Opinion: Stop the Monster
September 28, 2017
Suburban America is growing in size. Whether it be portion sizes, waistlines, or housing, Americans love oversized everything. This includes “The Monster,” a four-story, eighty-nine bedroom apartment complex that would cause severe social, economic and environmental damage to Wayland’s community.
If this monstrosity of a building goes up, the stream of traffic would be endless. Traffic is miserable on the weekend; between The Islamic Center of Boston, Temple Shir Tikvah, The Carriage Houses and Prime 13, it’s already backed up enough in that area, especially on the weekends. Traffic backs up all the way to the Sandy Burr on weekends, and if one hundred more cars are added to the mix, it will only increase the gridlock. This would not only be frustrating to the citizens of Wayland, it would also frustrate anyone who takes Route 20 on a regular basis.
If The Monster’s construction continues, the price and value of houses around The Monster, along with other houses in Wayland, will drop drastically. According to an estimate on the 2016 Wayland annual report, values will decrease as much as five percent over the next five years. Take away five percent from the price of the average house in Wayland, which is $700,100, and houses in that area drop to $665,095; that’s almost a $40,000 decrease. That’s $40,000 away from college, insurance and 401k’s. There are 170 homes on Boston Post Road, where The Monster will be built, and all of them will likely lose value. Homes within a mile of The Monster would retain the majority of their value, but lose some of it due to the new, high-tech development going up in their town.
The water supply in Wayland has been deteriorating for the past decade. To throw another 90 bathrooms, kitchens, washing machines, sprinklers and other water-products into the mix would throw off the entire water system, and possibly create water bans more frequently.
“The Monster” is next to Pinebrook Waterline, which connects to the Great Meadows National Refuge and Sudbury River. The 100+ toilets that will be placed in these buildings will spew over 10,000 gallons of nitrogen-filled sewage a day. It would literally dump crap into our water supply, not to mention the potential runoff it would cause.
The sewage would also run into and affect the wildlife, especially endangered species such as the Wood turtle, the Blue-spotted salamander, and the Copperhead snake, just to name a few. This would affect the ecosystem in ways such as overpopulation of other species, flooding and possibly leading to the extinction of other animals.
If this complex was to go up, it would have an irreversible effect on Wayland and its surrounding communities. We need to stop it before we regret the consequences of this monstrosity.
![In the college admissions process, students have to ask teachers to write college recommendation letters. “[The teacher recommendation] is intended to fill in those gaps between what the grades and the scores look like, and show what the person looks like in the classroom, English teacher Kelsey Pitcairn said.](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Add-a-heading-600x400.png)
Stephanie Smoot • Nov 11, 2017 at 10:23 PM
Good argument, Julia. There will be many impacts and the traffic will be intolerable.
I’m sorry to say that I have no love for the statewide Affordable Housing Program promoted by Naomi. In my opinion, the rules are way too inflexible to be helpful to many local residents who need housing.
Despite that, were it possible, I’d rather see smaller clusters of housing, maybe ten units at a time, that are more in scale with other buildings in the area.
SP • Oct 9, 2017 at 11:23 AM
I am right in the area of the monster, I know certain areas of Wayland will be backed up such as from Brothers in Weston up to the Town Center if this goes through, if this goes through there MUST BE a traffic light/turning lanes at the Rt-20/Old Conn Path intersection.
Karl Marx • Oct 3, 2017 at 10:23 AM
What a load of malarky! Clearly the bourgeois Wayland property owners fear their estates will be devalued by the new affordable housing unit which they have ironically deemed “the Monster”, when they are the monsters themselves. The gentry also want to bar working class folks from immigrating here since they want the town to remain upperclass and white! Even a child could see through the “protecting the environment” smokescreen they’re spewing out when the truth is so much more sinister!
Frederick Engels • Oct 14, 2017 at 12:29 PM
Amen, brother