This is a gamble for EVERYONE......

 

 

Casino-Free Milford

By law, casino developers are required to reach an agreement with host communities to mitigate and compensate for a wide range of impacts. The process for surrounding towns is less certain.

Neighboring communities WILL suffer negative impacts. To offset this, they have been told by the Mass Gaming Commission to reach out to the developer and settle on an agreement.

Foxwoods has made it very clear that until they can work out a host agreement with Milford they won't entertain any discussions with surrounding communities....

This is a gamble for EVERYONE......

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Towns next door wrestle with casinos' future fallout

By John J. Monahan, TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

BOSTON — Watching a proposal for a slots parlor advance in Leominster just over his town line, Lancaster Town Administrator Orlando Pacheco is looking for ways to mitigate spill-over traffic and other economic and environmental impacts if the facility is built in the city next door.

In Hopkinton, Selectman Brian J. Herr, who is trying to stop a casino in neighboring Milford, said the proposed facility could worsen traffic problems through many towns and that other impacts need to be examined on a regional basis — not just as they would affect the potential host community that his town borders.

And while developers are required to reach agreement with host communities to mitigate and compensate for a wide range of impacts, the process for surrounding towns to gain mitigation agreements with casino developers is less certain.

Surrounding communities can apply to the state Gaming Commission for funds to study impacts, but commission officials said they will not consider acting on those requests until after the host communities vote up or down on a facility. Still, state gambling officials this week began urging surrounding communities to begin "a dialogue" to evaluate potential impacts on their cities and towns.

To that end the commission sent notices to local officials in all towns adjacent to sites where casinos or slot parlors have been proposed, advising them they may seek mitigation agreements from developers to address traffic, economic and other impacts as part of the licensing process.

Under state law, a town adjacent to a host community for a proposed casino or slot parlor will not automatically be considered as an impacted surrounding community eligible for mitigation, officials said, and developers are not required to reach mitigation agreements with them. But licensing officials said failure to reach such agreements could hurt developers' chances for winning a state gaming license.

The licensing process puts the primary responsibility on the developer to designate a surrounding community as an impacted community in line for mitigation, officials said. Communities can also ask the commission to make that determination, if the developer does not designate them as an impacted surrounding community during the license bid reviews

At their most recent meeting Gaming Commission Chairman Stephen Crosby said the pressure will be on developers to complete those agreements.

"If the applicant comes into us with a whole bunch of unresolved communities that have to go into arbitration or subsequent negotiations, we're going to say hey, that's not a very satisfactory situation," Mr. Crosby said of pending license decisions.

"If you've done your job to go out and make friends and influence people within your surrounding communities and you come in with your surrounding communities buttoned up, that is a measure of your community support. And if they come in without it buttoned up, that's a measure of the absence of same," Mr. Crosby said adding, "I think we need to be pretty firm and pretty direct with both sides of the equation."

Worcester city officials decided last month not to wait for Chicago-based Rush Street Gaming LLC, proposing the Millbury slots parlor one mile from the city line, to designate them as an impacted surrounding community and began an evaluation of impacts on their own. The city is worried about traffic, public safety and market impacts in Worcester.

In Lancaster Mr. Pacheco said, town officials are anxious to get started with an impact evaluation and are concerned about traffic, waterways and the quality of life in their town.

"They are looking at 8,000 car trips a day in both directions," said Mr. Pacheco of the proposal in nearby Leominster.

The site, he said, will be accessed by Route 117 which serves as a short cut from Interstate 190 to Route 2 through Lancaster. While the developer has signaled willingness to try to keep most of the traffic on I-190, Mr. Pacheco said, "It's inevitable we are going to see a huge spike" in traffic on that main road through town which already has significant daily traffic tie-ups, he said.

Polluting stormwater flows from increased paved surfaces, he said, could impact the Nashua River, which is still recovering from decades of over-pollution. "Construction itself is literally straddling the town border," he said, and "some stormwater will inevitably end up in town."

He estimated it could cost up to $50,000 to study and identify the impacts on Lancaster and he plans to ask the commission for the funds, which he said the developer has indicated a willingness to provide. "We need to truly analyze and be able to demonstrate an impact, to get mitigation for those impacts," Mr. Pacheco said.

He said another consideration is possible dedication of up to 100 acres of open space on the Lancaster side of the development to serve as a natural buffer to the nearby residential areas. Mr. Pacheco said so far there are no negotiations under way for a surrounding town mitigation agreement.

In Hopkinton, Mr. Herr said he wants to see the process of identifying impacts on surrounding towns begins now, rather than later, but that the developer wants to wait. "Foxwoods has made it very clear that until they can work out a host agreement with Milford they are not inclined to engage in any discussions with surrounding communities," said Mr. Herr, who is also chairing the MetroWest Anti-Casino Coalition that includes other representatives from Ashland, Holliston, and Medway.

"They should be working with everybody from day one to try to see if this thing can work or not. If it can't work in the region, do you think it will work in the town?" he asked.

He said the coalition formed by the four towns plans to proceed with impact assessments.

"We are going to look at doing our own traffic study, our own environmental impact report, our own study on impacts to the river and water basins and an economic analysis to understand the impact on housing values," Mr. Herr said.

As for reaching an agreement on mitigation, he said, "I don't see anything happening by the end of the year to that effect. We have a long way to go before that could ever happen but we need to talk about it now."
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