Work at the Great Elms affordable housing project on Stow Road is on schedule to begin in the fall, despite delays in the approval of the property’s well. After months of back-and-forth with the Harvard Board of Health, the developer has agreed to employ the “public water supply” system favored by the board. Such systems are required when 25 or more people will be using the well, as determined by the number of bedrooms at a site. Great Elms will have 17 bedrooms in nine units, where each bedroom automatically counts for two people. The Board of Health rejected the developer’s bid to avoid the expense through a deed-enforced occupancy limit last month, though minutes from its 2014 hearings show that the board initially favored the idea. Hearings on the water system, which will require easements on two abutting parcels of conservation land, have yet to be scheduled. Meanwhile, the nonprofit affordable housing group that bought the property in a foreclosure sale says it will stick to its original construction schedule.
“We are opening bids in a few weeks, and our plan is to start this fall,” said David Hedison, executive director of CHOICE, an arm of the Chelmsford Housing Authority. In May 2014, Harvard’s Zoning Board of Appeals granted CHOICE a comprehensive permit under the state affordable housing law (40B) to create nine apartments in five buildings, two renovated and three newly built. The existing backyard cottage and the farmhouse will be preserved, though the house’s ell will be removed. To be built are three traditional-style structures housing a total of six apartments. The imposing slate-roofed barn, which had been destined for demolition, was instead saved by the Stevenson family of South Shaker Road for reassembly on their property. The small carriage house across the road was moved for reassembly in Warwick, Rhode Island.
