Townsend-based developer R. Carter Scott of Transformations, Inc. has earned permission from the Harvard Conservation Commission to drill wells for a 24-unit condominium project on a 20-acre parcel on Stow Road. The wells will be drilled on sloping land that backs up to Interstate 495. The commission granted Transformations, Inc. a permit to explore for up to four wells near the wetland, and if necessary, for one well in the wetland. The wet, ledge-ridden land lies in state-defined watershed protection and flood zones, including five acres of wetland and a seasonal stream. It does not contain vernal pools or habitat for endangered plants or animals, according to the Department of Environmental Protection.
The order of conditions granted to Scott is the latest in the state-mandated approval process for the project, which won its primary go-ahead—a comprehensive building permit from the Harvard Zoning Board of Appeals—in October 2008. The comprehensive permit allows Transformations to build six affordable and 18 market-rate units, spread among 17 buildings. Plans for the project show duplex, triplex, and single-family homes in a mix of styles, including Greek Revival and saltbox.
The permit was granted under the provisions of Chapter 40B, which lets developers sidestep local zoning law in exchange for offering at least 25 percent of a project’s housing units as affordable. Drilling for water in a wetland is an example of what is prohibited by Harvard bylaw, but can be allowed by the state.
Harvard’s Zoning Board of Appeals attached conditions to the 2008 comprehensive permit, however, aimed at short-circuiting the developer’s attempt to avoid state drinking-water regulations with a five-lot subdivision of the land. The ZBA called Scott’s plan, slated to support a 58-bedroom community with five separately owned wells, an “avoidance of the installation of a public water supply system in accordance with [DEP drinking water] regulations.” The ZBA said Scott’s “scheme” seemed designed “for the sole purpose” of skirting the more stringent rules of a public water supply system. At the time, Scott insisted he simply wanted to avoid chlorinating the wells, a possibility for such water systems.
Nevertheless, Scott’s latest plan, the one accepted by the Conservation Commission, shows four wells in compliance with DEP rules for public water supply (communal) wells.
Conditions on the comprehensive permit also addressed what the ZBA saw as significant problems with the lot’s demonstrably poor soils, which in 2003 failed to support an application, under Harvard’s standard zoning law for two single-family homes. The plan proposed by Scott for five separately owned “wastewater disposal facilities” was, the ZBA wrote in the comprehensive permit, “arranged in part to circumvent” DEP regulations for recirculating sand filters. Scott has yet to present new septic plans. Calls to him earlier this week were not returned.
