The Column: Lowell budgets for future

RICHARD HEALY, owner of The Keep, a pub on Gorham Street, is taking his business from Lowell and possibly to Dracut when his lease expires next summer, citing a poor location and other factors.

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“All good things come to an end. … we feel the area has degraded beyond the point of safety for our staff and patrons. … Thank you all for everything,” Healy wrote in an online post.

The restaurant sits less than block away from Jay’s Food Store. The convenience store and parking lot is in an area known to be a hotspot for disorder crimes such as prostitution and drug offenses, and it was the scene of a Thanksgiving weekend shooting.

The Sun has been reliably informed that another café-style business down the road on Merrimack Street is also considering a move to Dracut.

Elsewhere in Downtown Lowell, the owner of Gallery Z is closing her artist cooperative/exhibit gallery and coffeehouse café Jan. 1. Patricia DiStefano is inviting the public to come say goodbye today between 1 and 4 p.m. at the 167 Market St. location.

“Join us for our going away party as we celebrate the memories made at Gallery Z before it closes permanently,” DiStefano wrote on social media.

The shopkeepers at Mill No. 5 on Jackson Street all have to find other commercial lodging by the end of January after the owner donated the old mill building space to the attached Lowell Community Charter Public School. Property owner Jim Lichoulas Jr. created an indoor streetscape of salvaged storefronts — a unique “Main Street” retail model — that was a local and regional destination for almost a decade.

After four years, Nibbana Café closed its Cardinal O’Connell Parkway location across from City Hall on Dec. 1. The shop had already laid off three employees and spoke of the difficult economic environment in running a bespoke coffeeshop. The owners moved all of their operations to their newer location at Western Avenue Studios in the Acre.

And last week news broke that Enterprise Bank, founded by hometown leader George Duncan, was being gobbled up by Rockland Trust. The merger will take place mid-summer 2025. Layoffs and branch closures were not announced, and Rockland said in an online statement that “Retention of other personnel will be a top priority. Rockland Trust understands how important personal relationships are to customers.”

Lots of issues will be sorted in the coming year, including whether the new entity will retain as its headquarters the Old City Hall building on the corner of Merrimack and Shattuck streets.

Businesses all across the city, of all different sizes and impacts, and for a variety of reasons, will change the retail landscape of Lowell in 2025, but these were the most recent, high profile and surprising ones.

Dracut rejects being a good neighbor

IN LATER, more extensive reporting, The Sun will examine how towns like Dracut, which do not offer homeless supports, and indeed possibly refer their unhoused residents to Lowell for shelter and services, turn around and extend an economic welcome to businesses from Lowell impacted by the homeless and housing crisis. Dracut recently rejected MBTA Communities zoning and will not be compliant by the Dec. 31 state deadline.

So, reject additional housing that will help mitigate the state’s crushing housing crisis, then send the people from your community who become unhoused to Lowell for help, while plundering the city’s businesses leaving due to the homeless and housing crisis. Got it.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Economic headwinds

BUSINESS ACTIVITY is always in flux in a mid-sized city, and Lowell has welcomed several new ones in 2024 like Lowell General Store and Tijuana Grill, both on Market Street. The aforementioned business losses feel different, and that impact on the city’s tax base won’t immediately be felt. But stiff headwinds are coming from other directions.

Most notably, the city is going to have to contend with the end of the almost $76 million once-in-a-lifetime American Rescue Plan Act funding Dec. 31, which funded projects and personnel with one-time funds.

The fiscal 2026 process begins in February when department heads submit their budget requests.

Throwing good money after bad?

SOME OF the decisions Lowell’s City Council may make in 2025 is whether deteriorating, dangerous, vacant, but historic buildings are worth continued financial support. The Smith Baker Center has survived numerous years, councils, budget seasons and the wrecking ball, but has its time finally come?

Most economists agree that cities need housing in order to generate retail growth. Both housing and storefronts add to a city’s dream of an expanded tax base that generates more revenue and growth. Tearing down a waterlogged structure — the mold and mildew smell must be incredible in that enclosed space — that has sat unused and unwanted for more than two decades seems like a no-brainer.

So, what’s the holdup in moving forward on what mercifully could be called a white elephant, or less charitably, an albatross? Nostalgia? Practically speaking, those are expensive memories, which are taking away money that could be used for other essential, growth-oriented plans in a prime area for development.

Unfortunately, the city would not respond to a request for comment on how much taxpayer money has gone into carrying the Smith Baker Center since it closed in 2002 — money that could have been and still could be used on other more pressing projects like downtown retail development and housing.

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As a comparison, the vacant Superior Courthouse, which the council is also eyeing to redevelop into a cultural hub, cost the state almost $54,000 a year to maintain since it closed in 2020 — or a running total of $216,000. If the city took over that property from the state, it would take on the upkeep and expenses pending a potential sale to a developer. Is that what taxpayers want to spend hard-earned money on?

