[UPDATED: The story was updated on Aug. 15 at 8 a.m. about the status of the building permit.]
City Manager George Proakis weighed in on the City of Watertown’s role in the ongoing strife between First Path Day Care Center and the Watertown Boys & Girls Club over the space leased to the daycare provider. He said he was limited in how much he could say because First Path has ongoing suits against the City.
The dispute over First Path’s lease at the Watertown Boys & Girls Club became public in recent weeks, first with a letter from the Boys & Girls Club leaders saying they have plans to expand the Club’s program but the day care has not left the space after its lease expired. First Path responded that they just need a few more months to finish work on a new space in Watertown, and that they had been promised three years to find a new home but the Club gave them less time than that. The story made headlines in the Watertown News, as well as the Boston Globe, Boston Herald and WBZ Radio.
At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, multiple parents whose children attend First Path talked about how much they like the day care center and how losing it would be difficult because of the lack of child care spaces in the area, especially affordable ones.
Officials from First Path also spoke, including General Manager Max Bolyansyy, who urged the approval of changes to the building permit for First Path’s new space. First Path Day received a building permit on May 8, but submitted request on July 29 to make changes to drywall ceiling and insulation and has still not received approval for the work, Bolyansyy said.
Proakis said he could not go into detail about the situation because First Path has filed suits against the City over the approval, or lack thereof, of a building permit. However, he explained that the City does not control what happens on the Boys & Girls Club property, despite owning the land, and that he is confident that the City staff has been working diligently and fairly with First Path to get the project to a point where it can be approved by the Zoning Board of Appeals
Proakis is familiar with the situation, having sat down with representatives from First Path.
“Last September, I met with leaders at First Path, and some parents, to work out a solution to allow them to have a long and successful future in Watertown,” Proakis said. “We discussed a whole lot of creative solutions. Unfortunately, after that First Path chose to file additional litigation with the City and chose to hire a public relations firm and share this situation with the press.”
The land that the Watertown Boys & Girls Club building sits on is owned by the City of Watertown. Proakis noted that the situation is the same for several other non-profits and service providers, including the Marine Corps League Shutt Detachment, Wayside Multi-Service Center, the Mosesian Center for the Arts, and the Brigham House.
“We don’t control how their individual spaces are subleased …,” Proakis said. “As a general situation we are not typically a party to an agreement between someone who leases a piece of City land and someone else they are working with.”
Child care facilities fall under the protection of the state’s Dover Amendment, which also includes churches and non-profit education, and group homes. Mass. General Law prevents these uses from being blocked by the local government, Proakis said, but he added that it is not a “free for all,” and that such projects must comply with “reasonable regulations” such as height, bulk and parking.
Proakis said he could not go into specifics about the situation with the First Path permit, but said generally projects that fall under the Dover Amendment must still go through the local zoning process. In Watertown that includes site plan review approval, which includes a Zoning Board of Appeals hearing where neighbors can give input.
Proakis said that in his time working in the planning departments in Lowell and Somerville he has never had an applicant question the need for a site plan on Section 3 (Dover Amendment) project. And only one time was a project rejected by a city board (in a city outside Watertown), but a judge then ordered the board to approve the project with reasonable conditions.
“It was clear in that particular circumstance that the particular judge said you cannot deny it but you can make reasonable conditions,” Proakis said.
First Path has filed two pieces of litigation against the City, Proakis said, the first is a suit “claiming that we were withholding permits prior to them going through site plan review,” and the second appealed the Zoning Board’s site plan review conditions.
On the speed of approval of the building permit, Proakis said he is “comfortable that our Building Department does everything they can to work the best they can to work with every applicant to make sure they have met all the necessary steps on building code and they are able to move forward as quickly as they can relative to those steps and what needs to happen.”
He added that just because a project falls under the Dover Amendment, it still must meet certain criteria.
“Applicants need to follow the rules. They need to meet the specialized Stretch Code that was approved by this honorable Council. They need to follow the safety rules, the need to follow all of those steps,” he said. “Our Inspection Services team will continue to work with any applicant to give them the feedback on the plans they need to go back and refine them and get them to the point of getting a building permit and get them across the finish line as soon as they can, and make sure hey are consistent with all of the requirements. We do that all the time. We will continue to do that all the time.”
Despite the ongoing dispute, Proakis said he is hopeful that the differences will be overcome.
“I remain optimistic that there is a way forward for all parties even though I am frustrated by the strategies and situations in this particular circumstance that has gotten us to this place,” he said. “I do look forward, hopefully, to a continued long working relationship with all the parties in this circumstance. They are all important community parties here in Watertown and want everyone to continue to be successful.”