Petition signers please attend the Town Council meeting tonight at 8PM.

The Redevelopment Agreement and Public Improvements Construction Agreement are being presented and voted on.  Over 1500 pages of documents that are going to transform 14 acres of Westfield,  were uploaded to the town website 72 hours ago. – Did you know? Did your council reps send you an email for the big day?  

Some points-

·       There is a (inter)national real estate entity with an affiliate developer that back-doored the Master Plan process with the acknowledgment of the mayor, town council, town planner, and consultants with zoning requests that exceed anything that exists in Westfield.

·       There is a Redevelopment Plan that ignored the Master Plan (ULCL).

·       There is a fully formed Redevelopment Agreement including many financial agreements and ordinances that miraculously appeared 3 days ago, only 2 weeks after the Redevelopment Plan was approved.

·       There are proposed ordinances for the town to Secure Redevelopment Area Bonds, to provide aid to the Project for $57Million in Bonds.

·       There will be 8 LLC’s formed by Streetworks (SWD) to implement the 8 buildings they are going to design, build and own in Westfield.

·       There are 2.3 acres the town is selling for $11.1M (appraisal??) and there is environmental clean-up required at $1.75M minimum paid for by the town.

·       There are many financial risks to the residents. The town takes out the bonds and the debt service is paid back with PILOT revenues over 30-32 years.

·       The schools will not be funded thru the PILOT arrangements.

·       The PILOT arrangements are back-loaded, so forecasted money will not be seen for many, many years.

·        The PILOT revenues are based on occupancy and annual residential rental rates that range from $72,000 to $113,000 per dwelling unit.

·       The first 5 years of construction starting in 2024 indicated a shortfall in taxes that would have been received from HBC/LT Entity – only land assessment tax would be paid, a loss of approximately $500,000/year.

We could go on an on---we suggest you read the documents over the next couple of weeks and continue to write LTE’s and write to your council reps to answer any questions you may have.  They are accountable and they are responsible. 

And for those of you who continue to submit 'fake names' subsequent to the 2/14/2022 vote that approved the Redevelopment Plan, shame on you. Change.org is removing your fake names.