Special Town Meeting voters will determine tomorrow both the direction of industrial development in Walpole, and whether a controversial power plant will be part of it.
The vote on zoning bylaws follows months of wrangling by town planners and selectmen over whether the Zoning Board of Appeals should have the power to approve any type of business in town as long as it has "any lawful" use.
Since Competitive Power Ventures proposed last year to build a power plant on Industrial Road, opponents have argued that the town should rule out categorically businesses such as power plants, without giving the business an opportunity to seek a permit from the zoning board.
Richard Mazzocca, a 13-year resident and an attorney who supports the revision, said: "It should not be the zoning board making these kinds of decisions, but Town Meeting. People think this is shutting out business, but it is not the case."
But members of the Walpole Tax Relief Association say that it is merely a tactic to block the Competitive Power plant, and that it is counterproductive to change bylaws in a way that might preclude other businesses from settling in Walpole.
With the town hoping to be able to fund projects such as a new police station and library, "let the zoning board do their job and talk to the power plant," said Patrick McGrath, a third-generation Walpole resident and member of the tax relief group. "Let people know that Walpole is open for business."
Over the past 20 years, Walpole residents have fought off a variety of businesses they viewed as harmful to the town, starting with
Now many are fighting a $500 million gas-fired power plant proposed by Competitive Power.
"I don't know of any other surrounding town that has had so many undesirable land uses" proposed for it, said former selectwoman Joanne Muti, who has worked with others to turn back Competitive Power.
She said businesses that would negatively affect the quality of life for residents have been proposed every three or four years from the time her son, now graduating from high school, was an infant. While the job of activist is fulfilling, she said, it "takes a tremendous personal and political toll."
Joanne Damish, another former selectwoman who led the 1985 to 1989 fight against the Boston Edison proposal, which was much smaller than Competitive Power's, said, "In a day and age when people are thinking green, power plants and smokestacks should be a thing of the past."
In December, selectmen sent Competitive Power Ventures packing, despite its promises of large fees and incentives totaling about $48 million. Last week, the company came back with a revised proposal in an effort to get a second chance, reducing the plant's intended water consumption and eliminating a pair of above-ground oil storage tanks that it had planned to place over an aquifer that provides drinking water to area residents.
"It's easy for people to get emotional, and you're hearing their voices," McGrath said. But he estimated that perhaps 70 percent of residents may not have made up their minds.
"We've talked to a bunch of people and while no one is 'rah, rah, we want a power plant,' they are saying, 'Just let us listen to what they want to say.' That's all we're asking."
His view of the plant? "I think it would be fine," McGrath said. "You wouldn't even know it was there."
Town Administrator Michael Boynton said it's clear a community needs commercial and industrial development to offset its residential tax burden.
"But it's better to ID what you want, than to wait and see where it will go," he said. "Residents have come together to map out what they want to see."
Monday's warrant has three parts.
Article 1 addresses some routine changes to the bylaws proposed by the Planning Board. According to Muti, the former selectwoman, Article 2 would amend that rewrite, to prohibit businesses associated with "noxious uses" from being permitted in town; it also would eliminate bylaw language that currently allows "any lawful industrial or wholesale business, service, storage, or light manufacturing use" by special permit of the zoning board.
Article 3 would also ban businesses with "noxious uses," if Articles 1 and 2 fail.
All three need a two-thirds majority of the 150 voting members - or 100 votes - to pass.
"I don't think they'll get it," McGrath predicted.
"I'm curious myself," mused Boynton.
Michele Morgan Bolton can be reached at mmbolton1@verizon.net.
