EDIC Gives Update On Falmouth Station With Emphasis On Outreach
The Falmouth EDIC gave an update on the Falmouth Station at its meeting on Tuesday, March 8, which included addressing the need to amp up its community outreach and engagement surrounding the project.
The main point of the board’s discussion regarding Falmouth Station was the potential for enhanced focus on community outreach partnered with better practices. Board member Michael B. Galasso pointed out that they have “taken a little bit of a beating” in that sphere thus far and suggested putting more time and money into those efforts.
Executive director Wayne Lingafelter asked the board for permission to go before the Falmouth Select Board during the public comment portion of its next meeting to address comments made at a previous meeting.
At the February 28 meeting, Benjamin Mezzacappa, who owns property on Depot Avenue, went before the select board to air grievances he had with the proposed development of the Falmouth Station property and the EDIC’s handling of outreach. Mr. Mezzacappa expressed qualms with the setup and execution of both the community session in October and the stakeholders’ meeting on January 26, saying that many questions went unanswered. Among other things, Mr. Mezzacappa said that the lack of information available to him between the master planning study kickoff in October and present day is “disturbing,” as is the proposal itself.
Although he did not mention Mr. Mezzacappa by name, Mr. Lingafelter said that he felt the comments made at the select board meeting were “not necessarily complete and in some cases inaccurate,” and therefore was seeking permission to go before the select board with a prepared statement to offer more information.
EDIC board member Samuel Patterson, who also serves on the select board, said that Mr. Lingafelter’s appearance would be beneficial.
“The kind of comments that we’ve seen from the public are misrepresentative in many cases and they deserve a response to try to correct the misinformation that’s being laid out there,” he said.
Mr. Galasso further suggested that Mr. Lingafelter get on the select board agenda at a later date with a more formal proposal to brief them on the project, engage in discussion and field any questions they may have.
Mr. Lingafelter also spoke to some of the additional outreach initiatives the EDIC is engaging with in the community regarding Falmouth Station. In addition to getting before the select board, he is hoping to bring the project before the Falmouth Planning Board, tentatively scheduled for March 22. Mr. Lingafelter also said he has taken the initiative to reach out directly to residents in the area and to attendees from both meetings who had submitted questions that they were not able to get to during the meeting.
“In the moment, I tried to group together what I thought were similar questions, so we could organize our responses in an efficient manner and get through them in the time that we had,” Mr. Lingafelter said of previous meetings. “I wanted to make sure that the people who might not have felt like their questions were specifically answered had that opportunity, so I reached out to each one of them individually with an email letter and told them that I’d be happy to sit down with them.”
In other business, the EDIC discussed alternative funding options for the station. In approving its budget for 2022, the EDIC board indicated that it would not put significant money into the master planning work being done at the Falmouth Station and therefore needed to secure funding from other sources. Mr. Lingafelter reported to the board that he has been pursuing alternative funding options through the state’s Community One Stop For Growth program.
Community One Stop For Growth is a program put together by the Office of Governor Charles D. Baker Jr. and serves as a single-application portal and collaborative review process of community development grant programs that make targeted investments based on predetermined criteria called a Development Continuum. It is designed to streamline the grant application process for communities in need of funds to reach their housing or economic development goals. For FY2023, Community One Stop for Growth is offering 12 programs through the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, Department of Housing and Community Development, and MassDevelopment.
Mr. Lingafelter told the board that the first step in the process is to send in an expression of interest (EOI) in which the applicant outlines its general intent for funding and then receives feedback on it before submitting a full application. He mentioned some of the benefits of the program, which include collaborative review, guidance from the state and direct referrals to programs.
Mr. Lingafelter said that he has drafted two EOIs for two separate grants, which he sent to board members. He did identify some key areas that he would like to focus on next—a market study of community needs for workforce housing; a better understanding of any potential zoning, civil, environmental, and legal challenges posed by the site; and a formal development model to better understand the economics of the project—but asked the board for feedback and additional ideas.
He clarified that he has not proposed any additional money to look at further planning work, nor has an application been submitted to advance any of the early-stage conceptual planning done to date.
Board clerk Thomas Feronti agreed, saying this was the logical next step.
“I think these areas that you focused on are direct reactions to some of the questions that we got about a market study, about feasibility, about some of the other impacts,” Mr. Feronti said. “From my standpoint, it seems like that’s the next step to take it to before we would get into any more advancement of the planning. There’s that background work that has to be done that would then guide the next step of the planning process.”
The deadline for EOIs is Friday, March 18. Full funding applications close in early June, with funding awarded in the fall.