The town of Canton lost its courtroom battle with Westwood Station developers Cabot, Cabot & Forbes last week. So it tried to throw a familiar roadblock in the way of the massive 4.5 million square-foot development: Beacon Hill.
Just days after a Suffolk County Superior Court judge tossed out a lawsuit challenging Westwood Station’s environmental and traffic approvals, state Sen. Brian Joyce blocked passage of a home rule petition allowing the development’s anchor tenant, Wegmans, to sell beer and wine.
In a highly unusual move last week, Joyce also barred the bill’s Senate sponsor, Marian Walsh, from speaking. Joyce’s twin procedural maneuvers sparked outrage and frustration among the project’s backers. Similar bills normally receive routine approval in the Legislature.
On Friday, the bill managed to gain Senate passage by political sleight-of-hand. [See sidebar, page 11.] But that its sponsor effectively pulled a rabbit out of a hat should have been no surprise: The entire ordeal was a giant vanishing act.
Since August, the Wegmans bill has become a crude piece of leverage in Canton’s years-long dispute with its Westwood neighbors, and with the state. It’s clear to observers Canton isn’t philosophically opposed to Westwood Station. However, it’s also become increasingly clear that the minimal cost of Canton’s blessing is $35 million – and, potentially, much, much more.
The town of Canton wants CC&F to bankroll a road widening and the reconstruction of two small bridges, at a total cost of $35 million. Those bridges sit on the sliver of Canton that abuts Westwood Station. The stretch of roadway Canton is protesting over runs between I-95 and the project. It’s a few hundred feet long, and is home to an underused industrial plot, and little else; downtown Canton, the traffic burden of which is often publicly linked to Westwood Station, is a 10-minute drive to the southeast. Among CC&F’s $120 million in infrastructure commitments is a new $22.5 million ramp leading to the project from I-95. That ramp, and a $9.5 million ramp off Route 128, were originally committed to by the state (and signed off on by Canton and Westwood) in 1997, as mitigation package for the nearby MBTA/Amtrak garage. The state never funded or completed either.
Three traffic reviews, including one directly overseen by state Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen, found that the I-95 ramp would decrease downtown Canton’s traffic by providing a more direct route to the Westwood Station area. The reviews also concluded the bridge projects Canton is seeking should not be required as part of the development’s infrastructure mitigation package. Canton is pushing CC&F to complete the projects anyway, and is using the Wegmans bill as leverage.
"Their beef is with the state," CC&F President Jay Doherty argued. "The state’s run the process three times, and they just don’t like the outcome. They’re holding us hostage to get the state to see it their way."
At one point, Doherty said, Canton fired their own traffic contractor because town officials didn’t like the data the engineer was giving them. He said CC&F is committed to rebuilding the two bridges, if ultimately needed, but that it isn’t willing to front $35 million for work that might not be necessary in the first place.
"We don’t have $35 million on top of $120 million," he said. "At some point, these things exceed the cost of the development."
But $35 million in bridge work is the least of what Canton has asked CC&F for. In the spring of 2007, Canton officials asked CC&F for $50 million in linkage payments, in addition to traffic mitigation funds. Linkage payments are, essentially, a voluntary tax on new development; Canton wanted to tax a development in a neighboring town. When that offer didn’t fly, Canton officials pursued multi-million dollar annual payments. Now, they’ve moved on to asking CC&F to bankroll area traffic and infrastructure projects. Among the projects Canton officials suggested CC&F fund: The $200 million I-93/I-95 interchange reconstruction.
The town’s representatives did not return repeated calls for comment. Doherty recently joked that if it were up to Canton he might be paying off the Big Dig.
"In three-and-a-half years of review, this project hasn’t changed much," he said. "The only thing that’s changed is the infrastructure commitments, which continue to rise. We’ve done everything we can do." He added, "We’ve bent over for them to the point of falling on our backs. And the objections rise to the sky. They can’t be met in a reasonable fashion. The state has said more than once that this project clearly meets what it needs to do. So let’s get going."
Canton’s state senator, Brian Joyce, was the last legislator standing in Doherty’s way. Joyce blocked the Wegmans bill on Thursday, then silenced the bill’s sponsor, Walsh, when she rose to object. It was a surprising breach of the Senate’s collegiality. "I have no memory nor knowledge of that ever happening before," she said afterward. "I was as surprised as I’ve ever been in my entire life."
Joyce rushed past reporters and toward his office after the Senate adjourned, promising to call members of the media. Hours later, his office issued a statement "respectfully declin[ing] to debate this matter through the press." Questions about the Wegmans bill’s relationship to Canton’s traffic concerns were not answered. He has been dodging reporters’ inquiries for more than a week.
"It’s equivalent to extortion," said Nancy Hyde, who sits on Westwood’s board of selectmen. "It’s a means to an end to them." Walsh painted the bill’s blockage as being a strike against Westwood’s "self-government," saying that, since the Westwood Town Meeting had approved the Wegmans license, involving it in a dispute over roadways amounted to a move to "hijack, manipulate and dishonor their citizenship."
"Their issues are about what they think appropriate mitigation is," said Westwood Town Manager Mike Jaillet. "The ruling in the court said something about the merits of their issue. What they’re pursuing here is even less appropriate."
