Images of Decline |
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While the town has talked about revitalizing downtown for years, little has been done until recently, and current efforts seem doomed to failure without major improvements to the downtown climate. From top: H. Perron & Son Locksmith moved out of downtown because of the lack of parking; town parking lot view from Rte. 135; abandoned storefront on downtown's main street; boarded windows on historic building downtown; Town Hall with orange traffic cones marking crumbling steps. With a budget deficit projected to be in the millions of dollars and growing, Framingham faces a Catch-22: it doesn't seem to have the money to fix these problems, but must fix them or doom the Arcade and Dennison projects to failure. |
Framingham suffers from a Catch-22 downtown: it will be hard to improve downtown on a limited budget, yet it will be nearly impossible improve our budget with depressed property values, increasing crime, and more than our share of tax exempt properties. Framingham is at a crossroads, and we must succeed in revitaliting downtown now or go the way of Springfield or Fall River.
Crime: after a decade of decline, crime has been increasing since 1999. While still below the state average, many residents are unwilling to go downtown. This has to change.
Social services: Some social services are necessary, but Framingham has too great a concentration. Dominate downtown
Uninviting landscape: While the town has started to upgrade the appearance of downtown, much work remains to be done.
Parking and traffic: While there is parking downtown, there isn't enough, and it's not always very convenient. The amount of traffic through downtown, especially around the rotary, makes the area daunting and unappealing to pedestrians. The 126/135 intersection is a mess, and it will limit not just Framingham's downtown revitalization, but growth throughout the region. Unfortunately, most of the discussion the issue revolves around "tweaking" the traffic lights to improve traffic flow. The traffic lights at this intersection are certainly awful (in particular, the lack of "protected left turn" notification on 135) but fixing them will not solve solve two fundamental problems: first, 126 is the only major north/south connector for miles; and second, it is blocked by trains at what will be increasing intervals throughout the day.
The only real solution to this is to tunnel 126 under downtown Framingham. That certainly seems impractical in today's economic climate, but the advantages to such a tunnel would be immense: not only would traffic be unimpeded by the trains, but the disused above ground portion of 126 could then be turned into a pedestrian only zone, further helping downtown revitalization. To be blunt, Framingham's downtown area is not pedestrian friendly, and every successful town I know of has a pedestrian friendly area, usually downtown.
Doing this would also mean getting rid of the awful rotary by town hall, and replacing it with something nice, like a fountain, or alternatively with the 126 tunnel entrance and exit. I prefer making Franklin Street (?) dead end into an appropriately named fountain (say, named after the politician who manages to pay for this!) and have the tunnel run from Irving Street all the way to Kendall, with underground signs directing traffic onto either Union or Concord. The other big problem would be getting traffic from 135 onto 126. The only thing I can thing of would be a cloverleaf style entry/exit near Irving and South Street, and that would entail quite a big of property takeover (eminent domain?) and demolition -- again, painful, but many times better when complete.
Unfortunately, it's difficult to imagine the state spending that kind of money, even though it would aid the governor's plans for what he calls "smart growth." If they kicked in some of the money, though, it might be that a combination of Framingham money, Worcester money, and CSX money could make it happen. CSX would benefit through increased train speeds and better safety, and Worcester -- like many other towns in the MetroWest, would benefit from the increased train traffic this would allow.
We need a politician with clout and vision to attact this at the state level.
For years, the town has viewed grants to social service agencies as the best way to bring money to town. Just recently, the Town Planning Department, headed by Kathy Bartolini and certain Selectmen, particularly Katie Murphy, lauded the proposed Great Brook Valley health clinic as an aid to downtown revitalization.
The MetroWest Daily News agreed, pointing out that this would represent a $7 million "investment" in downtown.
But recent history shows that social services and other nonprofits simply aren't a way to revitalize a town. In the '90s, for example, the social service industry grew rapidly in Framingham and pumped a lot of money into the economy of Framingham, yet we had (and still have) the lowest income growth of any community in Middlesex County.
