If you’ve been thinking you’d like to serve on Wakefield’s Zoning Board of Appeals, may I suggest considering the U.S. Supreme Court instead? The vetting process is a lot less onerous.
Earlier this month, the Town Council decided that, of the dozens of boards and committees that they appoint, candidates for only one – the Zoning Board of Appeals – must be grilled by a three-member “selection committee” to determine the applicant’s fitness to approve side yard setbacks and attached garages.
The ZBA has become a popular whipping boy among those who don’t understand what the ZBA does and what constraints they operate under. Social media pundits hold the ZBA responsible for everything from overdevelopment to traffic congestion and lack of parking.
If only they had that much power.
ZBA Chairman David Hatfield met with the Town Council recently and told them that members of his board felt targeted and singled out as the only appointed board whose members must now go through a separate screening committee.
The Zoning Board may be many things, but paranoid isn’t one of them. If members of the ZBA felt that they were being singled out and targeted by the Town Council, it’s because they were. It was not a figment of the collective imagination.
Unfortunately, the new, stepped-up screening process will only lend credence to all the conspiracy theories and baseless insinuations about the ZBA. My favorite example is when the would-be Woodwards and Bernsteins post comments like, “Follow the money,” in online discussions about “overdevelopment.”
When asked to elaborate on exactly where they see this supposed “corruption,” they get all smug and glib.
“Wake up!” they say. “Don’t be so naïve!”
But they never actually answer the question. Because they can’t.
Yet, thanks to such attitudes, we now have the local equivalent of Senate hearings for ZBA appointees.
Of course, members of the Town Council deny that they are singling out the ZBA or reacting to public opinion. The more stringent vetting process is simply due to the “importance of what the ZBA does” and the “impact their decisions have on the community.”
There’s an old saying. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The Town Council insists that their decision to change the process for appointing ZBA members is not a reflection on the current membership of the ZBA. So, if the system is working, why fix it?
I suppose even the best processes can always be improved. But if that’s the argument, why just the ZBA? Why not apply this “improvement” across the board to all appointed committees? Where is the screening panel for the Fence Viewing Committee? (Not that there’s anything wrong with the current composition of the FVC, of course.)
The public misconceptions surrounding the ZBA are breathtaking.
Contrary to popular opinion, “Just say no” is not an option available to the them. Every developer who files an application for a project is entitled to a decision in a timely manner in accordance with the Zoning Bylaws. The Zoning Board can’t deny a project just because they don’t like it. They need a legal reason.
Take an example as recent as the Crescent Commons 40B project. The ZBA didn’t like the 5-story, 56-unit structure that was originally proposed. In fact, they hated it. They could have simply denied the project. Then the developer could have appealed their decision and got to build what he originally proposed, with no local input.
Instead, the ZBA spent a year working with the developer and succeeded in getting the project reduced to 40 units in 3.5 stories.
Let’s be clear. Something was going to go on that site. It was not going to stay the way it is now. Thanks to the ZBA and the developer working together, you’ll be looking at a more tastefully designed building that’s 30 percent smaller than what was originally proposed.
The Town Council asked Town Counsel Tom Mullen to draft a series of questions for the new screening committee to ask potential candidates for the Zoning Board of Appeals. Here’s one of the questions:
“ZBA members are appointed rather than elected because they are not supposed to bend with the political wind. Can you tell us of any time when you stood up to popular opinion or risked becoming a target on social media?”
Good question.
But I have a feeling that being targeted on social media is the least of the ZBA’s concerns.