The two candidates for Needham Planning Board, Oscar Mertz and Gary Lesanto, shared the Zoom spotlight at a virtual debate on Wednesday morning. Hosted by the Charles River Regional Chamber and moderated by the Chamber’s Max Woolf, the hour-long debate gave Lesanto and Mertz the opportunity to speak to many of the common issues facing the planning board, from parking to business development to the proposed size bylaw changes intended to reduce the mass of new homes built on most of Needham’s single family lots.
Both candidates recognized that many business owners and residents are concerned about parking in the town’s commercial areas. However, solutions seemed harder to describe.
When the moderator, Woolf, pointed to Newton’s elimination of dedicated parking for restaurant customers and asked if Needham should follow suit, Lesanto said, “Parking to me is a staple. That is the foundation of where it all is going to begin, so I’m certainly a proponent of reducing restrictions on parking and looking at any and every way to add parking, as long as it fits into the scale and character of the neighborhood in which it’s being applied.”
Mertz followed with: “I would not eliminate parking. We’ve done a couple of parking surveys for Needham. And we know that we actually have capacity, but we also have restrictions on a lot of these lots around town that support the businesses. And I think if we were to be better stewards of some of those surrounding lots — Walgreens, behind 888 Great Plain, and we’ve done things behind CVS — that we could then manage those … because we have parking, we just have to make sure we’re using it as efficiently as possible.”
One point of difference was resident parking for new multifamily buildings downtown. “We absolutely have to figure out how we want to relax the parking rates for development that we would like to encourage to come into town,” Mertz said. “What we’ve done with our overlay zoning for downtown has a high burden on that parking rate. So we need to adjust those rates to make it more convenient for these developers to be able to build something with less requirements.”
Lesanto said he supported the MBTA zoning as it was ultimately adopted, but questioned the minimal off-street parking requirements. “If we add density in any shape or form in the downtown, and it doesn’t provide its own adequate parking, then that’s gonna be a burden on what we already have for our infrastructure in that regard.”
Commercial parking, Mertz said, presented a different calculation. “Has the town considered contributing to or having a structured parking deck in and around that center parking lot next to the station? Further development around town could have some strategic parking that’s brought in with that additional development. And all of that stuff has to be thought of carefully because it can be done with shared access to transit. You know, there are plenty of examples of those things, but there’s some investment there that has to have payback for whoever’s going to be doing that.”
Lesanto replied, “I feel it needs to be the responsibility of the developer to provide the parking to the density it wants to create in the town. If it’s gonna bring density to the town, it should do it. So I’m not in favor of reducing minimums for the developer. I’m in favor of reducing restrictions for private owners that want to build parking or any incentives to get parking built in the downtown. But when a developer comes in with a project, they should self allow for parking for it.”
The candidates diverged more on housing. “I thought Needham has done a great job with housing, actually,” Lesanto said. “They met the 40 B requirement a few years ago. I believe now our affordable housing stock is well over the 10%; I think it’s 12 or 12.75%. So we’ve got affordable housing, we had that big development on Greendale … And so I’m proud of where Needham is in that regard. I’m excited about the new growth and opportunities that will be coming through the MBTA act and perhaps some of the other methods. I think we’re doing a great job. I think that where we are now is a good balance.”
Woolf pointed to the business community’s concerns about finding and retaining workers because of long commutes, then posed the same question to Mertz.
Mertz said there is a shortage of the types of housing that will attract workers. “I will respectfully disagree with my colleague that we are in good shape with housing. I’ve had lots of conversations. We are by no means serving all the housing needs we have. I hear that from our residents, our seniors, our young people who want to move to town, members of our schools or hospitals who want to come and live in town — you name it.”
Lesanto took that as re-litigating the MBTA vote. “I think my opponent wasn’t hearing the Needham residents loud and clear when he was a proponent for Yes.” He then proceeded to re-litigate it himself. “One of the biggest problems with the MBTA act is it relaxes zoning so much that the town loses control on what’s there, right? No reasonable projects should be denied. Developers come in and with the relaxed standards, they don’t even have to pay for infrastructure. It’s not required that they have to update infrastructure, which is a current problem with some of these projects coming in.”
Mertz did not address MBTA. Instead, he said, “Well, obviously businesses are asking for more affordable housing for their employees. We know that’s true for the hospitals and for our schools and for our small businesses. And corporations that are wanting to come here. So the more we can support our business community, the commercial tax base can grow. So it is a win-win for us because we’re competing with other communities for other projects next door. So the more we can be a welcoming community that has more housing choices that do serve our community needs, our resident needs and future residents, and also all of our businesses, I think it’s valuable that we look for more housing choices.”
In recent weeks, the two candidates’ most obvious disagreement has been over the proposed “Large House” bylaw amendments that would redefine and tighten the restrictions on the size of new single-family homes constructed on existing Single Residence B lots, the smaller properties that comprise 87% of Needham’s single family-zoned land. Lesanto was on the Large House committee that proposed the 2017 bylaws that currently stand. Mertz was a member of the committee that made recommendations to the Planning Board at the beginning of this year.
Lesanto has been regularly appearing at meetings and public hearings to say that, while the current bylaws led to some houses that seem over-sized for their lots and their neighborhoods, in his analysis, the proposed changes need further adjustment even to achieve the recent committee’s goals.
“This proposal,” Lesanto said, “as proposed apples to apples from what you can build now on a 10,000 square foot lot to what’s proposed is a 24.68% reduction.”
Mertz said that the Planning Board can make changes if it deems them needed; as yet it has not submitted its warrant for the Town Meeting. He also pointed out that the committee’s analysis of what has actually been built recently shows that looking at the potential reduction based on the maximum allowable building footprint — as reflected in Lesanto’s number — is misleading, as many new houses do not use the maximum allowable footprint. For houses starting with a more typical base the size reductions from the proposed changes would be much more modest.
“There are lots of houses that are getting built that are not meeting that [maximum],” Mertz said, “and those are the houses that are down in a lower percentage change of seven to four to 11%.”
Both candidates have been invited by the Planning Board to testify as experts as the committee weighs whether it will submit new proposed bylaws in time for the May Town Meeting.
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