Yes, downtown "has stubbornly resisted revitalization for 20 years" and needs new investment. But how can yet another tax exempt property help? Framingham has relied on free-flowing social service money for "revitalization" for years, and all we've seen are marginal improvements in downtown, a multimillion dollar deficit, and a reversal of the decade long downward trend in crime rates.
Yes, the uninsured need an alternative to the emergency room for health care, but by the time this clinic is even built, all Massachusetts citizens should have some form of health insurance, whether MassCare or private insruance provided by the state or their employers. This will allow private medical facilities to move into areas where the need is and provide the services needed by each local community. This private investment would aid downtown revitalization through growth in tax revenues and the kind of private-public partnerships this synergy allows.
Not only would Great Brook Valley's proposed clinic not help revitalization, it would actually inhibit it by reducing revenues to the town, increasing parking problems, and suppressing private competition.
The town should vote to refuse the permit for this project if it is serious about revitalization.
The key selling point of the proposed Great Brook Valley health clinic downtown is that it will provide coverage to a "medically underserved" part of town, many of whom do not have health insurance. The argument that Great Brook Valley, a well known social service provider in Worcester but little known here, appears to be making is that people with no insurance will not attract private medical offices, so only a charitable organization can serve them. The fact that this nonprofit facility will not only not pay taxes to the town but discourage competition that would was unfortunate but of no real concern to Great Brook Valley.
Their argument may have been true at one time, but it no longer applies. Before this charitable clinic is even scheduled to open, everyone in the state should have health insurance. (See excerpt from the Globe's story on Romney's proposal in his State of the State address below).
The beauty of this proposal is that it will encourage the growth of private, tax paying, medical facilities in precisely those areas that are currently medically underserved, because competition, like nature, abhors a vacuum. By now we have all read that a private facility of the same size as the Great Brook Valley clinic would pay the town $70,000 per year in taxes, which could be used to hire an additional police officer or alleviate bus fees for schoolchildren.
Great Brook Valley's argument that they are renovating a blighted property, which a private group might not, can be countered through tax incentives. The town could offer a ten-year, $25,000 per year tax break to a private medical facility on the same property -- that's a quarter of a million dollars -- in exchange for renovating a blighted property. The private company would benefit and so would the town, both because the property would be renovated, aiding downtown revitalization, and because the town would still receive enough in taxes per year to pay for the repairs to the heating system at town hall. Not only that, but the private facility, because it would not be designed to serve a 25-town area like the Great Brook Valley clinic, would not create the kind of traffic and parking problems that the proposed clinic will.
I hope that the town will see the long term advantage, to both the town's citizens and finances, of denying the special permits required for Great Brook Valley to build their clinic here and instead take the more difficult, but more rewarding, route of attracting a private, tax paying medical facility here with the lure of tax incentives and a ready made market of medically underserved residents with health insurance.
Resources |
The Smart Growth Network lists Smart Growth News for Massachusetts. Urban Advantage is an organization specializing in xxxxxx Framingham Planning Department Framingham EDIC ???? |
What would a successful downtown look like?
There is a slide show at Urban Advantage that illustrates what could happen downtown. It would take a lot of funds, focus, and long-term planning to make this happen, and it's not clear that our town government has those qualities. We need to vote accordingly in the upcoming elections. It could actually become a reality with the right folks in place that are focused on the same goal.
We consider the following to all be essential components of a successful downtown:
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| Lights improve the look of Leavenworth, Wash. |
Framingham could make the downtown area truly inviting and exciting with the proper investment of time, money, and energy.
That would prove Framingham is indeed "300 Years Young."
Many people look at Waltham as a model for revitalizing a downtown. Natick is also a good role model. Here are a few of the characteristics those successful downtowns share:
What we need in Framingham is a new employer (something like Bose) on the southern or eastern end of town coordinated with a planned community encompassing houses, apartments, and condos (5-10% of which could be affordable), shops, a park, a restaurant or two, and a LIFT bus running from there to the train station and the Arcade. Now that would help revitalize Framingham because it would raise income levels and property values.
