Chelmsford Slow-Growth Petition

During the Summer of 2007, more than 700 Chelmsford residents signed the slow growth petition to ask officials to stop the pro-development strategies that are damaging our quality of life.

Click here to view the petition.

The Case For A Slow Growth/No Growth Strategy

Don't you agree that we overwhelmingly want Chelmsford to remain a high quality place to live, with quiet neighborhoods, reasonable traffic, excellent schools and attractive open space?

Unfortunately, many town officials support pro-growth strategies that will produce 10 to 20% growth over the next five years, eliminating the opportunity to preserve Chelmsford’s quality of life, while predictably contributing to spiraling taxes. Rapid growth is not the best way to the keep good things we have. Chelmsford is at a point where slow growth is appropriate and achievable.

Having grown furiously for the last 40 years, with policies that foster faster growth (for instance, emphasizing new development of affordable housing on open space in preference to improvements or buy-downs of existing properties), the town's quality of life is deteriorating. Despite the fact that residents are disappointed with the decisions being made by elected officials, these officials continue to accepted an unnecessarily high rate of development, approving high density projects again and again. Most recently, Selectman Chair Sam Chase said that the Board of Selectmen endorsed the concept of a 40B plan that calls for building 59 units on less than 5 acres! This plan calls for building the bare minimum percentage of affordable units, has significant financial concerns and has caused widespread resident backlash. Yet Chairman Chase "endorses the concept."

Our officials have been acting on bogus development information for years. It’s now the appropriate time for the Board of Selectmen, the Planning Board, the Zoning Board of Appeals, the office of the Development Coordinator, and the Town Manager to adopt a lower growth strategy.

Chelmsford has had more Chapter 40B developments built in town than any other community in Greater Boston. Click here to see a picture of 40B developments in Greater Boston. The town’s own affordable housing plan does not adequately address the need to assert more local control over affordable housing developments, and will likely lead to at least a 10% increase in the number of units in Chelmsford within the next five years. Do you know what that translates to? That’s about 1300 to 1500 additional housing units, leading to some 3000 additional automobiles!

It’s clearly not in our best interest to support this kind of growth, which leads to ever-increasing taxes to meet the need for services from schools, fire, police, water, sewer, and other departments.

The practice of reactive planning has resulted in rampant overdevelopment and must be stopped. If we don't change now, we'll continue to experience increased population, more cars, more congestion and greater pollution. We've already lost much of our historic character and the natural environment will suffer irreparable losses. The town should immediately start imposing Linkage Fees and other appropriate set-asides to make growth pay for growth so that existing taxpayers don't have to keep footing the bill for new developments by providing sewer, water, fire, police and other services without contribution from new development which hooks right into that infrastructure.

The 1996 Master Plan lays out important standards. Reflect on the following excerpts of the Master Plan with a decade’s worth of perspective:

• “Strengthen neighborhood planning…”
• “Prevent the urbanization of Chelmsford. Recognize that larger and more concentrated development of the industrial, commercial and residential areas of the town contributes to a poorer quality of life…”
• “Be cautious of the type of growth that will 1) erode the remaining rural characteristics of the town, 2) increase traffic, 3) increase parking requirements, and 4) dramatically change the nature of the town…”
• “Encourage more citizen participation and involvement within the neighborhoods in matters concerning individual neighborhoods and the town as a whole…”
• “Carefully integrate new or expanded housing into existing districts and neighborhoods so it is not physically or environmentally disruptive to the existing style or scale…”
• “Carefully plan for the future use of all currently undeveloped land so as to encourage open space over developed lands…”

Those important guidelines simply haven’t been followed. Due to multiple high-density 40B projects that are officials are endorsing, Chelmsford’s population is already over the maximum projected by the Master Plan at “complete buildout!”

A slower growth path for Chelmsford is both achievable and desirable. Our town officials need to be told that this is not only possible; it’s a priority for you.

Click here to view the petition.