Wellesley Select Board debates motion language for proposed housing at 40 Oakland Street ahead of May Special Town Meeting

The Wellesley Select Board spent much of its April 23 meeting shaping how it will present a proposal to Town Meeting on the possible sale and housing development of state-owned land at 40 Oakland Street.

Select Board member Kenneth Largess outlined a two-motion approach that would first put the Commonwealth’s proposal to a yes-or-no vote and, if that failed, offer a second motion with seven conditions — including reduced scale, significant open-space preservation, traffic and infrastructure mitigation, environmental protections, compliance with local regulations and protection of municipal rights — intended to provide clearer Town direction for negotiations. Largess said he had “confirmed with Town Counsel that the approach he proposed is legally sound, pending standard Town Meeting and Town Moderator review.”

Select Board member Beth Sullivan Woods urged a different tack: instead of a single up-or-down question, she proposed a series of granular survey questions to be submitted through the town’s electronic voting system to capture voters’ preferences on issues such as open-space preservation, unit counts and types, affordability measures, traffic mitigation and development agreement terms. “This method would provide clearer insight into community preferences and tolerance levels, helping both Town Meeting and the Select Board assess whether a viable path to an acceptable project exists,” Sullivan Woods said.

Town Counsel Thomas Harrington presented a separate draft motion intended to give the Select Board negotiating authority while preserving flexibility. Harrington said the draft required compliance with local regulations and a permanent conservation restriction but left specific development metrics out to allow negotiation tradeoffs.

Board members emphasized the importance of Town Meeting deliberation and transparency about potential development scope. Members debated the balance between providing specific parameters that would constrain developers and preserving negotiating flexibility that might secure concessions; they also raised procedural questions about motion structure and the advisory nature of Town Meeting votes.

The board discussed preparing visual presentation materials to help illustrate potential development impacts and agreed to return to the motion-language question at a subsequent meeting to refine the language before the May 11 Special Town Meeting. No formal STM motion was adopted during the April 23 session.

The Select Board meeting convened at 6:30 p.m. in the Juliani Room at Town Hall and adjourned at 7:48 p.m.