State Rep Winslow: Wrentham Must Plan for Developmental Center Future

State Representative Daniel Winslow has been urging the Wrentham town government to plan for the future of the developmental center.

Winslow has appeared before the board, and has spoken to Selectman Michael Carroll about the prospect of future uses for the center's land.

He said on Wednesday that the state will be looking to end its use of such centers in the long term.

"The current plan for the developmental center is to phase it out over time," he said. "That could take 30 years, or it could take 60 years."

He said the center's recent increase in resident population will likely be short-lived.

"The state has, in the short term, been consolidating residents slowly," he said. "There will be a short-term spike in the population."

He said, though, that this spike will not compare to the center's peak population, and that the state will be closing centers as the population ages out.

"The state, in the '70s, changed from an institutional approach to community-based care," he said.

According to Winslow, about 600 acres of land would then become available in the town.

"We all watched what happened in Medfield with the Medfield State Hospital," he said. "Medfield had to react to the closure."

He said Wrentham should develop a plan to ensure it controls what is done with the land.

The prospect of a college moving its campus to the center has been raised in the past, and the town selectmen are currently considering the formation of a committee to explore the issue.