Billerica Select Board Votes 3-1 to Move Recreation Center, Senior Center to New Sites

BILLERICA -- April 22, 2024, Billerica Select Board votes 3-1 to move the proposed recreation center to the Vining School site and the new Council on Aging to Cider Mill Road, reversing Capital Facilities Committee recommendations backed by nearly three years of consultant work. Select Board member Michael Rosa led the reversal, arguing the Peggy Hannon-Rizza Park site offers only 30,800 square feet against 196,020 square feet of usable space at Vining, that parking at PHR is already inadequate on busy athletic days, and that the park-grant Article 97 designation on the PHR tennis courts posed an unresolved legal obstacle. Select Board member John Burrows, who sits on the Capital Facilities Committee, dissented, warning that switching locations without new feasibility studies leaves cost estimates unreliable and puts both projects at risk. The board then voted 3-1 to withdraw the original combined warrant Article 14 and 4-0 to call a special town meeting for May 14, 2024, at 7 p.m. to present the two facilities as separate funding articles, a structure Select Board member Dina Favreau argued was necessary to prevent one project from dragging down the other if the Article 97 process stalled.