On April 26, 2010, the Annual Town Meeting voted on a series of zoning articles that represented changes in zoning around Madison Street, around Wampum Corner and at the intersection of Thurston Street and Route 1. In each case, the amendments were generally to change zoning from residential to business /commercial. At the Town Meeting, these changes were rejected by very large margins. For example, the Madison Street proposal lost by 245 to 5, and the Wampum Corner proposal was similarly defeated. But, while these attempts have failed, we fully expect that they will return again and again in some form to future town meetings.

This edition of The Wrentham Citizen focuses on reexamining whether these changes will achieve the goals sought or whether they are a way to “sacrifice the few residents” to benefit certain developers.

Wrentham, like most communities in Massachusetts, is suffering from a lack of revenues. While operating costs are fixed since they are mainly labor and benefits for full-time employees, including money to pay for retirement, revenue is down and is constrained by a poor economy and Proposition 2½ which limits the year-to-year increase in property taxes. The general answer has been to look at business /commercial development, on the principle that these zoning changes do not add children to school. But this approach ignores other infrastructure costs that such development requires. Also, a lot of business /commercial development is for mixed use, which will include apartments in the mix, meaning that it will also add school children to the schools.

This paper looks at the following questions to see if this approach will meet the goals sought.

• Do homeowners benefit from changes promoting industrial growth? What is the experience of other towns that have pushed for more commercial growth?

How important is “rural character” to residents in Wrentham? The people of Wrentham have consistently selected “rural character” and “natural features” as the most desirable features of Wrentham. That was the result of the IEP Growth Study done in 1987, and was likewise the result in the Vision Committee voter survey of 1999. Those surveys, plus a survey done by the Conservation Commission in the 1990s, and a recent

ballot question, have all resulted in a strong and consistent support for “rural character”, “natural features” or for protection of open space, a key factor in “rural character” in Wrentham.

Conservation of resources is not only critical to the environmental health of the area, but is also the key component in maintaining rural character. Diminished forested and open lands, reduced availability of drinking water and the continued threat of suburban "sprawl" are threats to our quality of life.

What does the Master Plan require? In June 2004, the Town completed work on the Master Plan. The previous Master Plan had been completed in 1975 and was obsolete. The goal of the master plan is to systematize the path to future development and full build-out of all land in Wrentham. In other words, the master plan defines a future vision of Wrentham and then encourages actions (such as changes in zoning or preservation of open space) to achieve that vision.

Preservation, conservation and affordability are the three principles that guide the Master Plan’s Vision statement: “The Town of Wrentham seeks to actively preserve its New England charm and character through conservation of rural areas and its Village Center, while pursuing a defined development strategy. It is our Vision that the Town of Wrentham maintain and enhance a high quality of life, and be affordable, for all of its residential and corporate citizens. Wrentham citizens, their elected boards and appointed committees, will be guided by this vision.” Despite those who continue to dismiss the preservation of rural character as quaint and unrealistic, it is this character that the community most wants protected. It is why people move here and why they want to stay. It is the real value of the town.

The first recommendation on zoning in the Master Plan Report was to “Improve the economic and fiscal viability of all commercial zones without expanding the current commercial zone boundaries.” (See page 251). The proposed changes therefore go against this Master Plan.

Special Permit vs. Site Plan Approval: Wrentham’s current zoning bylaws require a Special Permit for most commercial/industrial uses. This special permit process plays a vital role in protecting the rural character of Wrentham and the quality of life of its citizens. It, as well as Site Plan Approval, require that abutters be notified of pending applications, provides a forum at which abutters and residents can provide input and voice concerns. Further, Special Permits allow the Planning Board to impose conditions and even reject an application if they believe that the proposed use is detrimental to the town, and provides a formal local appeal process for abutters aggrieved by a decision. A benefit of a Special Permit is that it requires a supermajority vote, i.e. 5 out of 7. The final benefit to the Special Permit process is the ability of the Host Committee to negotiate infrastructure improvements or other benefits to the town with the developer. For example, this committee negotiated with Chelsea GCA (Wrentham Outlet Mall) for substantial improvements in infrastructure. This is not possible with a Site Plan Approval since the use is given “as of right” and the Planning Board can not prohibit a permitted use.

With Site Plan Approval, any project is provided to the developer “as of right”, i.e. these changes are already allowed. In this case, the town does not have the ability to negotiate with the developer and derives no benefit. The current Planning Board seems to favor this approach.

Do home owners benefit from zoning changes that favor industrial growth? The proposed zoning amendments will encourage commercial and industrial growth. The supporters of these changes claim that they will bring in more revenues and reduce the residential tax burden. Does this model of reducing residential tax rates through uncontrolled commercial /industrial development hold true? Let us look at the residential tax rates in neighboring towns.

The following table shows 2010 residential tax rates in dollars per thousand dollars of value for selected towns as provided by the Massachusetts Dept. of Revenue. These towns have been ranked in ascending order of tax rates.

