Archdiocese Development Faces Local Opposition

ARLINGTON, MA-A plan by the Archdiocese of Boston to develop a 68-unit residential complex here on a six-acre site it owns near the St. Camillus Church is being met with increasing local opposition.

The land was donated to the archdiocese and the church gave some of it back to the town to use as playing fields and parking lots. The Church has proposed developing its complex on one of the parking lots.

But local residents are concerned because the land has also been used as a waste site. According to Charles Gallagher, spokesperson for the Friends of Poets Corner, a recently formed local advocacy group, “We don’t know what’s going on with the site other than what the church and its environmental consultants said, and they wouldn’t give us any numbers.” Gallagher contends that the church did its testing without issuing a public notice. His group wants the church to do an audit. Repeated calls to the Archdiocese were not returned by presstime.