SPRAWL STORY Hopkinton's big-box fight goes political BY PETER IAN ASEN

When the Hopkinton Town Council voted in March to keep the existing zoning on a piece of land near Interstate 95’s Exit 1, clearing the way for a proposed big-box development, opponents of the development vowed to take their fight to the polls (see "Is Wal-Mart Inevitable?," News, May 7). After collecting more than 900 signatures to put a referendum on the ballot that would limit commercial and warehouse developments to 30,000 square feet, members of the anti-big-box group Hopkinton First!! discovered that because of state law, only the town council can make zoning changes. So the group decided to pursue yet another option: running some of its members for the council.

Hopkinton First!! chairman Gary Williams, a Democrat, and member Ken Young, a Republican, are running for seats on the five-member council, which previously voted, 4-1, against the group’s attempt to limit the size of an envisioned development at Exit 1.

Right now, it’s not even clear what will happen with the proposal that heated all this up in the first place. Jeffrey Gilman, whose family is one of the landowners at the Exit 1 site, says he does not know whether Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts-based W/S Development wants to go ahead with the Hopkinton project. W/S, which is considering other sites for the development including North Stonington, across the border in Connecticut, has contractual rights on the land until early November. The company’s spokesman did not return calls seeking comment.

Regardless of whether W/S develops at Exit 1, the next phase in the battle over development in Hopkinton will play out at the ballot box. Four of the five current councilors are running for reelection, and Williams, Young, and four other challengers fill out a field of 10 candidates for the seats. The only three candidates to oppose a big-box development at Exit 1 are Williams, Young, and Councilman Scott Bill Hirst, a Republican.

Meanwhile, proponents of big-box and other forms of local development have themselves gotten political, forming a group in July called Hopkinton Organized to Promote the Economy (HOPE). To counter Hopkinton First’s "No Big Boxes" signs, HOPE has put up lawn signs that read, "Hopkinton’s HOPE: Support Economic Development." This month, HOPE formed a political action committee, enabling it to raise money for candidates and to endorse them. It is also sponsoring a forum for town council candidates at the Ashaway Fire Station this Thursday, September 30.

Gary Williams sees HOPE as trying to distort the message of Hopkinton First!!, which is advocating "smart development." "The HOPE organization today is trying to paint people who are not for big-boxes as anti-development," Williams says. "But it’s not about being anti-development; it’s about being pro-smart development. And smart development is not about big-boxes." Williams says Hopkinton First!! will not respond with a PAC of its own, but he adds, "We’ve got a thousand people who we are keeping informed on what is going on, and we’re going to try to rally them like we did before."

Hirst, the lone councilor who opposed the big-box development at Exit 1, says, "It’s kind of a humorous situation. Politics is usually very sedate in this town."

Also making things less calm than usual is the 18.9 percent property tax increase passed during the Town Financial Meeting in June, cited by HOPE members and other development advocates as evidence that the town needs more tax revenue. And while Hopkinton First!!’s failure to get a zoning change at Exit 1 propelled some of its members into the race for council, it also encouraged other candidates sympathetic to HOPE’s message. "The thing is, economic development is the issue, not the size of the boxes," says Hazel Douthitt, a Republican council candidate, who says the controversy motivated her to run. "We need economic development, no matter what size the boxes are."

But Ken Young, who describes himself as a pro-business Republican, says a big-box development is fiscally irresponsible and will not help the town’s tax problems. In other communities, Young says, "At about the five-year period, the cost of services required to service the effects will begin to exceed the revenues of that Wal-Mart. This panacea has ended up destroying your town, and you’re still in a shortfall." Young and Hirst point to a September 15 Wall Street Journal article, which detailed the impact of 152 vacant Wal-Mart stores across the country.

Many big-box supporters and opponents think that the biggest issue in terms of the town’s property tax crisis is the local school budget, which they believe needs to be more heavily funded by the state. This year’s state level funding of local school budgets had the same effect in Hopkinton as it did with cities and towns all over the state — pushing an even greater burden onto property taxpayers. The council had to levy an 18.9 percent tax increase this year even though its non-school budget only went up about 4.1 percent, according to Town Council President Linda DiOrio.

DiOrio says the state is moving steadily further from its past commitment to funding 60 percent of the schools to localities’ 40 percent. "If that continues over the next few years," DiOrio says, "no amount of economic development is going to fix it."