A Littleton Road property owned by the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust remains on the market, a year and a half after the group abandoned plans to engage a developer to create affordable housing at the site. In its first year on the market, the large, antique farmhouse on nearly 30 acres was offered as a single parcel for $1,425,000. Last spring, a new marketing strategy saw the property offered in five separately priced building lots, adding up to a total asking price of $1,570,000. Now the property is again being offered as a single parcel, but for $1.295 million. The trust paid $1.2 for the property in 2013.
The property came close to being sold soon after first coming to market in 2015, but the prospective buyer terminated a $1.3 million purchase and sale agreement after arsenic was found in a former orchard on the site. Further soil analysis by Irwin Engineers of Natick found “no significant risk to human health, public safety, welfare, or the environment” and concluded that no remedial action was required, but the buyer did not return.
The seven-member trust consists of four selectmen, Ron Ricci, Ken Swanton, Alice von Loesecke, and Lucy Wallace; one former selectman, Leo Blair; and Greg Schmidt and Manny Lindo. Blair and Schmidt have declared their intention to resign as soon as 166 Littleton Road is sold; Lindo announced at last week’s trust meeting that he would resign in January. Also at last week’s meeting, Ricci proposed reducing trust membership from seven to five, requiring that a Planning Board member be on the trust, and prohibiting the trust from originating affordable housing projects, allowing only for contributions to third-party projects. Ricci’s proposed amendments to the MAHT “Declaration of Trust” document will be discussed at the trust’s next meeting, Tuesday, Oct. 11, at 7 p.m. at the Congregational Church.
