Letter To The Editor: Clarifying Proposed Re-Zoning On Route 125

Letter to the editor from Wilmington attorney Michael Newhouse and former Wilmington Town Manager Michael Caira:

Dear Editor and Fellow Residents:

Over the past week, several letters, comments and posts have expressed concern and opposition to the proposed re-zoning of property located on Route 125, at the Ballardvale Street intersection, based upon inaccurate and/or incomplete information. We will not attempt to debunk all of the misconceptions that recently have been published in this one letter. However, we believe it is important to address a few of these concerns now, with the hope that all residents of Wilmington, and in particular the residents in the Andover Street and Ainsworth Road area of town, are able to base their support or opposition to this proposal on the facts, and not on assumptions, innuendo, or well-intended but misinformed opinions.

1. The proposal has never contemplated, nor will it ever incorporate access to the site from Andover Street or Ainsworth Road. From an economic and market perspective, access to any commercial development should and will be via a curb cut at the existing signalized intersection of Route 125 and Ballardvale Street. This curb cut would be less than 200 yards from the Route 93 off-ramp. It makes no business sense for a hotel, a restaurant or a retail establishment to require customers to drive through a network of residential neighborhoods to get there.

2. The Warrant Article that was filed includes all of the property owned by our client. This customary approach serves as a transparent way of notifying the general public about the property location and its ownership. At Town Meeting, the two parcels of property that our client owns off of Andover Street (and which actually constitutes the unaccepted way commonly described as “Ainsworth Road"), will not be included in the re-zoning, thereby prohibiting access to a commercial development on Route 125 via any residential neighborhood. We already have prepared the motion for Town Meeting, and it will be delivered to the Town Moderator in advance of the meeting.

3. A request for a Break in No-Access Line was submitted to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation ("DOT") in March with communications between the project engineer and DOT officials happening well before that. DOT has until May 15th to respond to the submission as this is the first step in obtaining a curb cut on Route 125, which we anticipate will take 9 to 12 months.

We hope and expect that a meaningful discussion on the floor of Town Meeting will be based on the merits of the proposal, and we look forward to answering any and all questions regarding the proposal at that time. In the interim, our client remains committed to transparency throughout the process, and to that end, we are happy to answer questions that any resident might have in advance. Residents are invited to contact us by email at mike@mnewhouselaw.com.

Thank you.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Newhouse, Esq. and Michael A. Caira

This letter was produced by Michael Newhouse and Michael Caira. The views expressed are the author's own.