uh, um, So, how was it left as next steps? Um, there wasn't anything concrete, but I suspect the chair, uh, of the select board will put up another agenda for, uh, further, further discussion. And she reminded the planning board that the task force was one of the select board's goals. And, uh, so I think we'll just discuss it in another, uh, another meeting. So, I'll, uh, confirm that, Chair. Okay. All right. Anything else to add from last night? I think that, um, part of the meeting today is our infographic and getting information out for exactly the reason that our public commenter was saying, um, you know, what's going on? What are they, what are they talking about? And so, we're hearing some of this chatter and that's why we wanted to have this interim meeting and talk through some information to be able to push some of it out. Um, because we've kind of gone through in great detail with the FinCom, but not a lot of people have seen it, right? So, how do we get some of that information, um, out to people and understanding, uh, what some of these things are? So, uh, so with that, um, Tom, was there any discussion with the planning board about the article about, um, Route 20 West about, um, Dave Watkins' parcel? Yeah, there was, there seemed to be different information from the prior chief relative to the height proposed for that, um, those parcels. Um, and, um, so we'll have to iron, iron that out, basically whether the current equipment in town can accommodate a building of that height. And, you know, so, um, and other concerns about how, how it would look, whether it would set a precedent for other, um, other sites in town.
So, at this point, the article is going forward, though, correct? Um, I have heard it. Okay. I think, Jeff, there's a little bit of kickback. I don't know if other people are hearing buzzing. Can you, um, turn your mic off? Sure. Thanks. There we go. Okay. So, with that, um, so I'd sent around earlier last night. So, thank you to Needy for putting together the infographic with Katie, who just had her ACL operated on last Thursday, Friday, which is why she's not here. Um, but ultimately, um, being able to send out to our email blast list of everybody who, um, responded to the Route 20 polling, we've sent out information along the way. And it seemed a good time to kind of relay some of this data, some of which had really surprised even the FinCon, um, in terms of our commercial tax base and townhomes, et cetera. So, with that, particularly, like, the Jeff and Ali, you're seeing it for the first time, whereas Karen and I have been staring at part of it, and Needy and Katie have been looking at the infographic. Um, I mean, what did you guys, Ali and Jeff in particular, did it work for you from a perspective, if that's the email and then there's an infographic? What were your thoughts looking at it for the first time? I'll put it to you guys first, just because you have a sort of a fresh look.
So, Ali, you want to go ahead? Sounds good. Thank you so much. Um, thank you for sending it. Um, it actually, it actually looks really nice. It explains the concept, um, just for the infographic part. So, you know, when you design something visual like this, the first question we always ask is, like, who's the audience? And it's, it's, it's, it's basically the inhabitants of the town. I, I love the infographic. And I know we talked very briefly before, just a little bit. So, my only concern, not even a concern, maybe my two cents is, should we choose, like, one of the graphics in that infographic and make it as almost like an opening remark and say, look, compared to all other towns, this is where Wayland is. And then built the story directly on top of it. I'm just thinking, is it overwhelming for a lot of people who don't work with numbers? For me, it was great. It took me, like, 10 seconds to quickly look at it and then read it for a few minutes. And then I'm, like, on top of it. Okay, this is great. This explains the problem. This highlights the problem and explains why the problem exists. But that's, that's, again, only my two cents about it. I think it works the way it is right now. I, I, I love the fact that it actually shows the comparable analysis. And Framingham and Weston are, like, two different ends of that comparable analysis. And it's, it's great that it shows we're very close to Weston, which is known to have very expensive taxes, real estate taxes as well. So maybe people will think in that way as well. And I think it also shows that the fact that we're 2.8 and Sudbury is 5.8, I think that just tells the story. Because not in means of urban planning-wise, I mean, Sudbury is a very large town compared to us. But in means of, like, the character, the architecture, the feeling, they're pretty similar compared to others around us. So that, I think, explains the fact that we're missing a big item in our tax base that it's only at 2.8%. That, that was my understanding of it when I looked at it. So I think, so part of that is the big takeaway. I agree with that. Like, what do we want to have jump off the page? So I think, you know, as Karen, you had sort of started drafting sort of the overall email, the key is really that 2.8, right? And that's what we want to have jump off the page. So I think just hearing what you're saying, and it totally makes sense, then I think that that, and we had put it in the email, but I think it's also front and center. So the tax base over the years, by taking up so much, you know, that's two-thirds, and then the, the, the other one is like one-third. We really want it sort of flipped. And I don't know how we, did you have some other thoughts, Needy, and how to do the tax base over the years in that decline? Is there a way to make the, the 2.8, the bigger pie chart pop, and then tell the story in maybe another way or kind of a, you know, in relative size, it should be kind of flipped in terms of prominence. Yeah, and I don't think we need that many years of data. I would, I would either shrink it down to 10 years, or I'd pick 20, whatever, 2010, 2015, 2025, and show three tax bars to show the decline. Because I don't think the in-year movements are actually that relevant. You