At an Aug. 30 meeting, Housing@Hildreth Committee members unanimously rejected the Sewer Commission’s vote denying the housing committee’s application to allow a proposed senior housing project to connect to the town sewer system. Instead, the committee will appeal the decision to the Select Board later this month.
The housing committee’s application was denied at a Sewer Commission meeting on Aug. 1, when two of the three Sewer Commission members said the project as planned did not provide a “demonstrable benefit” to the town, a condition required in the growth neutrality clause of the sewer regulations. Chair Cindy Russo’s main objection was the absence of affordable housing units in the project. She sent Housing@Hildreth Committee Chair Rick Maiore an email regarding why affordable housing is needed in town and how it might be made to work with a grant from the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust.
At the meeting, Maiore shared the email, and committee members refuted Russo’s comments, saying that very few people in town would qualify for affordable housing because of their non-liquid assets, and that the housing trust would not likely invest its money in a small project with few affordable housing credits. Maiore also restated the committee’s main reason for not including affordable housing, namely that the group’s mission is to provide moderately priced housing for seniors, and the inclusion of affordable housing would raise the price of the other units in the project.
Paul Green of Old Littleton Road spoke during public comment and reminded the committee that Sewer Commission member Kyle Hedrick had voted against the application for a different reason. Hedrick was concerned that there was no guarantee the units would be moderately priced, and that the project would take up a substantial portion of the town’s remaining daily sewage capacity. Green also gave the committee a spreadsheet he had created, containing housing construction costs and sale prices. He said the data suggested that it would be “extremely difficult” for the proposed units to be moderately priced, and added that the committee “owes it to the town to prove the project is economically viable.”
The committee needs to wait for a written decision from the Sewer Commission before proceeding with its appeal, but it voted to authorize Maiore to proceed with the appeal when the written decision is available. The Sewer Commission meets Sep. 12, and housing committee and Select Board member Lucy Wallace said that if the decision is filed at that meeting, the appeal could be on the Select Board agenda for Sep. 18.
