Waynflete’s
Relentless Pursuit
of More West End
Property Must Stop
ORLANDO DELOGU
After more than two years of discussions,
Waynflete pruned its shopping list of West Eend
houses and properties that it would acquire and add
to the footprint of the school. But it will not concede
that all future school needs could be met either on
land it presently owns in the West End, or on the 40
acres it owns on the Fore River, or by a combined
(and tastefully integrated) use of the two areas.
Sensing that the acquisition of five homes and two
additional properties in the West End was not
acceptable to the neighborhood, the historic
preservation people, or the Planning Board,
Waynflete, in the waning days of Planning Board
consideration of its original proposal, scaled down its
request. It now would acquire only two additional
houses (which would largely be used for school
purposes). It would also convert two houses it
already owns to school use. And it would leave the
door open to future acquisition of the Williston West
Church annex and the Saint Louis Church
properties.
This strategy of “hudspuh” — ask for the moon,
settle for what seems to be much less, worked. The
Planning Board, led by two members who have (or
recently had) children enrolled in the school, voted
5-2 to recommend approval of Waynflete’s scaled
down overlay zone to the City Council. Only Board
members Hall and Patterson distinguished
themselves– they alone recognized that the school
does not need to acquire one more residential
property in the West End – that no existing
residence need be converted to school use – and
that City standards for institutional intrusion into a
residential neighborhood were not met.
The majority of the Board, surprisingly (and
seemingly relieved that what it called a compromise
had been struck) never really discussed whether
Waynflete needed to acquire and/or convert any
houses in the West End to school use. They never
really considered whether future needs could be
met on existing West End land owned by the school
– whether Waynflete had met comprehensive plan
standards for institutional encroachment into a
residential neighborhood. And they never
addressed use of the Fore River parcel, acting as if
it never existed. In sum, by ignoring facts and City
standards, the findings of their own staff and legal
counsel, the majority gave Waynflete what it wanted
all along–more West End houses and land for school
use.
And now the matter is before the City Council. A
bit of history may be useful. In the mid-'60s,
Waynflete consisted of fewer than 100 students and
faculty. Today the student/faculty population
numbers over 650– with associated cars, buses,
traffic and parking problems. In the '60s, the school’
s West End campus was less than half the size it is
today. Over the years, eight separate West End
properties have been acquired. Now they want two
more. They are utilizing the same strategy today
that they have used all along — a slow nibbling away
of neighborhood residential properties, a little bit at a
time, over time. They are patient and relentless—
history speaks for itself. They deal with successive
Planning Boards and City Councils with little
institutional memory, and limited ability to see the
cumulative effect of Waynflete’s approach to school
growth and West End land acquisition.
At some point, the Council must end this pattern
of acquisition— it is not sustainable and not
needed. The neighborhood associations and the
original staff report showed that Waynflete could
meet its space needs by a more judicious use of the
West End property it now owns. No additional
property was required. And the fact that Waynflete
today owns a 40 acre parcel of land on the Fore
River should not be ignored by the Council. To
date, the school has chosen to use this land only for
ballfields, but much of it remains unused. In short,
the Council should turn down the Waynflete/
Planning Board proposed overlay zone. In doing so,
the Council would simply be requiring Waynflete to
use some portion of its 40 acre Fore River parcel to
accommodate whatever future space needs cannot
be met by a more careful use of presently-owned
school property in the West End. This is not an
unreasonable burden on the school.
Moreover, turning down the proposed
Waynflete/Planning Board overlay zone protects
valuable residential property in the West End (and
the tax base these properties represent)— it
sustains both the comprehensive plan and the City’s
housing policies— it sustains the City’s long
commitment to historic preservation and historic
district zoning (almost all of the properties Waynflete
has acquired over the years and would acquire
today are historic structures). And not least, turning
down the proposed overlay zone would sustain the
City’s planning staff and legal counsel, whose views
were ignored by an aberrant Planning Board.
But make no mistake, an overlay zone is needed–
not the overlay zone proposed by Wayneflete and
the Planning Board, but one that finally corrals
Waynflete’s 40-year pattern of land acquisition in the
West End; one that limits Waynflete’s West End
campus to the land it already owns; one that
requires that the residential structures now owned by
the school be used for residential purposes only;
one that bars expanding school programs further
into the neighborhood by the acquisition of
institutional properties beyond the present borders
of the school.
It is worth repeating– the overlay zone proposed
in the preceding paragraph does no harm to
Waynflete School– it merely forces the school to use
its present West End campus fully, and to recognize
that its Fore River campus (if
needed for future growth) offers almost unlimited
school use possibilities. It also has the virtue of
sustaining the City’s neighborhood protection,
housing, comprehensive plan, and historic district
standards and policies. It protects a valuable tax
base.
Bottom line — for any or all of the reasons noted,
one hopes the Council will reject the Waynflete/
Planning Board overlay zone, and that it will instead
amend the proposal before it to put in place a much-
needed overlay zone - one fashioned along the lines
outlined above– that’s my view.