care about the starting point and the end point, candidly. Right. So, I'd be aware I would simplify it. Okay. All right. So, we can definitely do that. And typically, our infographics are sort of three columns wide. So, we have a little bit more room that we can add kind of something maybe off to the side or kind of add another column to be able to do that. And my only other comment on it, so the land allocation, so the developable land, we want to also have those comparisons so we can get that data, we'll input it. But it's really interesting how we compare to some of our peer towns in terms of undevelopable land. So, maybe that's sort of a separate box. But that will, that tells the tale of Wayland, really. It's like, how much commercial tax base do we have and how much do we have in just undevelopable land that is, it just doesn't help our tax base, right? It's lovely. We like open space. We like wetlands. We like the river. But it just means that you have to get more out of less land. So, yeah. The comps on that are not super easy to find. I spent a while last night looking. I don't know if anyone has that data easily accessible, but no one reports it the way that you cleanly sent it for Wayland. I had chat to BT, which I think I gave to Katie. I'll dig it back out because usually the towns do report it. But let me, did she send that to you or did I send that to you? No, but I also did sort of the AI version of it and it didn't get the Wayland one right. So, I don't have a high level of confidence in other towns if it doesn't match our own data. But I'd hesitate on, depending on when we want to send this, I would hesitate on being able to include the comps on undevelopable. Yeah. Yeah. So, we'll take a look at that. And usually why Wayland is off is because we did Mainstone in 2018, whenever it was. And that's a huge swing in our open space, right? And usually you can tell you look at the data. It's got to be post that. So, you and I can connect right after this, but we'll get that data and make sure that it's, we can back it up with multiple sources and we've got the right numbers. So, Jeff, did you have anything you wanted to relay? Anything that didn't make sense or? Yeah. When I read the, yeah, when I read the infographic, when I, when I first look at it, it comes across to me as if it's a two taxpayer town. Like there's a commercial rate and a residential rate, which is not, like, that's how I read it. It seems like it's, it's a two taxpayer town and that there's two different rates. That's kind of how it's coming across to me for some reason. Yeah. I actually thought about that too. And maybe if there's a third column, you could have a little box. Do we have a split tax rate? Sometimes do we don't. Right. I think that's important for people. And if we're understanding the commercial tax base, I think that's important little snippet that people understand commercial is taxed the same way. Yeah. Right. Like you can't get to, you know, a dual rate town unless you have more commercial. And if you have more commercial, you know, typically, you know, the, the commercial rate is higher. So you can make up a little bit of ground, even though your commercial tax base is far, is far less than your residential, you know, like in a town like this, you know, maybe the, if the residential rate's 18, the commercial is like 22, 25. Yeah.
Okay. So we can add that. Any comments from you, Karen, on the infographic to massage in or otherwise? No, I think I, I was not aware of what Jeff just brought up. So I would, my brain wouldn't even go there to ask that question, but it's great that you folks have enough background information about real estate taxes that, yeah, sounds like a good ad. And I just, I think it looks really good. And I am, I just like the land allocation piece, I think is really important. And the one last thing on that, which we don't need to update for this, but I was asking Becky about last night, is that to even further underscore the point that we have so little land left to build on period is like of that 35% that's built slash developable is like how much has already been developed. We don't need it for this. But I think to me, that's like the final piece of the puzzle to really show people, like we have very little land left to develop. And so let's all think about it from that perspective. But I think this looks awesome. And thank you, Niti, for doing it. Of course. So with the undevelopable, Karen, you and I talked about that. It's a great, like figuring out that metric. And part of it is that you might have something that's underdeveloped, right? It just has a small little commercial building and it could be something larger based in zoning. But ultimately, Ali, with GIS, can you actually kind of create that? What sites are developable but undeveloped and then partially developed and developed out to full zoning? You can do that, I imagine? Yeah, we can. I mean, so we can look at it from a few different perspectives. One would be the floor area ratio, like density regulations. I think pretty much for all single-family lots in Wayland, we're going to see that they're all underdeveloped, but that's the nature of it. Sure. I mean, not a single analysis gives us the magical number, but we're going to run multiple analysis, one after each other, and then we can find, like, the, let's say, 10 potential sites that we think they're super underbuilt, underutilized, and would be available for redevelopment. We could do that, yes. As long as we have some data, part of the data we already have, which is, like, a separate discussion, I know, but we could definitely, with Towns data and support, I can run, like, we could all, I can set up in an interactive map that, in one meeting, we can just sit in there like a workshop and then just run the numbers and see what comes back. Okay. Okay. Anything else in the infographic before we go to the email? And I know, Nady, you're about to run out of time, so, right, didn't you have to drop at 9? Yeah. Okay, we have quorum, so you can drop if you need to. So, as we go to the email, any comments on that? How is it reading that for the first time, Ali? Did it make sense?
