Contested race for CPC between Hayden and Griffin

By MAUREEN DOHERTY

NORTH READING — With just under two weeks remaining until the annual Town Election on Tuesday, May 2, the Transcript has caught up with the two men running for the one seat on the Community Planning Commission (CPC). In the running for the three-year term is incumbent Chairman Christopher B. Hayden, 20 Swan Pond Road, and political newcomer Jeffrey P. Griffin, 31 Abbott Rd.

Hayden and Griffin are involved in one of two contested races in this election cycle. The other contested race involves the Select Board between incumbent Vice Chair Vincenzo Stuto, 122 Elm St., and newcomer Jack A. Carroll, 40 Main St., Apt. 21.

Incumbent School Committee Chair Scott T. Buckley, 5 Alden St., is running unopposed for his third three-year term. Also running unopposed is Moderator John J. Murphy, 13 Duane Dr., which is the only one-year term on the ballot. See the complete Q&A on the Town Election process from Town Clerk Susan Duplin in today’s Transcript.

MEET THE CPC CANDIDATES

Christopher Hayden

Chris Hayden has served on the Community Planning Commission for 22 years and is its current chairman. He originally was elected to fill the one-year vacancy remaining in the term of the late Arthur Drinkwater, who had passed away. Chris and his wife Jane are the parents of two grown children, Alyssa and Blake.

After more than two decades of service on the board and being involved during a period of steady growth throughout town on projects of all sizes, he remains excited to continue serving the community as a member of the CPC. Topical issues include redevelopment of the town’s main commercial corridor, Route 28, creating an Accessory Dwelling Unit bylaw, and updating the town’s sign bylaw, among others.

“There are all of these things they we’ve started. I am not going to say it’s sewer. Sewer is not one of our things,” he said, explaining it is the domain of the DPW and Select Board to bring forth that plan to Town Meeting voters.

“We’re trying to get properties developed and back into a better use for the town and for the owners, but many owners don’t want to do anything. That’s why we went to Town Meeting several years ago to see what we could do if we had a small private treatment plant. You still have to leach the effluent from that plant, but they’re much more efficient and turn out a better effluent than a septic system,” Hayden said.

The focus of their initiative several years ago was the Rte. 28/62 corner at Main and Winter Streets, which includes the old Stop & Shop property (currently leased to Ocean State Job Lot) and the Heffron property, among others. Their vision included a redevelopment project that could combine a mix of commercial and/or residential uses with municipal offices. “A four-story building with town offices on the first floor, meeting rooms on the second floor, and two floors of apartments or condos would have been perfect. There could be small meeting rooms that would be done by 9 p.m.,” he said.

Other options for this site excluded evening meetings if there were residences, but included conference room space for the municipal offices, or designing the meeting space on the first floor with office space in between as a buffer to the upper level residential units, he said.

“The way we’re supposed to plan is to put a buffer zone between the busy uses and the quiet uses, such as churches and schools placed between businesses and residential – if you can plan from scratch,” he said, in a redevelopment project such as this site could be.

Interestingly, when the CPC first proposed this package treatment plant study Stop & Shop was not interested in selling the property, but this past year Hayden said its parent company, Ahold, had put out to bid a request for redeveloping the site, and their representatives had inquired about the possible use options at the site with the CPC. The status of Ahold’s preliminary plan for the site is not known as nothing is formally before the point at this stage. Hayden said the CPC encourages businesses and other developing or redeveloping any site in town to come to their meetings for an informal discussion to review their options with them and the town planner, Danielle McKnight.

The CPC is responsible for site plan review, developing the town’s master plan and the Subdivision Control Law, among other duties.

Hayden said the board has also been reviewing a workable Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) bylaw proposal for the town. An ADU bylaw, if enacted at Town Meeting, would allow a single family house to have an accessory dwelling within the existing footprint or expansion of the main footprint, such as a basement apartment, to enable a caretaker of an older person or couple to have separate living quarters as part of the goal of enabling residents to age in place.