Town	FY 2010	FY 2010	FY 2010
	Resid’l Rate	Comm’l	Resid’l
	$/thousand	Rate	/Total


No. Attleboro	$ 10.44		77.7%
Wellesley	$ 10.48		88.4%
Dover	$ 10.92		97.5%
Weston	$ 11.10		96.3%
Attleboro#	$ 11.20	$ 18.28	83.2%
Lincoln#	$ 11.47	$ 15.09	96.3%
Natick	$ 11.67		76.2%
Bellingham* #	$ 11.96	$ 16.79	71.4%
Franklin	$ 12.03		78.1%
Plainville*	$ 12.57		77.6%
Walpole#	$ 12.64	$ 16.47	86.0%
Wrentham#	$ 13.12	$ 14.98	81.7%
Mansfield#	$ 13.33	$ 15.33	76.0%
Millis*	$ 13.64		90.2%
Norfolk*	$ 14.07		93.4%
Ashland*	$ 15.10		91.2%
Hopkinton*	$ 15.76		83.3%
Holliston*	$ 16.32		88.1%
Foxboro*	NA		NA

Cambridge#	$ 7.72	$ 18.75	64.5%
Boston#	$ 11.88	$ 29.28	61.4%

* ten towns used by Wrentham for comparison of salaries and other issues

# split tax rate; higher rate for commercial

At the top, with tax rates around $10 to $11, are towns with very little business or industry. (The exception is North Attleborough, which is industrialized and does not have a split tax rate, but still has a low residential tax rate. This could be the effect of the large Emerald Square Mall.)

In the middle, with tax rates between $12 and $14, are towns like Wrentham, Plainville, Franklin or Bellingham, who are well along this path of industrialization. Some of these towns have split tax rates (i.e. there are different rates for residential and business/commercial) and others do not.

In the range above $14 are towns that don’t have a split rate and are not industrialized.

The table also shows, in column 3, towns that have a split tax rate, where the residential tax rate is reduced by increasing the business /commercial tax rate. This gap is particularly noticeable for Attleboro, Walpole, Bellingham, Cambridge and Boston.

The fourth column shows the split between the residential rate divided by total revenues for each town. Again North Attleboro seems to be an exception; but it is interesting that Franklin, Plainville and Wrentham fall in the range of 78 to 82% residential to total. Surprisingly, Natick is only slightly more industrialized at 76%. The overall difference between Wrentham and Franklin is that Wrentham’s growth is mainly at the Mall. This has allowed Wrentham to have industry while still retaining its “rural character”.

Proponents of commercialization in Wrentham allege that while each child requires about $9,000 for educational spending, a commercial/industrial entity does not. Therefore, residential development is labeled a tax drain while commercial development is supposed to benefit the tax base. The actual data in the table do not support this theory because the proponents do not take into account other demands for infrastructure required to serve business/ industrial development, such as additional police, fire, DPW services and equipment, sewers/sewage treatment plants, etc. All of these changes result in an increase in the size and cost of town government. Also, the change in zoning to allow multi-family housing will increase the population of school-age children, crowd the classrooms and also increase taxes.

Franklin, Plainville and Bellingham also illustrate the point in that in spite of their growth in commercial sectors, they have large financial deficits and will still have to undertake major additional investments in their infrastructure. Current information shows that Franklin is looking for $3 million and an override to fund this gap. Mansfield cut off all school sports but then restored them. The latest information is that they will take $873,000 from funds for employees’ retirement, obviously a one-time deal. It appears that about 75 teachers jobs have been lost in the last three years, but the protests here have been minimal. Foxborough is looking for $650,000 to $1.5 million. These are current numbers and will change as the FY 2011 budgets come together. After all, all budgets have to be balanced before the beginning of the new Fiscal year. In comparison, Wrentham’s shortfall of ½ million, caused mainly by an increased assessment from King Phillip High School, seems more manageable.

These shortfalls can only lead to higher tax rates or overrides, all of which will result in a higher overall residential tax burden. It would seem that such business /commercial development mainly helps to increase the number of full-time town employees but does not help in any other area.

The final argument to explain lower tax rates in towns like Weston, Wellesley or Dover is that the property values in those towns are high, resulting in a low tax rate. While the Commonwealth has no readily available data to compare the values of the same type of house in different towns, the flip side of this argument suggests that housing values are depressed in commercially developed towns. This is not a surprising conclusion, given peoples’ preference for towns with rural character, such as Wrentham in its current form.

The spate of zoning changes showing up at town meeting in the last year or two might suggest that Wrentham’s growth is being constrained by the lack of adequate zoning. But this too is incorrect. In the past several years, the Planning Board has approved several large projects that have not been built as yet. These include a facility at the old KOA camp ground, the Kenworth truck facility, the warehousing facility near the Simione property, rezoned land near the Norfolk /Wrentham border, and so on.

