Displeasure About University Station at School Committee Information Session

In front of a packed auditorium in which some people were forced to sit on the floor or stand, the developers looking to build University Station and the expert planner hired by the town spoke in front of the School Committee for the first time last night to bring them up-to-date in an informational session that left many questioned unanswered.

After Planning Board chairperson Jack Wiggin gave a brief summary of what has been going on with the process and what’s expected to take place in the upcoming weeks, a representative from the developer took over and pointed out where things would be on a map.

The residential part of the project, which seems to be the most controversial based on residents’ remarks and reactions, compares to a project done in Needham about five years ago. There will initially be 420 units, which will eventually become 650. There will be two buildings connected by a garage, and they would have courtyards. One building would have a pool.

Their hope is to begin construction in the early spring of 2013, while shooting for an opening in the fall of 2014.

Ray Murphy of Eastern Real Estate, one of the partners in the project, took over the floor and spoke about working together and how the process of building a development of this size and type is not a simple process.

“What will this project mean to your school system?” Murphy asked aloud. “It’s a collaborative process. There’s a whole conversation, and it’s really just started.”

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School committee members shared their concerns, and later during the public participation part of the meeting one resident in attendance questioned why they didn’t seem to be looking at all from both perspectives with an open mind, instead just pointing out things they didn’t like without necessarily having all the information. This resident, and another resident followed suit by pointing that they had given an earlier school presentation the opportunity to go back and get more information to answer some questions that they weren’t able to, felt that the school committee had jumped to a quick conclusion, using as an example how they had criticized the developer’s per student cost, but had not come up with their own per student cost.

School committee member Brian Kelly seemed irate at times in his criticism, concerns and overall displeasure with the developer.

“I’m concerned that the cost per pupil doesn’t include any special education students,” Kelly said. “The number of kids is way off. Only 55? In 650 units? I’m concerned your consultant was way off. He didn’t include Lexington originally [where he was way off], and then he did. How are we supposed to trust you? What else isn’t being disclosed to us?” 

Murphy remained standing in front of the school committee during this line of questioning and remained calm, although his answers seemed to be too vague for the committee or some of the public’s taste. He repeatedly stated that it’s a long process and the idea is to work together. Murphy said that one of the things you do when you build a big development like this is that you have to keep going back and re-checking the data and gathering more data.

 Committee member Carol Lewis asked simply, “Would you ever do the project without with residential?”

Murphy’s response to that was that, while he never likes to say never as a developer, it would be very unlikely and doubtful that they would do the project without any residential aspect to it.

Superintendent of Schools John Antonucci finally asked what many in the room, and at previous meetings, had been thinking: “What if we’re just totally wrong? I’m concerned about the what-ifs.”

Judi Barrett, the expert hired by the town to give her own analysis of the plan, spoke for a bit about how she’ll be looking for some similar developments outside Massachusetts, as well as use the American Community Survey.

“This process is very much ongoing,” Wiggin said.

Still, as a few more resident expressed their displeasure with various aspects of University Station, nothing new seemed to come to light that hadn’t been brought out before at previous meetings. But the school committee is now more in the loop as to where the project stands, and they will continually be kept up-to-date on the project as it moves forward, including a Planning Board meeting on Tuesday night.

One school committee member, though, has made his views pretty clear. At least with what’s been brought to their attention so far.

“Those developers need to give us accurate information,” Kelly said. “We’re not going to just let them do whatever they want.”