Why are town officials bending over backwards to help MHOC build two large-scale, 40B developments in Harvard? We believe that MHOC is not the beneficent, nonprofit developer of affordable housing for the state’s needy families as implied by its website. They have shown themselves to be a typical, for-profit developer hiding in a nonprofit suit.
You may have heard that a group of concerned citizens are now disputing the right of MHOC to have access to the town’s water system for its 15 Littleton Road 40B project. Town Administrator Tim Bragan was quoted in a recent article that MHOC’s right to the water is “unequivocal.”
We believe, however, that there is evidence indicating that MHOC does indeed require the approval of a town meeting vote to receive that right, and have brought our evidence to a private attorney for an opinion.
Citizens should be heard on this matter. We recommend that the Board of Selectmen put an article into the upcoming Special Town Meeting warrant to let the citizens vote as required by the regulations of the Water Commission. Does the town want to provide special treatment to a 40B developer like MHOC?
MHOC’s Ayer Road and Littleton Road projects are two 40B developments that did not have to be built in Harvard. MHOC was brought to the town by the Harvard Housing Partnership, headed by Selectman Lucy Wallace, in furtherance of the partnership’s non-town-meeting-approved production plan. And the town officials continue to treat MHOC as an altruistic partner, leaving it to concerned citizens to do the investigations and raise the issues that the officials should have uncovered before getting into bed with just another 40B developer.
One wonders, “What is going on in Harvard?”
Anthony J. Marolda
Jacob Gates Road