And, Tom, I actually sent it to you as well. You can take a look at it. But it's basically using the cover email to get a little bit more data out there, but particularly, you know, our two biggest things happening in town are Town Center and Terrain, and they're not necessarily going to be helping our tax base right out of the gate, which is a little depressing. But ultimately, it's just life, right? And so, let's get that out there and understanding, you know, what does then move the needle? So, kind of bring that information out. So, without having any, you know, saying we're working on these things, we'll continue, we'll have some polling, you know, getting people engaged and feeling they can be part of the process. But what did you think with the email, Ali or Jeff? Did you have any comments to those or questions? Anything that was unclear?
I like the email. I think it's very informative. Just one graphic comment about the email, if it is going to go with the format that we're looking at right now. You know, the first pie chart we have, how Wayland's tax base works. If it is easy enough, I would rotate it 90 degrees, have those two little slices towards the right side of it, where we have a lot of white space, and really increase the font size in there. Because right now, it actually looks like residential is the biggest, with the bold and white, which makes sense. But that's not the problem. The problem is that the others are too small. I mean, it's kind of like both of them are the problem, but we should probably, and trying to drag it as much away as, like, from the residential, and trying to show that, you know, the commercial and the other is actually very small. I think that, because we have real estate in there, so we could just use that white space. We can do that. Yep, that makes sense. Becky, does it make sense, I think you're going to email this out to people. Does it make sense to reach out to the Wayland Post and have them do an article on this and have them include all these graphics? I think you'll get a larger audience. We could actually write something, I think. I'll reach out to June and see, because we should, right? We should, what's in this email, we should have it be in the Wayland Post as well, so people are seeing it from a couple of different directions. That's a really good idea. Let me reach out to June, because ultimately, it's not necessarily, you know, people do profiles and articles. So we would just be contributors, I think, would be the best way, just to make sure that the message is clear and it gets across.
Good idea. Okay. Anything else, Jeff, in the email or otherwise?
No, I think the email is pretty spot on. I think it's good. So, Tom, if you wanted to digest a little bit closer, if you have any comments or otherwise, just you can relay to the group. But it's basically getting the information out there, but particularly two of them. Yeah, I mean, because we have two articles coming up at Town Meeting that are in this vein. So one is the money for Orchard Lane. Two is the zoning, which we're not necessarily for or against at this point. We're not even aware of what those details are. But it's clearly, you know, that's the spot for density. You know, what that density is is another question, but ultimately, it makes sense. So it just gives a little bit of backstory for those articles. But, Tom, with that, we can't advocate, right? Like, if we can't email to, we can't advocate for pro or con, we can just say, this is a topic at Town Meeting and leave it, right? That's what we're allowed to do. That's right. You can advocate that you can provide information. Provide information. Okay. So we'll be super careful on that when we're talking about the Town Meeting articles. Well, our board meets, I believe, next to the 23rd. And I'm not sure what your timing is here, but maybe you can polish those off and shoot them to me, and I'll bring it up to the select board on the 23rd. And so they know what you're thinking and go from there. Well, at this point, we were thinking about getting it out before we were getting out this week just because there is so much chatter, like, with the public comment, right? And so, ultimately, I don't know, unless there's something, I mean, this is all stuff that was already in our presentation to the select board, to the FinCom. There's nothing new here, right? I think the only new data is literally, you know, what is, where did terrain and town center sell at? And that's public record. So, if that's all right with you, you know, I'd love to kind of work it through, but take a quick look. So, I'll just confirm the time manager and the select board chair, and I'll compare to you in the next couple of days. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah, so if we could get it out before school vacation. You're going to tweak it a bit, so just shoot me the final product. That'd be great. Okay. We can definitely do that. All right. So, do I hear a motion to approve this with subject to final tweaks, as we've been discussing? Motion to approve. Do I hear a second? Second. Second. Second. Jeff, all in favor. Karen? Aye. Allie? Aye. Jeff? Aye. And Becky, aye. All right. Approve 4-0 to make last tweaks and then to circulate. All right. So, with that, we follow up data from Finance Committee. So, I've asked again for data from Brian Keveney, which I know he's working on some other stuff. So, hopefully we can shake that loose. So, we don't have it yet. But this is literally asking him for the 10-year projection of where taxes are going. And then, ultimately, we can overlay no growth, medium, you know, low, medium, high growth, and see what that looks like in terms of – and putting it in perspective of a taxpayer. What is your tax bill? Because that's the easiest way for people to understand it because often, you know, otherwise you talk about the budget and, you know, millions of dollars and it just doesn't quite sink in. So, your tax bill, is it going to go from $15,000 to $30,000, you know, like whatever it is. Let's see what those curves are. So, hopefully we'll have that for our next meeting. All right. Anything else before we adjourn?
Okay. So, our next meeting will be Friday, I think it's the 27th. So, it's the week after school vacation week. So, I'll circulate around an agenda.
