If you buy a doughnut at the Ayer Road Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through these days you’ll pass a freshly flattened area of earth behind the Maugel Architects building. Developer Lou Russo is literally laying the groundwork on three lots that will ultimately be the sites of a commercial building and senior housing. By so doing, Russo is counting on his ability to speed up Wheeler Realty Trust’s application for the office building permit, which is his focus at the moment.
However, after the Board of Health listened to Russo and consulting engineer Nick Pauling of Goldsmith, Prest & Ringwall (GPR) at its Oct. 13 meeting, the board asked for more time to review the details of the technologies being considered for wastewater treatment.
While two permits are being sought (one for the two-lot commercial site, and one for the single-lot senior housing building), only one is of immediate interest to Russo. “I don’t want to tie up the commercial side of the project with senior housing issues,” he said. Saying that he has a tenant lined up to occupy the new commercial space but is having difficulty with the financing for the apartment building, Russo asked the board to table the application for the latter, and look only at the commercial application.
“Take the [apartment] permit hanging over our heads off the table, with the full knowledge that if it doesn’t come through, it will have to have a different use,” said Pauling.
In order to expedite granting of the permit, Russo told the board that he wanted a positive ruling on two questions that involve the commercial site. Board agent Ira Grossman of the Nashoba Associated Boards of Health disagreed with Russo’s proposal, however, on two counts: the amount of soil testing that should be conducted on the site and waivers sought for local health board regulations for the distance between the primary system and the reserve area.
After the two Board of Health members who were present, Lorin Johnson and Jack Spero, spent an hour discussing the special requests, they voted to delay decision-making until the next meeting on Oct. 27. This would allow more time for consideration of the complex subject matter, and the new wastewater technologies being considered; it would also allow for full board deliberation when Chairman Tom Philippou can be present.
In the meantime, Russo agreed to conduct two more soil evaluations as requested by Grossman.
“We’re not trying to cherry-pick the rules for one facility and separate permits. We readily admit we’re a facility, and designed it accordingly and submitted ourselves to the lengthy nitrogen aggregation process,” said Russo. He admitted that the review process for the complicated plan involving nitrogen credits obtained from using adjacent conservation land “is moving very slowly at the Department of Environmental Protection.”
GPR plans to use an innovative/alternative-technology (I/A) septic system to handle the combined flows of the office building and the 42-unit apartment building.
“I feel enough [soil] testing has been done on the site to create a good engineering design,” said Pauling. Rather than specify a separate reserve area that takes up too much room, GPR also wants to use the area between the primary trenches as reserve.
Grossman, however, wants more test holes dug. He also told the board that trenches between trenches had never been created in Harvard except in the case of a 40B development, which can claim the right to variances not normally granted by a town.
In fact, Russo told Grossman, the adjacent Maugel Architects building has trenches between trenches. Such a design had, in fact, been previously approved, and he was again seeking a second waiver “as done on this site.”
However, Grossman said he questioned “bigger design issues,” and noted he has difficulty with the definition of the project. “There’s a request for two different permits for three individual lots,” he said. “But is this a common facility with one application, or is it individual lots?” He went on to say that “if it’s one lot, it should be looked at as a facility. If it’s several lots, it could be a shared system.” It has been his experience to see complex projects change over time, and the conditions under which permits were granted change as well. The resulting plan is not one that would have been approved at the outset.
Pauling responded that the three “legally created” building lots were approved by the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA), are under common ownership, and meet the Title 5 definition of a facility.
Grossman was concerned that if the application for the apartment building on the one lot is withdrawn, two lots will be left with one system. “Is it [still] a facility, or a shared system?” he asked. The issue becomes more complicated, he said, and new Title 5 issues come up if the lots become a subdivision later. Force mains cross property lines, and would require a variance.
Russo indicated that if the property were to be divided later, “a shared system would be easily accomplished.” A maintenance agreement between the parties would be executed, and another application to the ZBA and the Board of Health would be filed.
Lots would only be sold off if the DEP approval process now under way falls through, said Pauling. In any case, said Russo, “the land will stay with the facility.”
GPR principal Bruce Ringwall noted that the planned advanced I/A system, a high-tech wastewater treatment method, should remove any doubts on the board’s part. GPR is verifying that both systems that are under consideration will meet the requirements of the state and the site. “We’re meeting the letter of the law and the intent of the law,” said Ringwall. “We want to have these issues behind us to get approval on the system for the commercial structure so he can get the tenant.”
“I think we’re all going in the right direction here,” concluded Johnson.
