Great Elms, an all-affordable housing development on Stow Road, has received state funding. The Department of Housing and Community Development announced last month that the nine-unit rental project will receive funds through the state’s supportive housing program, which provides homes and services for families “making the transition out of homelessness.” According to DHCD, the housing will serve “low and extremely low-income families, some of whom will participate in the supportive housing initiative and will receive support services.” The project was granted a comprehensive permit under the provisions of Chapter 40B last June. The developer is CHOICE, an arm of the Chelmsford Housing Authority.
For a family of four, the 2014 Eastern Worcester County annual income levels are defined by HUD as $63,900 for low-income, and $29,350 for extremely low income. For a single person, those qualifying incomes are $44,750 and $20,550, respectively.
This week the Harvard Board of Health also moved the Great Elms project ahead by granting a waiver to CHOICE for its wastewater collection system. Harvard’s septic regulations specify a private wastewater collection system for projects with more than four buildings on a lot and a flow-rate of more than 2,000 gallons per day. But according to CHOICE’s attorney Doug Deschenes, “That would be an impossibility from a technical and fiscal standpoint.”
The nine apartments of Great Elms would generate 1,870 gallons, according to CHOICE’s engineering firm, Hancock Associates. The lot will contain five buildings: four two-unit buildings (the existing farmhouse and three structures to be built), and a single one-unit building (an existing cottage to be renovated).
“The local regulation was actually created with larger projects in mind,” said Board of Health Chairman Tom Phillipou. Nashoba Associated Boards of Health sanitarian Ira Grossman agreed with that assessment. The board voted 3–0 to grant a waiver for the wastewater treatment plant after a 35-minute discussion of the project, sending CHOICE away with instructions to submit an updated plan for a conventional septic system.
