When John Sisson took over as the town’s economic development director in March, he was filling a position that had been vacant for nearly a year.
During that vacancy, the town’s Envision Needham plan to combine downtown infrastructure upgrades with a project to make the town center more accessible and inviting was well on its way to being derailed due to strenuous opposition.
The town has effectively pressed the pause button on its downtown initiative, with the Department of Public Works charged to study next steps.
Still, the work on overall economic development goes on and Sisson hopes future initiatives will be better informed — and better communicated — with the help of an economic development study funded by a $50,000 state earmark obtained by State Rep. Josh Tarsky.
Sisson’s job description includes staffing the work of the town’s Council of Economic Advisors. The CEA reports to the Select Board, which appoints 16 members charged with “the promotion of economic development in Needham.”
The CEA will direct the use of the $50,000. It will involve the Planning Board in the process as it will focus significantly on the impact zoning and permitting has on economic development. That impact is not always positive.
“A lot of the commercial uses in Needham are subject to special permit process and there are a lot of different triggers,” Sisson told the CEA at its September monthly meeting.
“A lot of times it’s parking and the special permit just adds three months to the process. And as everyone knows, time kills deals and time costs money.”
“I find special permits in Massachusetts to be generally overused,” said Sisson, who has held economic development positions in Dedham, Newton and at the state level. “They should be used in special circumstances — hence ‘special’. They should not be commonly used, yet they are.”
He offered examples of prospective tenants kicking the tires at three different currently vacant Needham storefronts only to be stymied by special permit and/or parking issues.
“I was working with food truck operators who wanted to open in a vacant restaurant on Chestnut Street,” Sisson told the CEA. “They have a food truck. They wanted to park it in back and service the food truck, which will go into Boston and Cambridge during the day, seven days a week. And they wanted to have their first brick and mortar space, right? It’s awesome.
“Well, there’s a special permit on that property, and that property is one of three properties that was once under common ownership. And the special permit on the property addresses all three properties, which are now under separate ownership.”
“These special permits are like vampires. They don’t die. They sit there waiting for you to happen upon their crypt.”
He noted a local restaurant considering a second concept at the former Kebab House site on Great Plain Avenue and different parties looking at the former Sky Candle location a few doors down all ran into concerns over parking requirements.
“The parking requirements do not line up with the existing parking on the ground,” Sisson said. “So automatically right out of the gate you’re in default. You’re behind the eight-ball. You’re in a position where you have to explain yourself or legitimize yourself and dealing from a position of weakness.”
CEA member Bob Hentschel, a director at the Petrini Corp., one of the town’s largest commercial landlords, agreed that lack of clarity in current town regulatory protocols create barriers to development.
“I think the special permit process is completely overused and abused,” he said. He also said the economic study should review the town’s “use tables” in commercial districts which describe the activities, buildings or businesses legally allowed in each zoning district.
“I’m not being hysterical when I say it’s literally indecipherable and useless,” Hentschel said of the use tables. “There are use categories in there that make no sense. And I’ll buy you a steak dinner if you can tell me what those use categories mean because I have no idea what they mean.”
Deciding on scope
The terms of the state earmark require the $50,000 to be “allocated” by the end of the fiscal year in June. The CEA hopes to have a defined project scope by the end of calendar 2026 and a consultant onboard by early 2027.
In an interview after the CEA meeting, Sisson said the plan will involve considerable public outreach.
“This means going out to the community and asking, ‘what do you want?’” he said. “Do you want more arts and culture? Do you want a more active downtown?’”
”If there are things that people want that we don’t have, we have to figure out why aren’t they here. And what would have to change for them to come here.”
While the CEA discussion revealed dissatisfaction with current regulatory structures, Sisson said the town also offers many strengths and several eminently developable sites.
“There are a lot of interesting commercial areas in Needham,” he said, adding that they are not restricted to the business and industrial parks or the downtown and Heights centers. He mentioned areas near Rte. 128 such as Gould Street and the mostly industrial area behind Staples.
“There’s a lot of really cool stuff going on in those places, so we don’t want to see a lot of displacement either,” he said.
He said the study would obviously need to be cognizant of the macroeconomic environment and how that will drive business activity, but the focus will be on Needham’s own policies.
“The nice thing about this is it’s something the town has control over. Whereas we don’t have control over the market constraints — the cost of doing construction, the cost of land, etc.”
“It’s valuable to understand, if our downtowns are not attracting the types of businesses that people want, then what is it we need to do? What does the town need to allow to happen?”
“How do our commercial areas work and can we make them work better for everybody, not just for people to make a profit but for there to be more feet on the street, maybe more arts and culture in our town.”
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