If the Superior Courthouse costs are extrapolated to the Smith Baker Center, it loosely means that the city has spent at least $1.3 million preserving that decaying structure. That figure doesn’t take into account all the money spent on numerous and costly studies the city has prepared over the years to evaluate the structure and its economic prospects.

The city likes to say that a purchase agreement by a developer of the property would reimburse taxpayers for those expenses, but does that really happen or is that cost simply deducted from the final purchase price? And as the carrying costs mount, does it have the unintended consequence of actually driving away developers?

Why are taxpayers continuing to foot the bill?

Fiscal 2026 process begins

ON THE subject of taxes, another property tax increase may be on the table. Increases in trash removal, sewer and water fees — costs that are outside the tax levy limits — may also be considered.

In an election year, it remains to be seen if the administration or the council will make budget and personnel cuts, or whether those decisions are pushed to the fiscal 2027 budget cycle. The proposed budget takes effect in July; the election for City Council seats is in November.

But overall, there already seems to be too much uncertainty clouding Lowell’s economic future for city leadership to continue to make risky bets off the taxpayer’s back.

Where do all the people go?

THE LAST couple of MBTA Communities votes in Greater Lowell brought very mixed results, with Wilmington voters soundly rejecting the proposed multifamily housing zoning, while Billerica’s representative Town Meeting actually accepted their own zoning proposal, bucking the trend set by some of the town’s neighbors.

That Dec. 31 deadline ticks ever closer, and now we know a majority of the 177 cities and towns have accepted some form of MBTA Communities zoning, a small minority has outright rejected it at this point, with others apparently procrastinating a little bit. I get it, I haven’t started Christmas shopping yet either.

I don’t want to really talk about how each town voted, as it does appear that even towns that accepted the zoning months ago were doing so begrudgingly. Rather, I want to share some observations about the discourse that has surrounded this entire process, at least as far as communities in Greater Lowell are concerned.

Let’s start by acknowledging that there is, in fact, a housing crisis, or a “housing affordability” crisis if you really want to be petty about it. It seems most people at least acknowledge this fact, though some bafflingly refuse to believe it, but I’ll get to that later.

Despite most people accepting that fact, it seems many lack a desire to address this issue in a way that mathematically makes sense: build more houses. Part two would be to not allow soulless hedge funds to own residential properties en masse, but unfortunately that is not what MBTA Communities was about.

In quite literally every single town where I have covered the MBTA Communities discussion, the No. 1 complaint about the law has been that it is a state mandate of local zoning. There is more nuance to any given person’s stance on it, to be sure, but from my seat, as both a reporter and a citizen with a vested interest in having an affordable place to live, a lot of the opposition to the law seemed presented as resistance for resistance’s sake, real issues be damned.

I’m all for sticking it to the man, and frankly if I had my magic dictator wand for a minute I would make some big changes to the MBTA Communities law, like applying it to Boston and most other cities and towns, and removing the requirement that the zoning has to be within a certain distance of public transit.

As much as I would change it, I am also not a fan of letting “perfect” get in the way of “good enough for now.” There is a real housing crisis that needs to be addressed at a scale that simply is not happening at the local level. You can stamp your feet endlessly over being told what to do, but I truly do not understand what many of you expect is going to happen when a critical mass of people cannot afford their own place to live.

There were 5 billion people on this planet in the 1980s, 6 billion in 1999, 7 billion in 2011, and now 8 billion as of 2022. Those new people exist on the same planet as you, Greater Lowell does not exist in a vacuum, those people will need a place to call home, and that population is only going to continue to climb. If every community decides new housing is not something they want in their backyards, then I am genuinely asking where, exactly, do you expect these people to live?

I finally want to address the sentiment shared in multiple Town Meetings in multiple communities that there is not a housing crisis in Massachusetts, and that sentiment has been shared using some truly nonsensical logic that I now feel needs to be shut down. If this had been a one-off in Chelmsford, I would have been content ignoring it, but after hearing it again in Billerica Thursday I have to wonder where this logic is coming from.

In both communities, Town Meeting representatives tried to use the logic that there is no housing crisis in Massachusetts because Massachusetts has a high rate of residents leaving the state. Think about that for a minute, that math ain’t mathin’. Dear reader, people are not moving out of this state because there is an abundance of housing we can afford here, people are moving out because of a lack thereof.

I am a 30-year-old man with a big boy job, faced with the prospect of moving back into my childhood bedroom because the economy previous generations built is simply not working for me, and I know I am far from the only one. The suggestion that there is not a problem with housing in Massachusetts is just a slap in the face to me and everybody else wondering how long their current roof will remain over their heads.

A lot of people who spoke against this zoning did so by citing how long they have been living in their current home. They of course fail to mention how they bought their home, car and college degree at a time when they were available on the dollar menu. “I got mine, so screw you,” is the energy so many of you have given off in opposing the zoning.

