Corcoran whitewashed his development poorly.
Tonight attended the meeting that Mass Housing mandated Corcoran to do with town officials for Stoneham. As a resident of Stoneham I was appalled at the presentation that Corcoran with their consulting architects provided as an improvement of their original plans to Mass Housing. To this novice eye it looked like three closely arranged naval barracks with a small clubhouse and fronted by town houses surrounded on one side by Wetlands. Yikes totally unpleasing to the uneducated eyes of this resident
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Good design should be aesthetically pleasing and fit into the topography of the area and the surrounding neighborhood Corcoran’s plan did not fit the existing neighborhood and our community.
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I was very proud of the representation of our standing committee, Selectwoman O’Neil and Selectmen Boussy at the meeting and that Mr. Vallerelli and Mr. Depinto were present. Where was Mr. Sweeney? I was also impressed by our town attorney and by the consultants in architecture, chapter 40B and the attorney that was hired by our town officials..
However as residents of our town and particularly those that attended this meeting we must continue to state our problems with this developer to Mass Housing. There was no meeting of the minds or any consideration by them of working with the town to improve their development at Weiss Farm. To this resident it appears they intend to railroad their existing design thru Mass Housing and stick it to us due to Chapter 40B of granting all the permits required and construct this monstrosity.
It is also a sad testimony that the Commonwealth of Mass. under Chapter 40B does not care about traffic, density or public safety of our children, elderly or working residents crossing Franklin Street or driving on this two lane street that connects us to Melrose.
It is also sad that no mention of how they intend to address soil erosion with three large buildings constructed on this land or the problems with flooding and the water table and how it will create problems for neighborhoods adjacent to this development and those of our neighbors in Melrose.
No matter how they cut and paste this development is too big for this location. Mass. Housing needs to know that Corcoran has not met in good faith with our town. He showed up at the meeting but did not show any indication that our concerns were relevant or sound. In any other venue without 40B subsidy this type of development would have been stopped in it’s initial stages due to such poor design, lack of consideration of the topography and chemistry of our community and the grave concerns of public safety, density and quality of life of all residents in our community.
We need to let Mass Housing know that Corcoran did not meet in good faith with the town of Stoneham and that the grave concerns are ever present with their existing plan and should be stopped or that this developer should listen and work with our town to build a development beneficial to our community and themselves.
Write to Mass Housing and state your concerns and what transpired at the whitewash presentation they did tonight.
Contact Mass Housing
Boston Office
Mass Housing | One Beacon Street | Boston, MA 02108-3110
TEL: 617.854.1000 | TOLL-FREE: 800.882.1154 | FAX: 617.854.1029
Videophone (for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing): 866.758.1435 | MASS RELAY: 7-1-1 or 800.439.2370