So, with that, do I hear a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Karen, second? Second. Jeff, second. All in favor? Karen? Aye. Aye. Ali? Aye. Aye. Jeff? Aye. Becky, aye. 4-0. We are adjourned at 9-10. 9-19. Good day, everybody. All right. We'll see you. Thanks. Have a good day. Thank you.
Location for in-person meeting is wheelchair accessible. If you need other accommodations, please see our agenda. This meeting may be recorded, and if recorded, will be made available to the public on WACAM as soon as possible after the meeting. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted in person and or via remote means in accordance with applicable law. If this meeting has only remote access, no in-person attendance by members of the public will be permitted. If this meeting has remote access, one may watch or participate remotely with the meeting link that can be found on our agenda. So, with that, I will call to order. It is 837, and we are fully remote. So, as a quick roll call, Becky Stenizzi as chair, Karen Kelly, Nidhi Mahajan, Ali Pollat. Let's see. We have Jeff, right? Jeff Vecchio as members. And then Tom Fay is our liaison, who is joining us to discuss. So, with that, inviting any public comments. So, Michael, is it? Welcome you to take a comment if you'd like to. Thank you very much. I came into possession of a slide you had prepared or someone had prepared for your meeting in November regarding 50 townhouses on Orchard Lane. And I just had some questions as to, you know, in terms of when you developed the information on the slide, it spoke to basically $800,000 in tax revenue, but it didn't have any information regarding potential costs as well. Like the $4 million price. And I've been told by people on the select board that this was just a sort of a shot in the dark kind of thing and putting it out there. But, you know, when these things are put out publicly and someone's talking about building next to your house, you really want to try to understand the thought processes in terms of what people are going through, how real are things. And, you know, as a taxpayer for 42 years, I want to understand more what you folks are thinking because there's a lot of hysteria in town about all the Oxbow and, you know, people are just quite nervous and no one's really doing much to help calm people down and reassure people that, you know, their voices actually count. It's more just, Hey, we're going to add your stuff to the, for the warrant or whatever it's called. And, but it's, you know, when the town goes out and decides to spend $200,000, I guess they rely on you in terms of putting information together because you folks are the real estate experts. And so I wanted to ask you when I went through some calculations, which I did send to you Friday, um, by email, uh, to the EDC board and to you personally, actually George Harris gave me your email address and I, I did some calculations in terms of the cost to the town and the cost of the town based on the calculations that are in the letter, which I don't need to go through unless you'd like me to. I just took the town budget of 111 million, subtracted out the 13 million that wasn't taxes, tax related information, which came down to $97 million divided it by the 14,500 people live in Wayland coming to a cost of about $6,750 a person. Um, and then I took the 50 townhouses and just tried to figure out, you know, how many people might live in a place like that. So Michael, if I can interrupt you there. Um, so, um, I don't have an email. Did other board members receive an email? I sent it to the, I sent it to the EDC. You got it, Jeff? All right. So it was Friday? Yeah. Friday. And then I sent it again yesterday and the select board got it as well as finance committee. Okay. So with a lot of this, uh, again, the November was a discussion with the finance committee because we are facing financial straits in town. We're facing prop two and a half. The question is how can we potentially create some growth in certain areas and looking at a whole host of different options. So part of it is, you know, some of the excess town land that we have, the 13 acres of Orchard Lane is too small for a school. Um, but ultimately is sort of just sitting there and not doing much for us as a town, except for being sort of wooded open space. Right. And so the, the article and Tom, you can speak to it as more of the select board. Um, what should we do with that parcel? So from EDC's perspective, we would recommend, um, townhomes there. Um, they are sort of low impact. Nobody's proposing an Alta Oxbow there. It's literally, you know, townhomes. So, uh, it came up. Yes. Uh, when, when, uh, Bill Whitney was talking to one of the residents here in Orchard Lane, he mentioned three alternatives. One would be potential building lots, one would be townhouses, and one would be something, something dense, similar to Oxbow. Okay. Well, that's definitely not what we were proposing. And so part of this is really looking at that site and thinking through exactly all the questions that you just had. Because our November thing was sort of looking at it from perspective of what could it do potentially for the town. But clearly there's a lot of work that should be done. Um, looking at the site, what about the infrastructure? What about, I doubt there's any contamination up there. Well, how do we look at that site and sort of siting and setbacks? And how do we make it something that is palatable for everyone in the area, as well as doing something for the town? So we had proposed that as an idea. Um, but ultimately that's the article that's at town meeting that the select board proposed to really dive into all the issues and look at it and figure out, okay, well, what, what might go there? What could go there? Um, or nothing at all, ultimately, you know, but let's do our homework on the site. Um, Tom, do you want to speak to that at all? Well, is that, that's the genesis of what you guys have been looking at, correct? That's correct. I mean, you, Becky, you described it well, that this is the largest parcel that has an opportunity to improve tax revenue. You know, and it is under the jurisdiction of the schools, Bill Whitney reported last night at the Slack board meeting that, you know, he's chatted with the chair of the school committee. And she even suggested maybe putting school department on there as a possible, uh, beneficiary, if you will, of the land. And they're still exploring whether they would give up jurisdiction. So maybe it'll be a school, uh, but this is a, simply a exploratory effort to really do due diligence. So we can appreciate what could go there, what can't go there. If we did it differently, if we said, uh, you know, if we went at it as, okay, let's, let's, let's come up with one or two ideas to develop that property. Uh, people would say, well, have you even explored what could go there based on, based on the topography and, and utilities and that sort of thing? And the answer is no. So we think we're approaching this the correct way to appreciate what, uh, higher professionals to appreciate, you know, what, what, what could go there. And then, then the discussion would, would, would go from there.
