Residents: If you oppose unchecked overdevelopment of Harvard, please immediately email the Board of Selectmen (vross@harvard.ma.us, or hand-deliver a letter to Town Hall) voicing your opposition to the proposed 140-unit single-family housing development that would replace the Shaker Hills golf course. The selectmen will be finalizing their reaction to this application to the Department of Housing and Community Development by December 19. The state board will then determine whether the developers will have permission to ignore all of Harvard’s local zoning laws and build as intensive a housing development as they can get away with.
It is heart-wrenching what damage might be wrought by this small group of developers, who disdain the greater public good in favor of their personal financial gain. This is a regrettable abuse of laws that are designed to promote affordable housing. The developers are using this legal opportunity to undermine many aspects of our community: from adding risks to public safety, to compromising wildlife habitat and open space, to straining our already over-extended school system and Fire Department, to increasing our taxes.
Harvard residents have so many reasons to detest this proposed development, and we must mobilize now—today—to prevent it, by voicing our concern to the selectmen for their report. Taxes will increase significantly as a result of this scheme. By introducing another 100 students into the Harvard school system, Harvard would be forced to build a new elementary school. Another 140 households could require us to buy another fire engine. The required new infrastructure could require the town to do more snow plowing and other maintenance.
According to our fire chief, the proposed development is looking like a potential deathtrap for its residents. With access only at the northern tip of Shaker Road, three sides of the proposed development would be cut off from access by emergency vehicles. A fire in a housing development this dense could easily spread among houses, and a nightmare scenario could unfold with hundreds of evacuating residents blocking emergency vehicles from using the development’s entrances.
Historic Shaker Village would be terribly compromised by being surrounded by this flurry of new houses. Its average rate of traffic could increase from its current rate of one car per three minutes to one car per twenty seconds; it is likely that at certain hours it would become much more intense. Woodlands that for two centuries have served to isolate and frame this historic and sacred enclave would be replaced by endless houses on small lots.
There isn’t much we can do except write to the selectmen, at this point, and hope that the state of Massachusetts has the foresight to protect public safety and preserve a much-cherished place.
Timing is critical. Please act immediately.
Jonathan Feist, writing as a resident of Shaker Village, is chairman of the Harvard Historical Commission and a member of the Community Preservation Committee.
