A plan to save affordable rental housing units at 105 Stow Road—whose existence is endangered by a pending foreclosure on the four-acre property—is gaining favor among affordable housing advocates and town officials.
Chelmsford Housing Opportunities for Intergenerational and Community Endeavors (CHOICE) is leading the effort to redevelop the Great Elms property, which now provides five apartments in an antique farmhouse and cottage. Redevelopment would preserve the existing five units, though in a new configuration. Four additional units would also be built to replace those lost when The Inn on Fairbank Street was sold at a foreclosure auction last year and converted to market-rate condominiums.
The involvement of CHOICE, an arm of the Chelmsford Housing Authority, began with a suggestion solicited by Selectman Ron Ricci from former Harvard town administrator Paul Cohen.
“Ron Ricci reached out to me and I mentioned CHOICE, about whom I have nothing but good things to say. As a Harvard resident, I’m excited to see this project get under way,” Cohen said on Wednesday, adding that his involvement was confined to his response to Ricci’s query. Cohen is the Chelmsford town manager.
To fund the redevelopment, CHOICE is working with the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development to apply for state subsidies, according to CHOICE director Connie Donahue-Comtois. To date, CHOICE has not requested funding from the town of Harvard. The nonprofit group has completed three projects so far, including a 37-unit, age-restricted apartment house with resident services in Chelmsford, and veterans’ housing in both Chelmsford (nine units) and Westford (five units).
Retaining a ‘farmyard feel’
The redevelopment at Great Elms, which is surrounded by almost 70 acres of conservation land, will retain its “farmyard feel,” according to architect Eric Chamberlin of Somerville-based Davis Square Architects. At an abutters meeting on Tuesday, Chamberlin said the property would keep its character through the use of clapboards, gables, double-hung windows, and traditional trim in both the renovation and the new construction.
Sketches prepared by Chamberlin’s firm show that the farmhouse, minus the ell, and a backyard cottage will be renovated, and three new buildings—one to be built in the ell’s former position—will be built on the property. Between the renovation and new buildings, a total of nine affordable rental apartments will be created, replacing those lost at The Inn and retaining the units that have existed at Great Elms for nearly 20 years. Two of the apartments will be three-bedroom units, addressing the need identified by Harvard’s Affordable Housing Plan for family rental housing. The cottage will remain a one-bedroom and the rest will be two-bedroom units.
The barn at Great Elms. (photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)
One aspect of the farmyard ambiance likely to be missing will be the white clapboard, slate-roofed barn that sits close to Stow Road. “The barn is unfortunately unsalvageable,” said Chamberlin on Tuesday, citing rotten sills, a side that is caving in, and a crumbling slate roof. Abutters Sean and Kathy Bilodeau, in a letter to CHOICE, proposed “moving the barn up onto my field or purchasing it and leaving it where it is.”
CHOICE representatives said Bilodeau was welcome to disassemble and move the barn, but it could not stay on the property and would need to be removed by August, when the bank and former owners of Great Elms will convey the property to the nonprofit CHOICE.
Reactions to loss of barn
Conservation restrictions—as currently written—on the nearest Bilodeau-owned field would prohibit a structure as large as the barn to be re-assembled there.
Sketches of the Great Elms redevelopment show a trash and recycling shed, shielded from the street by shrubs or a small fence, where the barn now sits. In comments that urged CHOICE to work with the Bilodeaus or others to move the barn, a member of Tuesday’s audience, Pete Jackson, advised CHOICE to prepare for negative community reaction to the barn’s being razed.
“When you come back with a rendition of the trash facility instead of the barn, you want to have a good answer,” Jackson said.