Well, if I could ask the question, when you look at revenue, that's all well and good. I'm a bean counter. So, I mean, it just, I also look at expenses and to me, it becomes neutral to negative in the budget based on the fact that if you end up with 50 townhouses with between a hundred and 140 people living there, which is two people. Or if you take the number of homes in Wayland, you know, divided into the population, it's 2.8 persons home, which would be 140 people, um, times the calculation I just did in the budget. It's 6,750 a person. Then it's going to come up with $900,000 worth of cost or somewhere between eight and $900,000 worth of cost. And you're going to collect $800,000 worth of revenue. So that'll be part of the analysis, Michael, is looking at that. We did a very similar thing at all to Oxbow. People were freaking out. We're going to have so many school children. And so we actually did an analysis with a third party. How many school children do we anticipate there to really look at what are those tax revenues and what are the costs? So that would be part of that analysis. So I definitely respect your question. Those are exactly the right questions to be asking because some things, you know, if this is all single family home lots, we're going to be in the negative, right? Because if you have more than one school child, then, you know, per house, you're basically going to be overspending, right? So it's really that financial analysis and figuring out what works. So definitely hear your questions. These are great questions. And this is exactly what an analysis, kind of a step back. And it's not EDC. It's sort of a third party professionals looking at it and saying, let's look at this parcel from all the different perspectives. Great. Now, that's interesting in terms of what you mentioned. Then who is the company that does the analysis? And you mentioned the Alter Oxbow analysis that was done. I'm very interested in that as well, just because of the fact that people have mentioned Alter Oxbow. Potentially going into our backyard.
There's 238 people that live there, supposedly, according to the census, in 218 apartments. Michael, I apologize. We only have like half an hour and some people have to drop off at nine and public comments only a couple minutes. But I would definitely hear you. And so the Alter Oxbow, all of our analysis is on the planning board site. But it would be third parties. And it's really looking at this very methodically, exactly as you're doing. That's exactly what should be done. And I think it should be fair from EDC's perspective. We are not proposing an Alter Oxbow there. It doesn't make sense financially, et cetera. You know, I think that that is just it is maybe technically feasible, but nobody would ever do it. So I think that I would just hesitate in planning that in anyone's brain. But I think it is the question of, you know, could we have some townhomes that financially could do some great benefit for the town? But it needs all of that analysis. That is exactly what the article would be at town meeting to really look at that and figure out whether it's townhomes, whether it's playing fields, whether it's something for the school. That analysis has to be done on the site anyway. So let's do it. And then you can, with eyes wide open, make some decisions about what we'd like to do at that site. Okay. So planning board has the information that you talked about for Alter Oxbow? If you look at it, it's called River's Edge. Yep. And all the data is in there. If I can, I can send you the link because I know it's kind of hard to navigate our website. I'll find the links and I will definitely send it to you. Okay, great. And how old is that? Is that when you proposed the project or was that when the more current in terms of people who actually live there now? So that is the study beforehand. And then we know what the data is now. And I'm happy to discuss offline and I can share that with you. But it's definitely, we've only had approximately 10 to 15 school kids. So it's been a complete home run in terms of added tax revenues. So. Oh, I'd love to see that. Actually, if you could share that with me, that'd be great offline. Terrific. All right. Thanks for your help, Michael. Thanks for the comment. All right. Bye now. Okay. So, Tom, you wanted to just chime in really quickly. You guys had a select board meeting last night with the planning board. You just want to relay that as your public comment. Yeah, we had a good discussion on a number of issues. Most pertinent, I suppose, to your committee is we had a discussion on the establishment of a task force. And the members of the planning board expressed their concern about it and doing their points relative to jurisdiction. And we, you know, made the point that the planning board is very busy. And, you know, one of the planning board members acknowledged that. Most recently, of course, they're dealing with Dover amendment projects, which take up a lot of time. Um, so, uh, it was a good discussion and we'll, we'll, we'll see what, see what comes of it. My hope is some compromise can be made where task force can be established to recognize some of the concerns the planning board has. But, you know, my, personally, my main point was we need to move this along and get buy-in and expertise from staff in town, professionals in town. Um, so, we'll see, uh, um, So, how was it left as next steps? Um, there wasn't anything concrete, but I suspect the chair, uh, of the select board will put up another agenda for, uh, further, further discussion. And she reminded the planning board that the task force was one of the select board's goals. And, uh, so I think we'll just discuss it in another, uh, another meeting. So, I'll, uh, confirm that, Chair. Okay. All right. Anything else to add from last night? I think that, um, part of the meeting today is our infographic and getting information out for exactly the reason that our public commenter was saying, um, you know, what's going on? What are they, what are they talking about? And so, we're hearing some of this chatter and that's why we wanted to have this interim meeting and talk through some information to be able to push some of it out. Um, because we've kind of gone through in great detail with the FinCom, but not a lot of people have seen it, right? So, how do we get some of that information, um, out to people and understanding, uh, what some of these things are? So, uh, so with that, um, Tom, was there any discussion with the planning board about the article about, um, Route 20 West about, um, Dave Watkins' parcel? Yeah, there was, there seemed to be different information from the prior chief relative to the height proposed for that, um, those parcels. Um, and, um, so we'll have to iron, iron that out, basically whether the current equipment in town can accommodate a building of that height. And, you know, so, um, and other concerns about how, how it would look, whether it would set a precedent for other, um, other sites in town.
