Last year’s Planning Board race passed by uneventfully, with newcomer Justin McCullen running uncontested for one open seat. The current contest to fill the board’s latest vacancy will be one of seven contested races in the April 8 town election.
Over the past year, town planning took center stage as the MBTA Communities Act brought about the most significant proposed rezoning in decades.
After voters repealed a zoning plan that went beyond the state requirement for compliance, the Planning Board voted last month to recommend that Town Meeting members enact a plan that simply meets the state mandate.
So, while the Planning Board has completed its share of the work on MBTA zoning, the electee will help influence the future of housing and infrastructure planning in Needham for at least the next five years.
One major issue? The Planning Board continues to consider what restrictions, if any, it should place on building large homes in town.
The Observer spoke with each of the candidates.
ERIC GREENBERG
A nine-year resident of Needham, Eric Greenberg is a real estate attorney who wants to bridge divides and bring the community together.
Greenberg said he’s stepping up to help fill the role played by Paul S. Alpert, the Planning Board’s lone attorney, who chose not to seek reelection this year.
While Greenberg is active in town, including as a soccer and basketball coach and a library volunteer, this is his first foray into town government.
“This is a very interesting time in Needham,” Greenberg said. “With the recent zoning referendum, some of the budgetary issues, it’s very important for us to get some of these upcoming projects right. That’s going to take some very thoughtful, serious consideration.”
Greenberg was not involved in the push for or against repealing the MBTA Act compliance plan, but was “viewing it as an individual” instead. He said he sees himself as a “consensus builder” and a “collaborator,” who can reach out to people on both sides and have real face-to-face conversations.
While he agrees that Needham needs to push the base compliance plan through, he said the conversations that the plan generated present “a real opportunity” to thoughtfully consider some of the common ideas and goals from the community, such as housing for residents over 55.
One of the common themes that came out of the referendum discussions, he said, was a desire not to place schools and town resources under additional pressure. For that reason, he said, “empty-nester,” over-55 housing options might make more sense.
“Clearly it’s important in Needham that we not overbuild,” Greenberg said. “But there was a lot of support for the base plan.”
He said he understands the serious housing problem in Needham and thinks the modest development that comes from the base plan will still help alleviate some of the stress.
Additionally, the state recently loosened restrictions on accessory dwelling units, or small apartments attached or detached from a primary residence, statewide, which Greenberg said could help support Needham’s housing goals.
On the potential for limiting large homes in town, Greenberg thinks there’s no “one-size-fits-all strategy.” Instead, he wants to see a more measured and cautious approach.
“There’s really no agreement on it,” he said. “It’s one we’re going to have to be very careful and try to thread the needle on it.”
To that end, he believes Needham should rethink how it approaches public engagement. “In big or small projects, it’s too often we see the public engagement comes when people think the cake is already baked,” Greenberg said. “We need to get people involved much earlier in the process.”
He’d rather see residents inform the plan itself, or even help inform the direction that the town takes.
Aside from housing, Greenberg is interested in attracting and maintaining small businesses in Needham, so he’d like to see how the Planning Board can support that goal. In practice, that may be making the review process more “pragmatic” and “efficient,” he said, to ensure that the town is seen as business friendly.
Greenberg’s background comes into play here as well. He’s worked with developers and business owners during his day job as a real estate attorney for the past 20 years.
“I certainly bring a fresh perspective, but it’s based on experience,” he said. “I think I can jump in really quickly and add value.”
KEN BUCKLEY
Thirty-two-year Needham resident Ken Buckley said he’s running to bring a “citizen’s view” to the planning process.
“To me, that means bringing other citizens into the goals process,” Buckley said. “The most important thing is to be able to listen to the citizens and bring their view to the table.”
An engineer by trade, Buckley has worked for decades in the tech and software industry, mostly on the client services teams of three companies. He also holds a master’s degree in business from Boston University.
Buckley was recently in the spotlight as a member of Needham Residents for Thoughtful Zoning, which led the effort to repeal Needham’s compliance plan for the MBTA Communities Act. He said he’s proud of this effort, and looks forward to leading the town through “informed, thoughtful decisions.” In practice, he would like to engage the public early and often in the decision-making process.
In the immediate future, Buckley said the town should affirm the base compliance plan for the communities act, “and beyond that, it’s a project-by-project basis.”
He also said the town should have listened to residents from the beginning about the compliance plan, as even the earliest surveys showed support for supporting the base plan alone.
On statewide housing mandates in general, Buckley said he’s “open to studying what’s going on,” but he’s inclined toward the state’s historical approach to zoning, which placed more power in the hands of local governments to handle zoning on a smaller scale. He pointed toward the state’s home rule amendment as an example of the import Massachusetts once placed on local control.
“I think people know their towns best, where things lie, how streets are laid out,” he said. “They’re responsible for the fiscal stewardship of their towns.”
In a similar vein, Buckley said the town needs to expand how it engages with the community, including keeping it informed about local projects. That could mean sending out more electronic notices or having a specialized location on the town website for residents to learn about projects quickly.
“How do you help summarize ideas or projects so [residents] can accept them and digest them?,” he said. “It’s a definite challenge to not overwhelm people with all of the details and yet bring forward some of the facts of the project, such that they can absorb it and have an informed decision.”
Like Greenberg, Buckley said community engagement needs to happen earlier in the process: “I think often the goals of any project are set early on,” he said. “And maybe the goals that are set early on are not the goals of what the entire town would be.”
The reasons behind a policy or planning decision are also not always made clear to the public, he said, such as when the town is trying to leverage state or federal grants that have specific requirements.
“People need to understand why these things are happening,” he said.
Buckley would like to engage not just with citizens, but local businesses as well. “To attract businesses, you got to go out and talk to them and find out what would attract them,” he said. “It would be interesting to find out what we could do to keep businesses there and thriving.”
Though Buckley’s Planning Board membership would be his first time in town government, he emphasized that his long history here shows he’s a committed resident.
“I’ve lived in three different homes here, renovated a couple … my wife went to high school here,” he said. “We’re in it for the long haul.”
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