In Harvard, where affordable housing stocks are at 5.5 percent—little more than half of the state-mandated 10 percent—the state’s comprehensive permit is likely to play a prominent role in development.
Where affordable homes are deemed too few, the permit must almost always be granted to eligible developers under the state’s affordable housing law, 40B. In return for the greater density allowed by the law, 25 percent of the homes to be built must be sold or rented at an “affordable” rate. Usually, that means a household earning less than 80 percent of this area’s median income would spend no more than 30 percent of its income on housing.
The permits have played a role in Harvard’s development of affordable housing. Of the town’s 105 affordable units, 49 were created through use of the comprehensive permit. The other 56 units were created by other means, most significantly through Ayer Road Village Special Permit zoning.
Leveraging the
comprehensive permit
Now, in what appears to be an effort to use the state’s so-called anti-snob zoning law to the town’s advantage, the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust (MAHT) is floating a plan to create a six-acre cluster of 100 percent affordable, non-age-restricted rental units—between 30 and 36—on a nearly 30-acre property it bought last year on the northern side of Harvard for $1.1 million. With frontage on Pinnacle Road, the property at 166 Littleton Road contains a pond and an antique home once used as the town’s “Poor Farm”, both of which would be preserved along with more than 20 acres of open space.
If 36 units were to be built, Harvard’s affordability percentage would rise from 5.5 to 7 percent, earning it at least a one-year immunity from new comprehensive permit projects.
At Monday’s trust meeting, MAHT member and selectman Leo Blair summed up the trust’s current position in relation to its mission of encouraging, preserving, and creating affordable housing: “Someone is going to develop the property, and to what could very well be a much greater density. Better that we should make it to the town’s benefit.”
The developer who is poised to carry out the plan is Metro West Collaborative Development, Inc., one of several developers who responded to a request for proposals issued last summer by the trust. The private nonprofit corporation specializes in creating and preserving affordable homes in the region.
The developer and the trust have not yet signed a purchase and sale agreement for the property, pending coming to terms and a public input forum that will be held Wednesday, Nov. 12, at 7:30 p.m. at the Congregational Church. At the forum, members of the trust and the Metro West staff will describe the plan and answer questions.
Meanwhile, several other comprehensive permit projects around town are in varying stages of completion.
Stow Road: Great Elms
The comprehensive permit granted last June to developer CHOICE, an arm of the Chelmsford Housing Authority, preserves nine affordable, non-age-restricted rentals that were lost to foreclosure at two antique homes: The Inn on Fairbank Street (now market-rate condominiums) and Great Elms. Through a combination of renovation and new construction at the Stow Road site, Harvard will keep the nine units that are already counted toward its 5.5 percent affordability level.
When work begins, an existing antique farmhouse (now cleared of tenants) will remain, minus its ell, along with a separate cottage in the back yard. The much-admired slate-roof barn is being dismantled and moved across town to a private home, saving it from demolition.
The project’s septic system, but not its well, has been reviewed by sanitarian Ira Grossman of the Nashoba Associated Boards of Health. Construction can begin after septic and well design are complete. “They have some work to do [on the septic system],” Grossman said this week. Plans for the well have not yet been submitted, he said.
Littleton County Road: Trail Ridge
The permit for Trail Ridge was granted by the Zoning Board of Appeals in 2004 and allows for a total of 52 ownership units, with 13 affordable and the remaining 39 units at market rate. To date, 24 units have been built, six of them affordable, according to Trail Ridge director of sales Elaine Davis-Curll. Construction on four more units will begin soon, Davis-Curll said.
Stow Road: Pine Hill Village
This 24-unit ownership project, 25 percent affordable and on 20 acres, has been in the works since the Zoning Board of Appeals granted the permit in 2007. It is unbuilt, but the permit remains valid and is renewable. Engineering work has continued, off and on, through the years. So far, only the wells have been approved and installed. Developer R. Carter Scott of Transformations, Inc. has yet to complete a required redesign of the septic system, Grossman said this week, agreeing with the assessment that the ball is in the developer’s court. A seasonal stream runs through the property, which is steep in some parts and has had problems with run-off and drainage. Scott did not respond by press time to a request for comment.