So, at this point, the article is going forward, though, correct? Um, I have heard it. Okay. I think, Jeff, there's a little bit of kickback. I don't know if other people are hearing buzzing. Can you, um, turn your mic off? Sure. Thanks. There we go. Okay. So, with that, um, so I'd sent around earlier last night. So, thank you to Needy for putting together the infographic with Katie, who just had her ACL operated on last Thursday, Friday, which is why she's not here. Um, but ultimately, um, being able to send out to our email blast list of everybody who, um, responded to the Route 20 polling, we've sent out information along the way. And it seemed a good time to kind of relay some of this data, some of which had really surprised even the FinCon, um, in terms of our commercial tax base and townhomes, et cetera. So, with that, particularly, like, the Jeff and Ali, you're seeing it for the first time, whereas Karen and I have been staring at part of it, and Needy and Katie have been looking at the infographic. Um, I mean, what did you guys, Ali and Jeff in particular, did it work for you from a perspective, if that's the email and then there's an infographic? What were your thoughts looking at it for the first time? I'll put it to you guys first, just because you have a sort of a fresh look.
So, Ali, you want to go ahead? Sounds good. Thank you so much. Um, thank you for sending it. Um, it actually, it actually looks really nice. It explains the concept, um, just for the infographic part. So, you know, when you design something visual like this, the first question we always ask is, like, who's the audience? And it's, it's, it's, it's basically the inhabitants of the town. I, I love the infographic. And I know we talked very briefly before, just a little bit. So, my only concern, not even a concern, maybe my two cents is, should we choose, like, one of the graphics in that infographic and make it as almost like an opening remark and say, look, compared to all other towns, this is where Wayland is. And then built the story directly on top of it. I'm just thinking, is it overwhelming for a lot of people who don't work with numbers? For me, it was great. It took me, like, 10 seconds to quickly look at it and then read it for a few minutes. And then I'm, like, on top of it. Okay, this is great. This explains the problem. This highlights the problem and explains why the problem exists. But that's, that's, again, only my two cents about it. I think it works the way it is right now. I, I, I love the fact that it actually shows the comparable analysis. And Framingham and Weston are, like, two different ends of that comparable analysis. And it's, it's great that it shows we're very close to Weston, which is known to have very expensive taxes, real estate taxes as well. So maybe people will think in that way as well. And I think it also shows that the fact that we're 2.8 and Sudbury is 5.8, I think that just tells the story. Because not in means of urban planning-wise, I mean, Sudbury is a very large town compared to us. But in means of, like, the character, the architecture, the feeling, they're pretty similar compared to others around us. So that, I think, explains the fact that we're missing a big item in our tax base that it's only at 2.8%. That, that was my understanding of it when I looked at it. So I think, so part of that is the big takeaway. I agree with that. Like, what do we want to have jump off the page? So I think, you know, as Karen, you had sort of started drafting sort of the overall email, the key is really that 2.8, right? And that's what we want to have jump off the page. So I think just hearing what you're saying, and it totally makes sense, then I think that that, and we had put it in the email, but I think it's also front and center. So the tax base over the years, by taking up so much, you know, that's two-thirds, and then the, the, the other one is like one-third. We really want it sort of flipped. And I don't know how we, did you have some other thoughts, Needy, and how to do the tax base over the years in that decline? Is there a way to make the, the 2.8, the bigger pie chart pop, and then tell the story in maybe another way or kind of a, you know, in relative size, it should be kind of flipped in terms of prominence. Yeah, and I don't think we need that many years of data. I would, I would either shrink it down to 10 years, or I'd pick 20, whatever, 2010, 2015, 2025, and show three tax bars to show the decline. Because I don't think the in-year movements are actually that relevant. You care about the starting point and the end point, candidly. Right. So, I'd be aware I would simplify it. Okay. All right. So, we can definitely do that. And typically, our infographics are sort of three columns wide. So, we have a little bit more room that we can add kind of something maybe off to the side or kind of add another column to be able to do that. And my only other comment on it, so the land allocation, so the developable land, we want to also have those comparisons so we can get that data, we'll input it. But it's really interesting how we compare to some of our peer towns in terms of undevelopable land. So, maybe that's sort of a separate box. But that will, that tells the tale of Wayland, really. It's like, how much commercial tax base do we have and how much do we have in just undevelopable land