Letter: Neighborhood concerned with size of Acton Children’s Center expansion

What if you woke up one morning and learned that your next door neighbor had just sold his house in your single-family neighborhood and it had been purchased by the Acton Children’s Center (CCC), and that CCC was planning to convert the historical farmhouse to a daycare center with a two story 7,000 square foot addition? 

In a 2019 neighborhood meeting, the CCC representative told us it was going to be a one story 5,000 square foot addition. They emphasized a one story addition because,  “We don’t want to carry children up and down stairs.” In the meantime they changed their plans

Without knowledge in the area you would think that was impossible in Acton because we are not one of those screwy towns that allows connected interests to build anything anywhere. In this case, they had a state law on their side; you can put a daycare center in any neighborhood. I thought that meant that your neighbor could go into business and babysit a few kids in his house. I didn’t think that allowed a corporation to build a 10,000 square foot inappropriate structure next door to my 1,600 square foot split.

The Acton Planning board held a Zoom meeting where the Philip Farm Road/Kenny Lane neighbors could voice our objections. The neighbors were very concerned about the additional traffic in an already bad traffic area. Others brought up drainage problems with all that construction on undisturbed wetland, but I thought we had them on parking (20 Employees, 90 children and 20 parking spots).  By code this facility requires 33 parking spots but their plans could accommodate 20 on the just over 3/4 acre site. The Acton Planning board gave them “relief” from this requirement . It seems like everyone important in town loves CCC.

Frank Breen

Philip Farm Road