The vote today is needed to authorize the $1m. bond for the affordable housing trust, which the town can then use to build affordable housing.
This money is needed allow the town to control its own future, versus being subject to unfriendly 40B’s.
Turnout is really low, so your vote is really important.
Posted in Uncategorized
M.E. O’Brien & Sons, Inc. has plans to move its successful Medfeild business to its own building in Medway, leaving its current West Street location. Long run by family patriarch Eric O’Brien, and now operated also by his children, including his daughter, Erin O’Brien, the company sells park and playground equipment – it is the largest supplier of outdoor recreation equipment in New England.
See the Milford Daily News article here.
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Posted in Business, Uncategorized
The Town of Medfield has an election next Monday on the Proposition 2 1/2 override we already voted on positively at the annual town meeting (ATM). We have an election Monday because proposition 2 1/2 overrides have to pass at both a town meeting and by a ballot.
I had two residents ask at my office hours this morning what the election Monday was about, so hence this explanation.
The $1m. bond the election seeks to fund provides monies to the newly created Affordable Housing Trust, and those monies can be used by the Affordable Housing Trust to assist future affordable housing projects in town to get completed.
The one example where those monies could already have assisted the town, if we had had the monies available, was to bridge a funding gap for a community mental health center that was looking to buy a house in town in which to site a group home, but their finances were about $100,000 short of the price at which a suitable house recently sold. If the Affordable Housing Trust had then existed and had available monies to assist, it may have offered to provide funds to bridge the financial gap. That group home would have netted the town five affordable units (SHI), as each bed in a group home counts as one SHI.
The $1m. that a positive outcome in the election Monday funds will provided the needed flexibility to make some affordable housing projects actually happen that the town will want. To keep the town in a safe harbor the town needs to build twenty-one SHI per year for the next eight years, as we are short about 160 SHI to be at 10%. We also need to build extras, as a new higher number of units in town will result from the 2020 census, on which the Department of Housing and Community Development will base our new 10% safe harbor number.
That $1m. can also pay a staff person that the town needs to have working on developing affordable housing, if we want to get to the 10% safe harbor that will allow the town to say no to unfriendly 40B’s. Hiring a staff person will save us money over continuing to pay our current affordable housing consultants.
Below is a flyer about the election from the hugely active Dale Street neighborhood group that mobilized around the Mega-B –
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Posted in Elections, Uncategorized
The 40B on Dale Street is back, this time with a total of 95 units instead of 200, consisting of:
Per Mike Sullivan the cemetery side are condos and the other side are rentals – although it does not make sense to me that townhouses on one side would be ownership and rental on the other side, so I will follow up on that. See this link for the full plans 20170405-Medfield Meadows-2-plans Mike reports that the town department heads opined to the developers when they met last week that the design was “too modern looking.”
Posted in Affordable housing / 40B, Uncategorized
I hold regular monthly office hours at The Center on the first Friday of every month from 9:00 to 10:00 AM and will be there tomorrow.
Residents are welcome to stop by to talk in person about any town matters. No appointment is required.
Residents can also have coffee and see the Council on Aging in action (a vibrant organization with lots going on).
I can be reached via 508-359-9190 or my blog, where any schedule changes will be posted.
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Posted in Select Board matters, Uncategorized
BMS gym was pretty full last night for the public input session on the former MSG site.
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Posted in Uncategorized
Looks like almost 200 people stayed to the end at 9:30pm of the MSH MPC meeting, public input session. Probably about two times that number at the outset.
We ended by doing polling by texting our preferences on a series of questions.
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Posted in Uncategorized
The Medfield State Hospital Master Planning Committee is seeking public input this evening at 7PM at the Blake Middle School cafeteria.
This was the crowd at the tour John Thompson lead last Sunday –
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Posted in Medfield State Hospital, Uncategorized
Medfield Select Board member
I started this blog to share the interesting and useful information that I saw while doing my job as a Medfield select board member. I thought that my fellow Medfield residents would also find that information interesting and useful as well. This blog is my effort to assist in creating a system to push the information out from the Town House to residents. Let me know if you have any thoughts on how it can be done better.
For information on my other job as an attorney (personal injury, civil litigation, estate planning and administration, and real estate), please feel free to contact me at 617-969-1500 or Osler.Peterson@OslerPeterson.com.
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