that is, it just doesn't help our tax base, right? It's lovely. We like open space. We like wetlands. We like the river. But it just means that you have to get more out of less land. So, yeah. The comps on that are not super easy to find. I spent a while last night looking. I don't know if anyone has that data easily accessible, but no one reports it the way that you cleanly sent it for Wayland. I had chat to BT, which I think I gave to Katie. I'll dig it back out because usually the towns do report it. But let me, did she send that to you or did I send that to you? No, but I also did sort of the AI version of it and it didn't get the Wayland one right. So, I don't have a high level of confidence in other towns if it doesn't match our own data. But I'd hesitate on, depending on when we want to send this, I would hesitate on being able to include the comps on undevelopable. Yeah. Yeah. So, we'll take a look at that. And usually why Wayland is off is because we did Mainstone in 2018, whenever it was. And that's a huge swing in our open space, right? And usually you can tell you look at the data. It's got to be post that. So, you and I can connect right after this, but we'll get that data and make sure that it's, we can back it up with multiple sources and we've got the right numbers. So, Jeff, did you have anything you wanted to relay? Anything that didn't make sense or? Yeah. When I read the, yeah, when I read the infographic, when I, when I first look at it, it comes across to me as if it's a two taxpayer town. Like there's a commercial rate and a residential rate, which is not, like, that's how I read it. It seems like it's, it's a two taxpayer town and that there's two different rates. That's kind of how it's coming across to me for some reason. Yeah. I actually thought about that too. And maybe if there's a third column, you could have a little box. Do we have a split tax rate? Sometimes do we don't. Right. I think that's important for people. And if we're understanding the commercial tax base, I think that's important little snippet that people understand commercial is taxed the same way. Yeah. Right. Like you can't get to, you know, a dual rate town unless you have more commercial. And if you have more commercial, you know, typically, you know, the, the commercial rate is higher. So you can make up a little bit of ground, even though your commercial tax base is far, is far less than your residential, you know, like in a town like this, you know, maybe the, if the residential rate's 18, the commercial is like 22, 25. Yeah.
Okay. So we can add that. Any comments from you, Karen, on the infographic to massage in or otherwise? No, I think I, I was not aware of what Jeff just brought up. So I would, my brain wouldn't even go there to ask that question, but it's great that you folks have enough background information about real estate taxes that, yeah, sounds like a good ad. And I just, I think it looks really good. And I am, I just like the land allocation piece, I think is really important. And the one last thing on that, which we don't need to update for this, but I was asking Becky about last night, is that to even further underscore the point that we have so little land left to build on period is like of that 35% that's built slash developable is like how much has already been developed. We don't need it for this. But I think to me, that's like the final piece of the puzzle to really show people, like we have very little land left to develop. And so let's all think about it from that perspective. But I think this looks awesome. And thank you, Niti, for doing it. Of course. So with the undevelopable, Karen, you and I talked about that. It's a great, like figuring out that metric. And part of it is that you might have something that's underdeveloped, right? It just has a small little commercial building and it could be something larger based in zoning. But ultimately, Ali, with GIS, can you actually kind of create that? What sites are developable but undeveloped and then partially developed and developed out to full zoning? You can do that, I imagine? Yeah, we can. I mean, so we can look at it from a few different perspectives. One would be the floor area ratio, like density regulations. I think pretty much for all single-family lots in Wayland, we're going to see that they're all underdeveloped, but that's the nature of it. Sure. I mean, not a single analysis gives us the magical number, but we're going to run multiple analysis, one after each other, and then we can find, like, the, let's say, 10 potential sites that we think they're super underbuilt, underutilized, and would be available for redevelopment. We could do that, yes. As long as we have some data, part of the data we already have, which is, like, a separate discussion, I know, but we could definitely, with Towns data and support, I can run, like, we could all, I can set up in an interactive map that, in one meeting, we can just sit in there like a workshop and then just run the numbers and see what comes back. Okay. Okay. Anything else in the infographic before we go to the email? And I know, Nady, you're about to run out of time, so, right, didn't you have to drop at 9? Yeah. Okay, we have quorum, so you can drop if you need to. So, as we go to the email, any comments on that? How is it reading that for the first time, Ali? Did it make sense?
