Economic development: dead on arrival

By PAUL BOBROWSKI

Published on May 26, 2006

As Amherst's budget comes into focus at Town Meeting, members are pausing to take a breath. There's been a lot of debating going on: over zoning, over genetically engineered seeds, evolution, and other sundry matters. Thankfully, one long-standing town-wide debate is over.

I am, of course, referring to whether or not Amherst is business-friendly. By all measurements, including the recent votes at Town Meeting, we are not.

Let's look at the evidence: First, we had an opportunity to vote to rezone a small portion of South East Street near the intersection of College Street, to include mixed property uses (business and residential), rather than pure residential. This proposal came about with all of the property owners on board, some with projects in mind. Town Meeting rejected that zoning change.

Next, we had a third opportunity to add a small bit of intensity to our languishing Professional Research Park (PRP) and Light Industry zones (our business zones with the largest potential to diversify the tax base because these properties are largely unused at present). This proposal would have simply added office uses where clients can visit predominantly by appointment (currently, no visitation is allowed in these zones). Town Meeting rejected that change.

So here we had two very different approaches to diversify the tax base and provide for a more sustainable community: the first, an aggressive, appropriate, targeted, compatible change, which promised immediate results; and the second, an incremental approach that would enhance the tax base and provide local jobs over the long haul. Both approaches were rejected.

Caught in the moment, these decisions don't add up to a trend, but when you examine the larger picture, you realize that they simply add to an existing one: the conference center in North Amherst, which would have laid in critical infrastructure and utilized the North Amherst PRP zone (rejected); the long, expensive debate over the parking garage (downsized for twice the price); the land swap proposal across from Jones Library, which would have provided a Thornes Market-like business, with more public parking behind it, and a gateway to the library (rejected); the JPI student housing proposal north of campus, which would have provided cash or open space or both, plus desperately needed rental housing in town (rejected).

And the list goes on. Large or small, it doesn't seem to matter. Opportunities come and are fretted over, and then lost. The office-use PRP change mentioned above, if passed two years ago, would have saved the HBO-McKesson building for our tax base. Now it has been put out to tax-exempt pasture, another opportunity lost.

Even in days when a Select Board enthusiastically endorsed proposals like these, and when unanimous committee support existed, these proposals fail, sometimes overwhelmingly. Now, with a lukewarm Select Board, which is slowing rebuilding committees in their own image, economic development proposals are dead on arrival.

This debate is over. Let's talk about something else.

Paul Bobrowski is a member of the Planning Board.