Your vote matters. A lot.
The MBTA 3A law impacts 177 towns, including Hamilton-Wenham. See below & click the upper right corner stacked dash lines!
Introduction
The towns of Hamilton and Wenham are currently facing a multitude of evolving legal, zoning, educational, and financial challenges that will have integrated future impacts. None more important than the MBTA 3A Communities Act and the new consolidated elementary school proposal.
Let's Govern Ourselves. It's Easy, Get The Word Out!
Vote NO at the Hamilton and Wenham Annual Town Meetings April 5, 2025!
Democracy in two small New England towns still matters! It's your government to govern. The impending timing has created an urgent need to manage the transparency of town elected officials and boards with a check on Massachusetts and town legal “guardrails.” Future bipartisan Hamilton and Wenham citizen involvement is paramount to amplifying information sharing for the purpose of driving public awareness, understanding, and most importantly, ongoing town department meeting attendance, special town meeting voting and election voting. “You need to GO.”
Stop MBTA 3A!
This law when implemented means Hamilton and Wenham residents lose control of our towns’ zoning to the state of Massachusetts. The law requires 3A zoned districts within a 0.5-mile radius of our shared MBTA Commuter Rail station and hands zoning control over to the State through ever-evolving zoning guidelines with a minimum of 731 units in Hamilton (Winthrop School!) and a minimum of 365 units in Wenham.
Both these 3A building developments, with enormous population expansion would have financial and infrastructure impacts impossible to accurately forecast and support with two small town’s property taxes. These include future tax increases to support costs for police, fire, water, DPW, teacher contracts, new public sewer lines and much more.
Forever is a Long Time.
What has the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC) mandated for Hamilton and Wenham? Hamilton must create a minimum 49-acre 3A zone for 731 multi-family, high density housing units. Wenham must create a minimum 24-acre 3A zone for 365 multi-family, high density housing units. As the EOHLC Guidelines have changed, Hamilton’s plans for its 3A district to be within a one-half mile radius of the Hamilton side of the train station, including the Winthrop School across from Patton Park, have also evolved to possibly include 3A districts at Gordon Conwell Seminary and on Chebacco Road. Wenham is proposing two 3A districts. The first will include a lot behind the current Shoppes at Hamilton Crossing. The second will be 26.2 acres on Boulder Lane which sits off Grapevine Rd. between Gordon College and Route 128.
It remains to be seen if the state would accept 3A zones outside of the one-half mile radius of the train station.
Once a town has created a 3A district, the EOHLC is free to modify the rules governing the zone at any time. Forever.
MBTA 3A Facts: 15 units per acre min. The units have no min bedroom size, no max number of bedrooms, and no max number of residents. Yikes!
MBTA 3A is not affordable housing!3A and 40B compliance are separate laws! 3A provides for no affordable housing, but almost unlimited development, which means the 40B requirement will never be achieved as housing units are added into the 3A zoning district as the years pass. Wenham will lose 40B compliance and Hamilton will lose Safe Harbor. Our towns will be subject to unbridled 40B development. Like a dog chasing its tail.
Plan Sensible School Futures!
With MBTA 3A approved in Hamilton comes the real possibility of the demolition of the Winthrop School to be replaced with 3A building development. The HWRSD recently voted 5 yes-2 no to continue with the plan titled C3.4 for a consolidated elementary school at the Cutler School, Hamilton, Asbury Street. This vote was taken after a paid public poll/survey statistically, overwhelmingly resulted in Hamilton-Wenham taxpayers opposing a big elementary school. And if MBTA 3A were to pass in both towns what would the needs be for schools with an enormous growth of new 3A students? The cost? The increase in educators and their benefit packages? Bessie Buker would become pre-K and K with all Wenham children grades 1-5 bused to the consolidated C3.4 Cutler School. To date the district has no other school improvement plans.
Phased investment approaches regardless of MBTA 3A to individually modernize Winthrop, Bessie Buker or Cutler schools were abandoned by joint committees. Ultimately, both Wenham on November 16, 2024, and Hamilton in April 2025 must vote at town meetings and at the ballot box. But the linkage to MBTA 3A is apparent. Why? The State will help fund a big elementary school only if Winthrop is demolished. The State's current amount of contribution is a wobbly projection and has no forecast for MBTA 3A populations or either of our town's future infrastructure costs. Massachusetts, and the Town of Hamilton, Hamilton Planning Board, Hamilton Development Corporation (HDC), Wenham's Planning Board and the Hamilton Wenham Regional School District (HWRSD) have been leaning into the MBTA 3A district and a big elementary school for Hamilton for the past few years as their recommended solutions based process.
“What about this Master Plan (MP) stuff I keep hearing about?” Both towns have been working on plans for the future. No doubt lots of hard work and crafted by two boards and volunteer residents from both towns. These conceptual plans are robust and include creative ideas for commercial zoning, affordable housing, public area beautification-revitalization, open land preservation but are not the MBTA 3A plans from the State. These MP plans are separate from MBTA 3A. None are funded by either the town or the State yet. Hamilton’s MP includes an aggressive plan to demolition Winthrop School and replace it with mixed use: residential, commercial, retail, and business building development on the existing 14-acre school site. Commercial zoning as future tax revenue for Hamilton is the idea without any known research data whether it’s possible or a net neutral, worse a cost shortfall after infrastructure costs become real. In short, increased taxes for Hamilton residents is a real concern. Utile, a state of Massachusetts selected, vetted, MBTA 3A trained architectural design firm has been hired by the Hamilton Town Manager to help the town government inform a way forward using the Winthrop School property for MBTA 3A, commercialization and school consolidation. The suggested process is called Hamilton Town Center Plan & Form-Based Code. For this reason, BHWG residents believe the plan's potential outcomes if voted in by taxpayers are connected politically, and commercially. Hamilton residents need to catch up and learn more while immediately focusing first on a stop to MBTA 3A. Wenham taxpayers need to know what and how Hamilton manages these potential initiatives. Both towns are connected financially by the regional school district.
A few thoughts about our schools. We have NOT met anyone in either of our towns who is against our teachers, safe schools, and functioning buildings that can evolve with future educational methodologies. Many in Hamilton-Wenham moved here for small schools, not BIG schools. For those reasons, opposing MBTA 3A means resetting our elected officials as to what our priorities are, what we can afford.
Research proves smaller schools are better schools! 745 students = too big to learn!
Invest in teachers, modernize, update, repair, not school size. Building a large consolidated school at the Cutler school’s location will open the Winthrop school for redevelopment and thereby becomes vulnerable to an approved MBTA 3A.
Hamilton and Wenham big elementary school's $150M price tag + MBTA 3A + more future school builds + infrastructure cost overloads = OVERTAXED, NOT SUSTAINABLE for residents of all ages!
Contact us, learn more. Get involved, your own way!
Bipartisan HW Governing
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