And, Tom, I actually sent it to you as well. You can take a look at it. But it's basically using the cover email to get a little bit more data out there, but particularly, you know, our two biggest things happening in town are Town Center and Terrain, and they're not necessarily going to be helping our tax base right out of the gate, which is a little depressing. But ultimately, it's just life, right? And so, let's get that out there and understanding, you know, what does then move the needle? So, kind of bring that information out. So, without having any, you know, saying we're working on these things, we'll continue, we'll have some polling, you know, getting people engaged and feeling they can be part of the process. But what did you think with the email, Ali or Jeff? Did you have any comments to those or questions? Anything that was unclear?
I like the email. I think it's very informative. Just one graphic comment about the email, if it is going to go with the format that we're looking at right now. You know, the first pie chart we have, how Wayland's tax base works. If it is easy enough, I would rotate it 90 degrees, have those two little slices towards the right side of it, where we have a lot of white space, and really increase the font size in there. Because right now, it actually looks like residential is the biggest, with the bold and white, which makes sense. But that's not the problem. The problem is that the others are too small. I mean, it's kind of like both of them are the problem, but we should probably, and trying to drag it as much away as, like, from the residential, and trying to show that, you know, the commercial and the other is actually very small. I think that, because we have real estate in there, so we could just use that white space. We can do that. Yep, that makes sense. Becky, does it make sense, I think you're going to email this out to people. Does it make sense to reach out to the Wayland Post and have them do an article on this and have them include all these graphics? I think you'll get a larger audience. We could actually write something, I think. I'll reach out to June and see, because we should, right? We should, what's in this email, we should have it be in the Wayland Post as well, so people are seeing it from a couple of different directions. That's a really good idea. Let me reach out to June, because ultimately, it's not necessarily, you know, people do profiles and articles. So we would just be contributors, I think, would be the best way, just to make sure that the message is clear and it gets across.
Good idea. Okay. Anything else, Jeff, in the email or otherwise?
No, I think the email is pretty spot on. I think it's good. So, Tom, if you wanted to digest a little bit closer, if you have any comments or otherwise, just you can relay to the group. But it's basically getting the information out there, but particularly two of them. Yeah, I mean, because we have two articles coming up at Town Meeting that are in this vein. So one is the money for Orchard Lane. Two is the zoning, which we're not necessarily for or against at this point. We're not even aware of what those details are. But it's clearly, you know, that's the spot for density. You know, what that density is is another question, but ultimately, it makes sense. So it just gives a little bit of backstory for those articles. But, Tom, with that, we can't advocate, right? Like, if we can't email to, we can't advocate for pro or con, we can just say, this is a topic at Town Meeting and leave it, right? That's what we're allowed to do. That's right. You can advocate that you can provide information. Provide information. Okay. So we'll be super careful on that when we're talking about the Town Meeting articles. Well, our board meets, I believe, next to the 23rd. And I'm not sure what your timing is here, but maybe you can polish those off and shoot them to me, and I'll bring it up to the select board on the 23rd. And so they know what you're thinking and go from there. Well, at this point, we were thinking about getting it out before we were getting out this week just because there is so much chatter, like, with the public comment, right? And so, ultimately, I don't know, unless there's something, I mean, this is all stuff that was already in our presentation to the select board, to the FinCom. There's nothing new here, right? I think the only new data is literally, you know, what is, where did terrain and town center sell at? And that's public record. So, if that's all right with you, you know, I'd love to kind of work it through, but take a quick look. So, I'll just confirm the time manager and the select board chair, and I'll compare to you in the next couple of days. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah, so if we could get it out before school vacation. You're going to tweak it a bit, so just shoot me the final product. That'd be great. Okay. We can definitely do that. All right. So, do I hear a motion to approve this with subject to final tweaks, as we've been discussing? Motion to approve. Do I hear a second? Second. Second. Second. Jeff, all in favor. Karen? Aye. Allie? Aye. Jeff? Aye. And Becky, aye. All right. Approve 4-0 to make last tweaks and then to circulate. All right. So, with that, we follow up data from Finance Committee. So, I've asked again for data from Brian Keveney, which I know he's working on some other stuff. So, hopefully we can shake that loose. So, we don't have it yet. But this is literally asking him for the 10-year projection of where taxes are going. And then, ultimately, we can overlay no growth, medium, you know, low, medium, high growth, and see what that looks like in terms of – and putting it in perspective of a taxpayer. What is your tax bill? Because that's the easiest way for people to understand it because often, you know, otherwise you talk about the budget and, you know, millions of dollars and it just doesn't quite sink in. So, your tax bill, is it going to go from $15,000 to $30,000, you know, like whatever it is. Let's see what those curves are. So, hopefully we'll have that for our next meeting. All right. Anything else before we adjourn?
Okay. So, our next meeting will be Friday, I think it's the 27th. So, it's the week after school vacation week. So, I'll circulate around an agenda.
So, with that, do I hear a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Karen, second? Second. Jeff, second. All in favor? Karen? Aye. Aye. Ali? Aye. Aye. Jeff? Aye. Becky, aye. 4-0. We are adjourned at 9-10. 9-19. Good day, everybody. All right. We'll see you. Thanks. Have a good day. Thank you.