In Wilmington’s special Town Meeting last Saturday, they considered multiple articles as accessories to the MBTA Communities article. One such article was to require 15% affordable housing in any new housing developments built on MBTA Communities zones. This was not a state mandate, and only would have gone into effect obviously if those voters in Wilmington had then approved the main MBTA Communities article.

Despite that, Wilmington voters shot down the 15% affordability requirement, with it getting a majority but failing to get two-thirds of the voters. Having less affordable housing in Wilmington was apparently a priority for some voters, because when that was announced as having failed, some actually cheered and applauded.

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Really, they actually cheered on the idea of having less affordable housing, even before they knew whether the main article would pass or fail.

I am becoming quite tired of people, born before my generation ever had a chance to enjoy the greatest period of economic prosperity in human history, gleefully pulling the ladder up behind them and pretending they didn’t need it to climb to where they are. I ask you again, what exactly do you expect will happen when too many people can’t afford a roof?

If it really is just about not being told what to do, then I challenge every single community to come up with their own plan to build housing without the restrictions of the MBTA Communities plan. It is an issue that must be addressed at the federal, state and local level. The state has come up with its plan for a real, worsening problem. If you don’t like it, show us yours.

We must know the rules we are expected to enforce

WE MUST also address the brief chaos that unfolded in Billerica in the middle of the special Town Meeting. A little more than an hour into the debate over the MBTA Communities zoning, a Town Meeting member made a motion to move the question, which was quickly seconded by other members.

This of course triggers a vote to end the discussion and immediately vote on the article in question. In this case, the vote to move the question received a simple majority of 78-54, and that total coming up on the auditorium screen was the moment things went off the rails a little.

When Town Moderator John McKenna read the total, he asked town attorney John Hucksam whether it required a two-thirds or a simple majority to pass. Hucksam apparently told McKenna it was just a simple majority, which McKenna accepted and tried to move on to the main vote. The problem, however, is that moving the question does require a two-thirds majority, which this vote failed to achieve.

This caused loud shouts from some Town Meeting members, who were correctly angered over both an attorney and town moderator getting a required vote threshold wrong. McKenna took a rather combative approach to being told he was wrong.

“Let’s try to get through this. You don’t like it? Sit down,” McKenna said to the Town Meeting members as he continued trying to move on to the main vote.

Town Meeting member Susan Ferguson approached the microphone to try to calmly get clarification from McKenna and Hucksam, with McKenna interrupting her she tried clarifying what she was asking. When she clarified she was asking whether moving the question required two-thirds, Hucksam approached the other microphone, but then seemed to take his cue from McKenna anyway.

“It requires a majority vote,” McKenna said.

“A majority vote,” Hucksam immediately repeated.

McKenna then repeatedly shouted at Ferguson to “step back” after another confusing exchange where both seemed to misunderstand each other.

“Quiet on the floor, I’ll remove every one of you,” McKenna said as he continued trying to let the main vote take place and Town Meeting members continued trying to tell him he was wrong.

It got to a point where McKenna told a police officer to remove Town Meeting and Planning Board member Kelley Sardina when she wouldn’t let the issue go, and Sardina was not allowed back in the room despite eventually being proven right. When Town Meeting member Dan Burns walked up to McKenna to show him the actual text of the law saying it requires two-thirds, McKenna refused to even look at it.

“It’s two-thirds, you piece of s***,” Burns said as he walked away, which McKenna apparently took enough offense from to tell Burns later to get out of the line to speak about the article at hand.

Credit must be given to Planning Board Chair Michael Parker, who approached the microphone and asked for everybody to “take a breath.”

“I want you, Mr. Moderator, and our town counsel, to check your notes, please,” said Parker. “This is very important to our town, and I don’t want to chance that on some stupid, idiotic decision that we can fix right now.”

After having checked his notes, Hucksam approached McKenna to talk off-microphone, and then announced that it did, in fact, require a two-thirds vote.

I try not to lay into specific people too hard, but I was truly shocked by the display I saw Thursday night as a neutral third party. McKenna often takes a more combative approach to maintaining order and timeliness at Town Meetings, which is much more understandable when there are upwards of 40 articles to consider. In this case, there were just two, and the first was a street acceptance the meeting got through quickly. There was plenty of time for nuance and conversation about a very controversial topic, though a couple of people could have been a little more brief in their remarks, to be sure.

Mr. McKenna, I have never had the pleasure of having a conversation with you, but it truly looked like you did not want to be there Thursday. If you do not want to be there, somebody else would be best to take the reins as town moderator. Our democratic processes are simply too important for this kind of behavior, now more than ever.

It is a bad look for somebody who is supposed to be a neutral arbitrator during these proceedings to take such an adversarial approach to the body, especially in a situation where you and town counsel were quite wrong about rules you are both expected to know. Not offering any sort of apology at Town Meeting and not allowing Sardina to return and barring Burns from speaking on the article later both only added to this poor look.

This week’s Column was prepared by reporters Melanie Gilbert in Lowell and Peter Currier on MBTA Communities zoning in Greater Lowell and Billerica Town Meeting.