The town meeting vote Monday to approve the Second Avenue Planned Development District continues a trend in Burlington over the past few years of approving almost anything the development community asks for.
This trend includes a complete disregard for zoning provisions that have been added in the past. The most obvious example is the FAR or foot area ratio that was passed a number of years ago. The purpose of that provision was to control density and reduce the amount of impervious surface in these developments. This is of particular importance in the aquifer resource district. By preventing the entire area within the development from being covered with building or asphalt, the idea was that it would enable ground water to be able to recharge itself around the Great Meadow, the area of the town's main well field.
At the conclusion of the meeting Monday I asked how the development would fit in the FAR restrictions and a member of the planning board told me the project completely "blew the FAR out of the water."
The Aquifer Overlay District was passed years ago primarily because of events that occurred in the area of this particular development. In the early fifties the town was anxious for industrial development and had approved a number of manufacturing companies that were involved in up to that point unfamilar chemical processes. The major use was manufacturing of printed circuit boards and other electronics facilities that used strange new solvents which later much to our chagrin we learned were volatile organic compounds such as trichlorofluoroethane.
As the years wore on these companies were found to have been discharging these chemicals directly into the town's sanitary sewer lines. This would have been Boston's problem because the lines go down to Deer and Nut Island and finally out to Boston Harbor. These chemicals, however, had a very corrosive effect on the asbestos lined cement sewer pipes and ultimately the flow simply dissolved the lines so that eventually the effluent was seeping into the ground as it left the facilities.
The town first caught wind of this when these solvents began to be detected in the drinking water and ultimately led to the town shutting down a number of wells. The source was a mystery until the sewer lines caved in and the culprits were found out.
This began an almost ten year legal battle that concluded with a settlement that enabled the town to build an enormous treatment plant to rid itself of the damage. It also resulted in the passage of the aforementioned Aquifer Overlay District, the purpose of which was to prevent certain uses in the area of the well field.
Under this back drop it was somewhat stunning to hear a consultant paid for by the developer to represent the town, saying at town meeting that not to worry about a bio tech use on the property. Again, the consultant was presenting the idea that the town should violate it's own bylaws. No one in town government thought this absurd. This was surprising when you consider that a golf course was proposed for the land locked land a number of years ago and it was defeated because of concerns for the water supply.
The end result is that we now have a new 560,000 square foot development coupled with the other nearly 3 million square feet approved but not built. If the purpose of this is to solve our revenue problem through a commitment to unrestrained growth then recent history would seem to condemn this strategy to failure. I have pointed this out in a recent piece, the town has been on an unprecedented expansion over the past few years and the residential taxpayer has seen their taxes dramatically increase while the commercial industrial sector has decreased.
I suggested to a friend of mine in government that the net effect of all this expansion was to simply drive down commercial values and commercial taxes because of intense competition, he suggested "that was my opinion." No I replied "it is a fact." The phenomena can clearly be born out by our own data. In the accompanying chart, take a look at the percentage of the tax rate that the commercial industrial sector was paying in 2002 and what it paid in 2007. The answer is 64.69% then and 54.96% now. Skeptics will say, no that the swing is a result of an increase in values of residential real estate but the decline in values and tax revenue can be verified by real numbers. The current commercial industrial value of $1,361,394,435 is well below the 2002 value of $1,473,890,731. http://www.burlington.org/AssessorsDepartment_files/CL-RATE.pdf
If the feeling of the towns' leadership is to continue this development strategy and maximize value and tax revenue then what action do we take to raise those values as high as possible and reap the tax windfall for the resident? Clearly the answer is to propose that the state locate one of its casinos on the land locked land.
Let me preface the following remarks by saying that I am opposed to such use of a pristine 270 acre forest property and that the best use of the property would be to wait another fifty years or so and let another generation make a decision. My theory on that is a community should leave a legacy for others that follow.
However, if growth is what you want then a casino makes magnificent sense from a variety of different perspectives beginning with the fact that the town can offer a unified title on an enormous piece of property directly adjacent to route 95 and Route 3 North. Access to either highway would be a very simple construction process. None of the other talked about locations can offer the location, access and number of potential gamblers that Burlington can. With highways, an airport and a steady stream of out of staters going by every day we could become a gambling Mecca!
Construction potential on the site would be huge. Let's assume for a moment that 170 acres would be used for wetlands, streets and parking. That would leave one hundred acres for casinos, hotels and other amenities. This amount of space could easily accommodate 20 million square feet of development. Think of the potential, all of the towns commercial development times 2 could fit on the property.
The revenue stream would be enormous starting with the sale of the property itself. The property would be worth a minimum of $100,000 an acre up to as high as $200,000 per acre or a range between 27 million and 54 million dollars. That amount of money would eliminate all of the towns outstanding debt and put some money in the bank.
The annual flow to the tax coffers would be realized by a combination of cash flow cows. The casinos and ancillary buildings would generate tax revenue, the hotel room tax would double or triple and the surrounding commercial values would most likely increase as well.
In fact, the property could generate as much as 8 to 10 million a year in taxes to the town or equal to what the town lost for it in the court battle over the the eminent domain taking of the property nearly 20 years. Remember we can't sign a deal for another 2 years because *Prentiss Properties (successor to Cadillac Fairview) still has a right of first refusal option on the property.
If the town does get involved in this type of discussion let's make sure we get some really competent representation. The most recent tax and land deals the town has been involved have not worked out that well.
* We have since been informed at the January town meeting that the option has been acquired by a local developer.
