Despite having received three previous “thanks, but no thanks” responses from the Park and Recreation Commission, the School Committee has once again invited Park and Rec to come to the table to discuss a new iteration of a possible land swap that would keep DeFazio Park in play as a site for the construction of a new Pollard Middle School.
The discussion could take place at Park and Rec’s meeting Nov. 24 at 5:30 p.m. at the Broadmeadow School, unless a separate joint meeting of the two boards can be scheduled earlier.
The School Committee said at its Nov. 18 meeting that it is willing to transfer 9.8 acres at the 15-plus-acre Pollard complex to Park and Rec’s jurisdiction in return for Park and Rec relinquishing 6 acres at DeFazio to the School Committee.
Park and Rec will be asked to transfer the land occupied by Healy Field, Asa Small Field and the tot lot. This would help create enough of a footprint for a roughly 250,000-square-foot Grade 6-8 school.
When combined with contiguous land at DeFazio already under School Committee jurisdiction, it would provide the required parking spaces for both the new school and recreational users, as well as upgrade the current mud lot by providing paved parking.
In return, Park and Rec would gain jurisdiction of 9.8 acres at Pollard fronting on Harris Avenue and extending to the commuter rail tracks. When the new school is constructed, the existing Pollard School would be demolished. This would create enough space to replace the three lost Park and Rec facilities while adding an additional multipurpose field modeled on Founders Field at DeFazio.
The downside is that building at DeFazio would mean the DeFazio complex would have multiple fields offline and altered parking for a three- to four-year period, or possibly longer, starting around 2028.
About jurisdiction
Under state law, public land that is protected open space is governed by Article 97, which protects land acquired for conservation, open space, recreation or natural resource purposes.
Using that land for a different purpose requires a series of actions that could take a year or more to complete:
— provide replacement land of equal or greater natural resource value
— a two-thirds Town Meeting vote of approval
— a two-thirds vote of both houses of the state Legislature
— a review under the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA)
Before that process can begin, the town entity with jurisdiction over the open space must consent to the transfer. If Park and Rec does not agree to a swap, there is no legal mechanism to execute it.
Last chance?
The School Building Committee, which is managing the Pollard renovation effort, is facing a Dec. 18 deadline to choose its preferred option from among seven alternatives currently under consideration. Two of the options — new construction of either a Grade 6-8 or 7-8 school — would require Park and Rec to make DeFazio available.
At the School Committee’s Nov. 18 meeting, School Committee Chair Michael O’Brien reported that the SBC would appreciate guidance from the School Committee on what options it would prefer and which no longer need to be evaluated.
“We have heard from members of the School Building Committee who really need to hear our voice and town’s boards’ voices on what is a real preference at this stage, as there are still all seven options on the table,” O’Brien told the committee.
“For myself, I see two (options) and just want to make sure that there’s agreement with my school committee colleagues.”
In a poll of the other five members in attendance, all five stated a preference for new construction of a 6-8 school at either Pollard or DeFazio with a 750-seat enhanced auditorium.
This implicitly signaled their lack of support for the other five options: the minimalist “code update” of the current Pollard; the proposed “addition/renovation” of the existing Pollard as either a 7-8 or 6-8 school; and the 7-8 new construction options at Pollard and DeFazio.
Committee Vice Chair Alisa Skatrud, the committee’s designee to the SBC, echoed O’Brien’s sense of urgency in providing direction to the SBC.
“There are people on the School Building Committee … with construction and architectural experience that assure the group that a building on DeFazio would be simpler from a construction standpoint,” she said.
“On the other hand, we know that there has been a lot of resistance from our colleagues on the Parks and Recreation Commission,” a reference to the three requests made since August to consider a transfer that Park and Rec has rebuffed.
“There are people who have been very involved in developing the Field of Dreams that is now the DeFazio site who really do not want that disturbed and feel that any re-creation of those fields would not continue to meet the vision,” said Skatrud.
Longtime school board member Michael Greis concurred with Skatrud that the existing investment of public and private funds at DeFazio creates an obstacle for any plan that could be seen as undoing that work.
“Fields the community put a lot into creating would have to be re-created,” he said. “And I can understand why that would cause grave concern.”
Member Andrea Carter also agreed, but she noted the deal would create both an additional playing field and “an astronomically better parking situation than there is currently.”
Member Liz Lee was less optimistic and expressed frustration with Park and Rec’s opposition to date.
“I remain disappointed by Park and Rec’s refusal to really engage around this question of town needs,” she said. “We don’t have enough buildable space in Needham for one board to not show up to the table.”
Whether or not there is an earlier discussion, the two boards will be together Nov. 24 at 7 p.m. at the Broadmeadow School when the town convenes its second “All Board Summit,” a gathering of the seven town boards that will play roles in advancing the Pollard project through various approval and funding steps.
They will be joined by the Select Board, Finance Committee, Planning Board, Conservation Committee and the SBC in a meeting designed to facilitate communication among the boards and possibly accelerate the process.
At the first summit Sept. 25, the SBC was asked to consider removing DeFazio from consideration partly due to Park and Rec’s opposition. The SBC declined due to concerns that such a decision would be premature.
The seven boards will have far more information after two months of work by the SBC and HMFH Architects, the designers of the project. The SBC expects to have more refined budget estimates and preliminary results from traffic studies conducted over the past several weeks.
The School Committee intends to take a vote on its preferred option at its Dec. 2 meeting. That will be followed by a vote expected at the Dec. 8 meeting of the SBC on the single option that will be included in the final version of the project’s Preferred Schematic Report.
That report needs to be submitted to the Massachusetts School Building Authority by Dec. 18 to keep the town on schedule for a vote on a Proposition 2½ tax override on the November 2026 state election ballot.
Save as PDF