The Shaker Village area of Harvard is poised to host another sort of village: a housing development called Harvard Village, which is proposed for the Shaker Hills golf course.
At a public meeting of Harvard’s boards Monday night, Louis N. Levine, the attorney representing the owner-developer of Harvard Village, presented two plans to about 40 attendees, including residents and representatives from the Board of Selectmen, Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals, and Harvard Housing Partnership. Both plans call for 140 homes, with 35 affordable homes ($178,000) and 105 homes to be sold at market rates ($637,500).
— Chris Tracey, Zoning Board of Appeals
The first preliminary site plan is on file at MassHousing, the state agency that accepts eligibility applications from those wanting to build according to 40B, the Massachusetts affordable housing law. This plan would transform the existing, approximately 175-acre, 18-hole Shaker Hills Golf Course into 140 single-family homes, each with four bedrooms, a 2,500-square-foot imprint, and a lot-size averaging slightly over an acre. Levine said about 30 acres would be retained as open space. The golf course would be gone.
The second plan contains the same number of homes, but in a different layout. Each home would occupy a 15,000 square-foot lot and would be clustered around a nine-hole golf course. This scheme would leave almost half the land, perhaps 84 acres, as open space. A switch from an 18-hole course to a nine-hole course would “be the back nine, essentially,” stated Levine, trying to describe what the course might be in a diminished configuration. The “nine-hole” proposal is not currently on file with MassHousing: It was prepared especially for the all-boards meeting in response to previous input from the housing partnership about the original plan’s lack of open space. As of November 27, Levine had not decided whether the contemplated nine-hole course would be public, or would be a private amenity for Harvard Village.
Levine discussed the possibilities for utilities, which included tying into Ayer’s sewer and water systems. The developer’s application says that public sewer and water, and private septic and wells are all available to the site.
During his presentation, Levine emphasized several points. He first declared a willingness to work with a neighborhood advisory group, similar to the one used for the Trail Ridge development on Littleton County Road. He also underscored the need for Harvard’s citizens, especially the abutters, to familiarize themselves with the 40B law, so they could understand which requests or concerns were reasonable, and which were simply non-starters within the 40B framework. Finally, he urged interested parties to carefully weigh their requests for changes to the preliminary plan, because re-iterative plans would be costly to his client. The cost of re-engineered site plans was a theme revisited by Levine throughout his presentation, as he urged critics to focus their suggestions on realistic changes.
Questions from the Audience
After presenting the two plans, Levine answered questions from the audience.
Planning Board member Kara Minar posed several questions. The audience listened in rapt attention as she asked about costs to the town. “140 units of 2,500-square-foot, four-bedroom housing do not say ‘retirement’ to me. I’m thinking ‘kids’ for the four-bedrooms. I’m building a new school on this one…we’d need to mirror your building process with a process of our own to plan, finance, and build a new school.”
Levine responded that the market for over-55 housing was saturated, adding, “A board cannot deny a 40B because you think there’ll be too many kids. That reason just doesn’t work.”
Minar also asked about the base value of the Shaker Hills land. She cited a parcel on Prospect Hill Road, 80 acres with a stunning view, that was appraised at $2.8 million, and wondered at the $11 million appraisal for the approximately 175-acre Shaker Hills land.
Picking up on Minar’s line, Chris Tracey, chairman of the ZBA, emphasized the importance of determining a fair valuation because the initial value of the land in a 40B development determines the number of houses that can be built. “We owe it to the community to very carefully assess the base value of this land,“ he said.
Levine said that MassHousing would appraise the property as part of qualifying his client’s application.
According to the owner-developer’s application in the section titled “Preliminary Construction Budget,” the base value for the land is $11 million, figured as part of a total “hard cost” of roughly $56 million. Total “soft costs,” including such things as labor, are estimated at nearly $11 million. Total revenue is projected at a little more than $73 million, while total profit is projected as roughly $5.5 million. The percentage average profit is estimated in the application as about 8 percent. The maximum profit allowed by the 40B law is 20 percent.
Minar’s final question was, simply, “Why?” Why, she asked, would Levine’s client seek to eliminate a beautiful, world-class golf course in favor of a housing development? In response, Levine paused thoughtfully, and then said, “There is no good answer to that question,” pointing out that such conversions were a trend throughout the United States. “It would be foolish from a business perspective to wait four or five years to see where the market’s going,” he said.
Selectman Scott Kimball asked about traffic. Currently, cars leaving the golf course are prohibited from turning left. With the new development, Levine said, both left and right turns would be allowed. Furthermore, he guessed that the housing could generate about 1,400 trips per day. “Hold your judgment, about this, though, because we don’t have a traffic engineer yet, and we need to do a traffic study,” he said.
Fire Chief Robert Mignard posed several questions about access to the homes, pointing out that Harvard Village would be at the far edge of town, posing a challenge for his on-call fire department. Mignard’s suggestion for sprinkler systems was rejected as too costly, but Levine was certain that there would be ample water to fight a fire from a nearby hydrant, and from three fire ponds planned for the property.
“A sprinkler system costs about as much as wall-to-wall carpeting for one of these houses, and I think it’d be a good idea,” Mignard countered. Department of Public Works Director Rich Nota said that he would save his questions for the next hearing, preferring to absorb the information for now.
When asked by Josie Carothers of Depot Road whether he was concerned about preserving the “precious gem that is Shaker Village,” Levine re-iterated that his client would adhere to the regulations set out in 40B, and to applicable local regulations, and would address all issues that he was legally obliged to address.
In closing the meeting, Selectman Lucy Wallace invited citizens to join the advisory group: “We’d especially like to encourage abutters to join the group…your input, delivered early in the process, can have an impact. It worked that way for Trail Ridge.” Interested citizens should contact the selectmen’s office as soon as possible, she said.
As Louis and Joseph Levine packed up their site plans, the crowd came together in animated groups. Some worried about losing the beauty of Shaker Village, others wondered how Harvard could absorb any more school children, and some fretted over where to build a new school, or how we could afford one.
One resident of Shaker Village, Blase Provitola, simply reflected upon the beauty of the golf course, especially in the winter. “I’ve seen fisher cats, owls, frogs, coyote, deer, so many birds. It’s a beautiful area,” he said. “You should go down there and see.”
The project will be before the Zoning Board of Appeals December 13.
