Pause, Rethink & Develop An Alternative

The One Westfield Place (OWP) project changes presented by HBC on January 11th and 17th, 2023, are marginal at best. These are only baby steps and much more needs to be done. These changes DO NOT address the major issues raised in the Westfield Advocates petition:

1) The project is still TOO BIG for the Town of Westfield. There are still bulk buildings of five and six stories tall, and the overall project massing still exceeds current allowable zoning by two-fold. The proposal will essentially create a long wall of buildings and parking structures through the center of Town. There seems to be a focus on ‘setbacks’ as if they are a panacea to disguise the height. They don’t; their purpose is to let some daylight onto the street when buildings are tall.

2) The inclusion of sizable office and retail uses in this development do not solve -- and may even exacerbate - existng vacancies downtown. One Westfield Place is seemingly set up to be its own self-contained community – that is not well integrated with its surrounding neighborhood.

3) We believe there are significant and permanent community and environmental impacts from this development - the increased traffic, the overall density of additonal residents in the Town center, more inconvenient commuter parking, the visual impact from loss of light and air space. There are many facts that need to be disclosed and addressed with alternatives and/or mitigations.

Westfield Advocates have ideas on how to downscale OWP that could still serve everyone’s interests – HBC, downtown businesses and Town residents, in a well-balanced manner. There are still basic unanswered questions on the purpose and need for the scale of this OWP project – why it needs to be this size and override zoning by so much, why it needs to be expanded beyond the HBC lots to incorporate additional public lots.

Even as a business deal, the types of public amenities and financial payments offered by HBC to the Town MAY NOT be sufficient trade-off when looked at in terms of basic real estate financial analysis, when expressed in NPV and IRR terms. The zoning override on just the HBC lots themselves is equivalent to a significant sale of air rights – is there an appraisal on these air rights? We have yet to see or receive direct or complete responses to our requests for information to the town via emails and many OPRA requests, HBC-Streetworks Developer, and via Facebook live.

One Westfield Place is not a naturally occurring or evolutionary type of development for this Town. And the Town’s character does not inevitably need to be transformed this way. The scale of the OWP proposal has always appeared a force fit to maximize density, lot coverages, and mixed uses. From the ginormous model and even from it’s brand identity as “One Westfield Place” this seems designed to supplant – rather than supplement – Downtown Westfield.

We continue to believe there are viable alternatives for a downscaled development that does not sacrifice Westfield's identity and quality of life. The Town Council and Planning Board should not base their decision making without full hearing and consideration of alternatives and impacts. Westfield Advocates has asked to PAUSE this rushed timeline toward approval of a OWP Redevelopment Plan of this unprecedented magnitude -- and to allow meaningful and substantive incorporation of public input into an alternate OWP plan. T

he Summit government leaders listened to their constituents, we EXPECT you to as well.