ZBA denies requests for additional traffic study
Published on June 8th, 2005
Although never taking a formal vote, the town's Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) rejected requests by Stoneham resident Miriam Regan-Fiore to have independent consultants review the mixed-use Langwood Commons proposal at the Boston Regional Medical Center (BRMC).
Allowing the petitioners to respond to Fiore's mid-April request for an independent study of the 550-unit housing development, the ZBA called Stoneham attorney Charlie Houghton during last Thursday's Langwood Commons hearing to go through a five-point response to the local resident's concerns.
According to Houghton, who represents Simpson Housing, LP and the Gutierrez Company, an independent traffic review and various town officials had already scrutinized one of Fiore's primary concerns: traffic.
"A technical review of the proposed traffic was provided by BSC Group (an independent [third] party consultant engaged by the town) during each phase of the review process with the housing task force," Houghton wrote, adding that BSC concluded that traffic mitigation measures were "suitable" for the project.
Unsatisfied with the response - especially as it was made by the petitioners' attorney, Regan-Fiore retorted that the BSC Group review was limited in scope, focusing on the manner in which the developers' traffic consultant arrived at their numbers.
In addition, the Ravine Road resident claimed that the BSC Group report included several concerns, including a cautionary statement that warned of the potential need to widen the Fells Parkway.
"Why is a letter that was addressed to the Zoning Board being answered by the attorney for the developer? I've been listening to the developers' spin for five-years now," Regan-Fiore said. "We have a lot of different conflicting information and the BSC Group review was not comprehensive."
According to Judy Barrett, whose company Community Opportunities Group was hired by Stoneham officials on the BRMC task force, her review work was a fiscal impact study that included a limited traffic-impact review.
And while the planning consultant couldn't remark on the necessity for further independent reviews, as she is unfamiliar with the issues being raised on the ZBA-level, Barrett also made a distinction between what was before her and what is now before the Zoning Board.
"One of the things that is different about this project is that when we reviewed it, [the project] was a concept," Barrett recalled. "There wasn't a whole application together to review at that point. And once you have the whole [application] in front of you, there's so much more to review."
"Our review was not an overall look at the project. Most of that work was a fiscal impact review study. And traffic was really a minor part of that job and it was really to review VHB's work and comment on it," the planning consultant added.
According to Sam Offei-Addo, the BSC Group engineer who authored the town's traffic study, his firm was subcontracted by Community Opportunities Group for a technical analysis of the developers' traffic reports.
But while Offei-Addo admits that his work was limited in scope, he strongly refuted that the BSC Group report contained any wording whatsoever that foretold of the need to widen roadways.
Clarifying the section of the study that discusses the developers' proposed mitigations, the engineer explained that the words "could be impacted in the future as a result of constrained capacity" states the obvious: that traffic will increase due to the development.
"I think there's a context here that is necessary here," Offei-Addo said. "They did take away the widenings, and we noted that there could be traffic constraints. You can't add all this traffic and not impinge on the roadways."
"So [that phrase was us saying], whatever they should do to mitigate, it should be appropriate. So we were just giving them a heads up," the engineer added. "[As to our overall scope of work], we reviewed the technical analysis. So we didn't evaluate the whole thing. It isn't that what we did wasn't an adequate review, we were just asked to do something very specific."
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