The Municipal Affordable Housing Trust (MAHT) agreed this week to grant $30,000 to the Housing@Hildreth House Committee to create conceptual site drawings for proposed senior housing on the Hildreth property. The committee intends to hire Goldsmith, Prest & Ringwall Inc. (GPR) to do the work.
At its Dec. 8 meeting, the Housing@Hildreth House Committee agreed that 10 percent of the housing units could be made affordable, which made it possible to seek MAHT support for some necessary site drawings. Committee member Victor Normand requested a loan for the work at the housing trust’s Dec. 12 meeting, but MAHT members agreed that repaying a loan for the site drawings might cause a problem if the senior housing project falls through. Instead, they voted unanimously to grant $30,000 outright for the conceptual drawings, subject to a written confirmation that two of the units be affordable.
The drawings will show options for the driveway, drainage, and building footprints, as well as water and sewer lines. Cal Goldsmith of GPR attended the Housing@Hildreth House Committee meeting at its request, and said he will work with Town Planner Bill Scanlan to create a proposal. He will have an estimate for the proposal by the Hildreth committee’s next meeting, Dec. 15, he said.
Goldsmith added, however, that his firm would need more information about the units, such as approximate square footage, number of stories, number of units per building, and size and location of garages and/or parking areas before building footprint options could be drawn. Three committee members volunteered to research senior-unit floor plans before their next meeting so that building guidelines could be discussed.
The selectmen have requested that the committee complete its information-gathering phase by Feb. 9, in time to draft a warrant article for the 2017 Annual Town Meeting; the article would ask the town to authorize the sale or lease of a portion of the Hildreth land to a private developer to build senior housing.