Smart growth? Proponents of dense, large, multi-family development have stated that such zoning changes support a “smart growth” concept. Smart Growth is a combination of techniques that propose an alternative to traditional suburban subdivisions to reduce the reliance on the automobile. By not using the automobile for every trip outside the home, not only do people get exercise, but traffic and auto emissions are reduced. If people can walk to work and walk to a store, or take a bus or train to work, many of these goals are achieved. But, achieving this on a large scale requires good public transportation. In a community like Wrentham, good public transportation is not available and is not likely to be available in the foreseeable future.

While some walking can be encouraged through zoning changes that promote neighborhood stores, the success of discount superstores like Walmart, Home Depot, Marshalls, and so on, have depopulated downtown stores in many towns. The problems of stores in Attleboro Center after the Emerald Square Mall was opened is just one example. This trend argues against the financial success of such neighborhood stores. When large apartment building /condo complexes are constructed without access to good and frequent public transport, the wage earners still commute to work in cars; typically two cars per household. This means that if public transportation is not conveniently available, dense apartments lead to dense traffic and there is no “smart growth”. In any event, the traffic gridlock issue has not been addressed in the development of these zoning changes.

Sewers: Another aspect of dense development is that they require sewers and sewage treatment plants to handle the large quantities of waste water that such development generates. Although Wrentham has twice defeated sewers, this issue is not over.

Recently, the Planning Board has tried to eliminate a clause in Section 15 of the current Zoning Bylaws which controls the density of housing in Aquifer Protection Districts. The current bylaw limits sewage loading to 440 gallons per day per 40,000 square feet. This means that it allows no more than 4 bedrooms per acre in Aquifer Protection districts.

Aquifers are underground reservoirs of water which exist in porous gravel beds and are our only source of drinking water in Wrentham. Aquifer Protection Districts are land areas that supply water to the aquifers from rainfall and snowmelt. Almost all of the area to the north of I-495 and some area to the south of it are Aquifer Protection Districts for the Town’s current municipal wells.

As stated earlier, the current bylaw limits sewage loading to 440 gallons per day per 40,000 square feet in Aquifer Protection districts. Once this clause is eliminated, it would allow much higher densities, making possible the construction of apartment /condo buildings and other high-density residences in these areas, relying on sewage treatment plants that discharge into the drinking water aquifers. (Note however that this would also be allowed if the building is built under 40B.) High density development, residential or commercial/ industrial, will rely on sewage treatment plants to treat the wastewater and will discharge effluent into the ground. This has the potential to pollute our drinking water supplies.

The builders of these dense units will rely on a DEP policy that allows sewage treatment plants to discharge treated wastewaters in an Aquifer Protection District as long as nitrogen in the discharge is under 10 parts per million. The approach of focusing solely on nitrogen does not protect drinking water from other, more dangerous pollutants. The proponents of this change argue that nitrogen removal technology is new and innovative and was not available when the Aquifer Protection Bylaw was passed. This claim is incorrect. The Aquifer Protection Bylaw was passed in the early 1990's at a time when nitrogen removal technology had been available and in use for over 50 years.

The DEP also allows credits for nitrogen removal in a separate location. This allows nitrogen removal at remote locations within the same watershed so that the builder can go beyond the 440 gallons per acre limit by using Innovative/Alternative technology in a separate location.

In a case in the Federal Court in Boston, MWRA vs. United States Environmental Protection Agency, the judge concluded that land use controls (like limiting density) were a better approach to protecting drinking water than technology to treat this water after it was polluted. DEP’s Source Water Assessment and Protection (SWAP) program rank’s the susceptibility of Wrentham’s aquifers to contamination by pathogens and chemicals as high. The recently published SWAP report also comments favorably on Wrentham’s Aquifer Protection bylaw stating that it “meets DEP’s best efforts for wellhead protection.” Elimination of this limitation will open up residential areas of Wrentham to densely-packed multi-family homes with sewers and/or sewage treatment plants.

Prof. Tchobanoglous, the country’s leading expert in wastewater treatment has expressed grave concerns about using sewer plant discharge as a source of drinking water. He has expressed his concerns that there is no affordable treatment for non conventional and new pollutants. These include organic compounds such as nitrosoamines, endocrine disrupters and their breakdown products, prescription and nonprescription drugs, veterinary and human antibiotics, home care products, industrial and household cleaning products, sex hormones, steroids and so on. Already, many of these constituents have been measured in a variety of sewage plant effluents at concentrations that are known to cause environmental impacts and have been implicated in elevated rates of cancer.

Summary

• The budget deficits faced by most towns will continue until there is a turnaround in the economy.

• Most residents are unwilling to trade the “rural character” of Wrentham, which caused them to move here in the first place, for business /industrial growth.

• It does not appear that just increasing business /industrial zoning will answer the deficit.

• There are going to be some changes in the way that contracts are negotiated with various town employee unions. Dept of Revenue shows that Wrentham’s health care costs are almost twice those of other neighboring towns of similar size.

• An answer might be to increase the valuation ratio of residential to commercial as Bellingham has done.