Letter: Residents Should Have a Voice in Library/Tavern Discussion

To the Editor:

Weston’s Planning Board is pondering a zoning bylaw amendment to allow residential as well as commercial use of the Old Library and Josiah Smith Tavern (OL/JST). This amendment, along with $4.1 million in public funds, would abet the Urbanica proposal’s plan to convert OL/JST into seven privately owned condos. In addition to three residences, the condos would be occupied by a restaurant, a bed-and-breakfast inn, the Weston Historical Society and the Women’s Community League.

This amendment is to be crafted so any restaurant deemed undesirable (“like Subway”) could be excluded from occupancy, at the Planning Board’s discretion. As the Board’s discussion at its March 19 meeting showed, the tricky part is to facilitate an objective that is both restrictive (anti-Subway) and permissive (pro-Urbanica).

A convoluted solution is now being devised by town counsel, which entails the creation of a Historic Structures Preservation District. If approved first by a 2/3’s supermajority vote at town meeting and then by the state attorney general, the new district would be overlaid on OL/JST’s current limited zoning as commercial property only. 

Such an obfuscating addition to the town’s maze of zoning bylaws would be on top of historic restrictions that will overhang the OL/JST titles for up to 470 years. These restrictions help explain why the recent appraisal by Cushman & Wakefield puts the current market value of OL/JST at zero for potential private owners. The Planning Board’s ongoing control over future occupants through the special requirements of an overlay district would obviously not enhance the OL/JST appraised value.    

This bylaw contrivance begs a far simpler and more direct solution, which is to keep OL/JST as town properties. Why make a roundabout trip through a particularized overlay district, which would only imitate the ownership control that is already in the hands of the town?

If the Urbanica proposal is (let us pray) not approved, what alternative might next be considered? Interest seems to abound for a restaurant offering a pleasant dining-out experience in the town center. And Weston is loaded with wealthy residents who might invest in a restaurant that was a tenant in the Josiah Smith Tavern. There must be an entrepreneur lurking somewhere in our town who would be willing to put together a group of investors to do that.

The terms that the town as landlord might offer could be shaped to compensate a restaurant’s backers for the capital they would provide for leasehold improvements. The town would then be spared the need to fund anything beyond renovation and rehab that has to be done anyway whether there is a restaurant tenant or not.

The selectmen have endorsed Urbanica’s deal where the Weston Historical Society and the Women’s Community League each have the use of space for $1, ostensibly in consideration for the civic benefits those two groups promote. This shows terms are possible that can get OL/JST occupied without requiring a return that a commercial property owner would demand. From a taxpayer’s perspective, terms that generate cash flow at least sufficient to cover the town’s cost of ongoing maintenance and upkeep should be acceptable. 

That would still leave OL/JST space for other possible tenants that serve public or civic purposes. Affordable housing, for one. Exhibit space for Weston’s historical artifacts, for another. Some possibilities may qualify for CPA funds.  Contrary to what one selectman asserted, all feasible ideas regarding OL/JST reuse have not been exhausted. Meanwhile restoration and rehab funds should be voted so that these alternatives can be evaluated in due course while the buildings do not deteriorate further.

For all the time and effort already spent exploring the reuse of these historic buildings, what has been lacking up to now is any effort to measure the sense of the entire Weston community—say, through a non-binding referendum question. A ballot question could pose a range of choices for reusing OL/JST. At this point, only the selectmen have the timely authority to put that question on the ballot for the May 11 town election. They should do so now.

Bill Sandalls

Wood Ridge Circle
Twitter @billsandalls