In the Finance Committee Precinct Q&A Session last night (April 14, 2025) a question was asked about development. In 2020, the 2030 Master Plan was completed (a requirement under Massachusetts General Law) and in that work the Planning Board, volunteers (including representatives of the Finance Committee), and consultants studied land use, housing demographics, economic development, historic and cultural resources, open space, natural resources, & recreation, transportation, & public facilities and services.
Here is the statistic I referenced briefly last night from the Planning Board: In 2020, 95.5% of taxes Winchester collected were from residential properties, and therefore only 4.5% in commercial. In order to change this ratio by 1%, meaning lowering the residential tax base to 94.5%, Winchester would have needed to create an additional 100,000 square feet of commercial space, this is equivalent to a Home Depot. In 2020, the property tax revenue was approximately $107M.
For context/scale, all of Mahoney’s buildings total around 35K. Winchester Hospital is 113.6K (although not a commercial property). Home Depot just purchased the Woburn Movie Theater (for $30M), which is 37 acres. Homes in the Flats are on about 1/4 of an acre. So, as a rough estimate the land equivalent of the Woburn Movie Theater is that of 148 houses in the Flats. It is even more when you go north in Town, as the lots sizes reduce to about 1/7 of an acre in precinct 8. We are a very dense town in MA, which further complicates the promotion of commercial development to this scale.
