25% design and Eminent Domain

 What is the process leading to the 25% design plan?  

A kind staffer in the MassDOT District 4 office explained it to  me.  His name I won't reveal because maybe he will be fired for explaining *anything* to a Channing Rd abutter.  After all, keeping us in the dark seems to be the objective of both town and state officials* so as to be able to carry out this project with a minimum of disturbance.  This project is so important to someone who is very important and powerful that - an engineer told me with awe - it was assigned a temporary project manager!! Gasp!  That temp project manager is MassDOT's Michael Trepanier. The very important and powerful person is ... anyone's guess.  But I digress.

* Exception: MPO's very professional and responsive Matt Genova.

To become a state project and receive federal funds, it must progress through the following steps :

1.  Feasibility Study (FS)

2.  The FS is presented to a MassDOT Project Review Committee (PRC) who decides if the project meets the criteria for inclusion as a state project.

3.  After PRC approval then it moves to the design phase which consists of 3 stages: 25%, 75% and 100% The most important phase is the 25% when the project's structure is laid out.

What is the 25% design plan phase?

To understand the 25% design plan phase, let's compare it to baking a cake. The first step is deciding on the cake's flavor: chocolate, vanilla? Layers: 1, 2 or 3?  Form: square, circular?  Similarly, during this time, the CPPC is planning eminent domain seizures: what properties or land will it either permanently or temporarily take? According to Chair Leino, it amounts to 40+. How close to the homes will this path be?  In one case, the path will be constructed 9' from an unfortunate abutter's living room windows. What type of health-damaging lights will be installed? A CPPC member (let's call her Vanity) grandly proclaimed that "They [the people] should know that they are in BELMONT!" when they enter the park so the lights will probably be expensive ...and bright.  How many families' backyards will be churned up into a construction road and staging site? Most abutters' backyards since the town will take 40+ out of ~56 for  a period of ~2-3 years as implied by Mr. Clancy recently.

In fact, during the 25% design phase, the CPPC is deciding on many different ways to permanently damage abutters' properties and health, upending our sense of home safety peace and quiet.  But CPPC's Vanity dismissed us with a wave of her hand and a giggle as crybabies who complain because of a little damaged sod.  Ahhh!  The frivolity of Vanity, this modern Marie Antoinette - a jetsetter who flits between her Belmont estate up on the hill and her summer mansion - who mocks us rubes! We are crybabies and rubes because we don't want a park that will destroy much of what we value in our homes, including our trees, and that will bring a lifetime of trash, litter, noise, lights and a daily parade of 1000 strangers streaming past us.  

But why listen to abutters' complaints?! Marie Antoinette must have her cake and a new showy feather in her cap.  State workers must please their bosses and land a promotion.  Politicians must make donors happy and fill their coffers for the next election cycle. Construction companies and real estate developers must fill their pockets with golden eggs and ... golf?

 And that's the 25% design plan phase as viewed from the ground.



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