Sometimes referred to as “in-law” apartments, the goal of the bylaw includes ensuring the home has an adequately sized septic system and leaching field under the state’s Title 5 law, which is based on the number of bedrooms in the home, not bathrooms or kitchens, he said.

Shortly after Hayden moved to town he recalled that new in-law apartments with a separate door were no longer legal in town. One issue with them is that the Fire and Police Departments needs to know how many people live in a home for public safety, such as in the event of a fire, as they do not want to show up at what is believed to be a single family home that has unknown separate apartments.

Upcoming issues for Hayden also include revising the town’s sign bylaw.

“The biggest thing is we need to re-do the sign bylaw. The problem is, because of everything that has come up with case law, we have to be very careful about how a new bylaw is written, and it is going to be much different than what our sign bylaw is today.” He said this is one of many issues that Planning Administrator Danielle McKnight is currently reviewing.

Jeffrey Griffin

Jeff Griffin, who is running in his first bid for elective office, has been a resident of town for the past 18 years. He and his wife Sandy reside at 31 Abbott Rd. and are the parents of four grown children. Griffin also operates a plumbing and heating business at 50 Main St. with his two sons, Joshua and Jeremy, called J. Griffin Heating and Plumbing.

“I always had a small sole proprietorship and I also worked for National Grid for 27 years and I retired from there thinking I would just be putting around town putting toilets in for Mrs. Smith, but my sons, Joshua and Jeremy, are plumbers too and are also now part owners of our company. I’m a blessed man; both of my kids work with me every day,” he said. One son lives the next street over and the other lives near the center of town on Park Street.

Five years ago, he said, “my boys came into the company and that’s when we really pushed forward.”

“I talk to a lot of people in town. Because of the nature of the business, I’m in their kitchens and in their basements talking with them and developing relationships and trust, as business people do,” he said, adding his decision to run for office “was sparked by the voice of the people over the last few years, whether it’s a young couple that just came to town or an elderly woman who has been here for 40-years plus, and I kept hearing the same thing over and over again. Frustration from the townspeople, confusion at what’s happening and dissatisfaction with the direction of what’s happening in the town.

“There is definitely a sense of them feeling not as comfortable as they have,” he said.

After discussing these conversations with his wife, Griffin decided now was the right time to get involved.

“At this point it wouldn’t matter what the position was but the planning commission is the seat that is available and planning is what I do every day and have done my entire career,” he said, explaining that his work for National Grid involved the planning of gas transmission lines, which he described as “an underground spider web.” His career took his throughout this state as well as Rhode Island and New York

“We would run multimillion dollar pipeline projects involving scheduling and a making sure Team A understood Team B and they both understood the company and its position. I was almost a liaison between National Grid Massachusetts, National Grid Rhode Island and National Grid New York.” As a union employee, his function was to get the union employees to understand the three different facets of each state during a period when National Grid was also consolidating smaller gas companies. This meant training protocols in Rhode Island were totally different than in Boston, for example. “It was important for me to understand the state codes and the federal code and mash those codes together so that all of our teams were functioning within the guidelines of National Grid,” he said.

“My approach is not that I am running against someone. I am running for something. That’s important because it isn’t about personalities but the opportunity that is in front of me to bring a different perspective,” he said.

“The town has been great to us and we — me, my wife and my children — look at this as an opportunity to give something back to the community that can help the community move forward,” Griffin said, describing some of the meetings he has attended recently, including the Special Town Meeting overturning the changes made to the town’s betterment bylaw as being “messy” because from his viewpoint, the messaging was not getting through.

Addressing the many issues on Route 28 would be among his first priorities. Looking at it as whole may prove daunting, but he points out that even small changes could provide impressive results. He’d start with street trees. Seemingly innocuous enough, he suggested that starting a tree planting program along the town’s main commercial district would pay dividends in giving the corridor curb appeal. He believes townspeople would get behind such a program, perhaps even help fund it through various private fundraisers.

Griffin recalled walking down Broadway in Revere as a child when that urban road had beautiful trees lining both sides after getting an ice cream with his grandfather. If trees were planted along this strip today, think of how attractive it could be in 10 to 15 years, he said.