But how do we get from here to there?
The town’s budget deficit, the poor results of downtown revitalization,
and increasing crime all tie together, and a coherent vision
for a thriving downtown would not only help solve all these problems, but
would capture the public’s imagination. There is simply no way the
town's pland for downtown can succeed without getting control of the social
service situation.
Step one is the PILOT Study Committee. This is underway, and they are doing a great job, but the hard work is ahead of us. After all, once the PILOT program is in place, it will be voluntary. Framingham needs someone who can sell the idea of contributing, and who isn't afraid of standing up in public and humiliating anyone who won't.
Step two is crime. We need to get control of the rising crime in Framingham before it gets out of hand. After a decade of decline, crime has been steadily rising since 1999. Framingham should bite the bullet and hire more police officers. This will cost money, but downtown will never thrive without some on the beat police presence. This would also allow the police to actually enforce some laws that are being largely ignored today, like vagrancy and public intoxication laws. This simple step would make Framingham a far less inviting destination for come to town solely to eat at the Salvation Army and sleep at the wet shelter.
Step three is making Framingham less attractive to new social services. Part of this will be increasing property values, so agencies are less likely to buy here, and part will be publicly applying pressure on social service to pay PILOT fees, but part of it is taking concrete steps NOW. The single biggest thing Framingham can do today to discourage social services is reject the Great Brook Valley health clinic downtown and stop relying on grant money to social service providers to rebuild downtown. Jason should criticize Katie Murphy for pushing through a motion to support the health center at a recent Board of Selectmen's meeting. Not only was this inconsistent with her recent public statements about encouraging private investment in Framingham, it was inappropriate of her to use her position to try to pressure the Planning Board. Similarly, the Board under her leadership voted to pen a letter of support for an Advocates grant to renovate a property near downtown. Framingham has followed this strategy for many years, and it's one of the reasons why, in the 1990s, Framingham had the lowest cumulative personal income growth in all of Middlesex County. See the PILOT committee's minutes of November 29, 2005.
Step four is getting some control over social services we already have. Framingham should hire a Human Services Administrator. There are 48 towns in Massachusetts, including Taunton, Newton, and Southboro, that have Human Service Administrators. These are generalists, not licensed social workers, that provide oversight and are loyal to the city or town they represent rather than to the social service agencies. They are familiar with all the laws for licensing, etc. This is crucial. For example, sober housing, which we have a lot of in Framingham, is "unlicensed." Social Service agencies give them a therapeutic name but they are not required to hire certain professional staff to oversee these houses and often hire reformed addicts to manage them. Small congregate housing units (e.g. three or less people) often just fall off the radar screen as well because for any house with three or under there is no special inspections. There are other examples -- for instance, Brockton has a ban on shelters for 8 years because the Human Services Administrator in working with the city decided they have too many shelters and would be detrimental.
It isn't just a question of SMOC, Advocates, Genesis, etc., bringing people in, although that does happen through advertising. The majority of the problem is the state placing people in Framingham. When the state needs a placement, they call SMOC and other local social service agencies. Therefore it is not a homegrown problem -- the agencies are definitely magnets for the placement needs of the state.
It isn't just the homeless or the hungry, either. SMOC has three programs with the Department of Corrections -- Fresh Start, Clean Slate, and The Prisoner Rentry Program -- to place people who are harder to place, like arsonists and sex offenders. In addition to this, Bridge House, run by the Rev. Paul Pappas' group, is for parolees with serious criminal records. We don't yet know how well regulated these are or what the overall impact is.
So while this isn't an easy problem to tackle, it's an essential one to get control over. Since 1990, we went from 26 sites of social services in Framingham to roughly 246 -- over 800% growth. And with that growth came a drop in our median income growth and our property value growth, combined with an increase in our crime rate. Is it any wonder we have a budget deficit and a struggling downtown?
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