The Planning Board made several changes this week to its proposed senior housing bylaw in response to a flurry of recent feedback. The board met Sept. 21 to discuss these changes and settled on some alterations, though it left other issues to be determined at its Sept. 28 meeting, shortly before the Oct. 3 Special Town Meeting, where the bylaw will be presented.
The board reported receiving a great deal of criticism on the bylaw from various sources, including current members of the Select Board and other town officials, former Planning Board members, and numerous citizens.
One issue of greatest contention was the maximum size of developments. The proposed bylaw would allow developments comprising as many as 40 stand-alone buildings. Planning Board member Gwen Leonard suggested reducing the maximum size to 12 or 18 buildings. Board associate member Rebecca Kelley opposed this limitation, drawing on her real estate experience to say that developers would find such small numbers economically nonviable. Director of Community and Economic Development Chris Ryan agreed with Kelley, saying, “It is not pandering to the developers to make building the housing we want financially viable, because the other option is that we don’t get any senior housing at all.” The board tasked Ryan with researching the minimum feasible size and left the decision until the Sept. 28 meeting.
Another topic of discussion was whether the bylaw would allow too many units of infill—new buildings constructed on lots that would be too small to allow housing under current zoning. “Infill is not going to be something that scourges the landscape,” Ryan said, pointing to an analysis he had done that indicated a maximum of seven infill units could be built around the town center, and just three could fit around Still River.
Leonard countered, suggesting that the bylaw allows too much senior housing to be built relative to existing housing. She urged caution, saying, “In Harvard, we like to move slowly and see how things are going.” The bylaw allows senior housing equal to 15% of the total housing in town (currently 1,909 total, which would allow 286 new units), but she wanted to cut that number to fewer than 100 new units. The board tasked Ryan with running focus groups during the upcoming week to help inform a decision at the next meeting.
Can ‘large uses’ pass at Town Meeting?
Former Planning Board Chair Erin McBee suggested the bylaw be split into two parts. The two largest housing types, the assisted living facility and the continuing care community, could be moved to a separate bylaw to be presented at a later date, while the smaller-scale uses would remain. She said, “I don’t want this bylaw to get killed on the floor of Town Meeting because people are afraid of those large uses.” Planning Board member Jane Biering supported this idea, saying she believes the most important aspect of the bylaw is giving older citizens relief from Harvard’s 1.5-acres-per-unit zoning requirement (which it does, allowing as many as five units per acre even with cottage-style houses), but that she doesn’t like the larger-scale development types. The board decided to keep those larger uses in the proposed bylaw, at least until next week.
Although Harvard already has an assisted living bylaw on the books, Ryan told the Press that this bylaw “is more prescriptive” and contains details lacking in the existing one.
Pleas for more parking
The board reported feedback that the bylaw’s parking requirements are too low. For example, accessory dwellings required just one parking space per unit, with no guest parking. Ryan explained that older people generally own fewer cars and drive less, relative to the general population. However, in response to the criticism, the board made all housing types require guest parking of one space per two units.
Bylaw: lengthy by necessity
At their meeting last week, Select Board members had all agreed that the 21-page proposed bylaw was too long, echoing a common complaint. Select Board member Rich Maiore suggested that many of the details listed in the bylaw could be moved to the Planning Board’s regulations, thus shortening its length. But at the Planning Board’s meeting this week, Ryan was hesitant, explaining his philosophy that a long bylaw with everything relevant to its use included would be easier to understand than a short bylaw riddled with references to various other rules. However, the board decided to move enforcement of the age restriction and the Planning Board’s approval procedures for developments into regulations.
Can ‘local preference’ work against future Harvard residents?
Another topic of discussion was the bylaw’s local preference section. It requires that 50% of new units in any given development be offered exclusively to Harvard residents for the first 120 days after completion before being released to the general market. Biering questioned whether this model would make sense for assisted living facilities, which often have a high turnover rate of leased units and long waiting lists. She asserted that, while beneficial to the first Harvard residents who acquire the leases of newly constructed assisted living units, it would do nothing to help future residents. She initially proposed requiring that Harvard residents receive priority on the waiting lists of such facilities, but other board members pointed out that encoding this requirement into the bylaw would be complex and restrictive. After some discussion, Biering agreed that the board should instead negotiate to include local preference for later residents during the special permitting process.
Biering also proposed extending the 120-day local preference period. In a later statement, she said, “This time period isn’t long enough to allow a local senior to decide whether or not they want to buy and to get a sense of how much their current home is worth, and work through the myriad issues involved in moving and in selling and buying a home.” The board did not come to a decision on this topic, but Biering intends to raise the point again at next week’s meeting.
Visual impact
According to Leonard, people she talked to wanted to know where the senior housing developments would be located, and were concerned about their impact on Harvard’s scenic roads. The board discussed potential solutions for lessening the visual impact of the housing. Ryan added a section to the bylaw that provides developers with guidelines for disguising multi-family homes as single-family homes, in keeping with Harvard’s existing aesthetic. Feedback indicated that people support converting existing houses to duplexes for seniors, but Ryan cautioned that this would likely be uncommon, explaining that few such homes were built with accessibility guidelines in mind. Kelley suggested using long driveways to hide unattractive buildings from public ways, but Planning Board member Fran Nickerson countered, saying that such driveways would be an obstacle for older residents.
Age restrictions explained and questioned
According to Planning Board Chair Justin Brown, one of the greatest causes for concern was the details of the bylaw’s age restriction. It provides the developer with two options for age restriction: one in which 80% of units in a given development must be occupied by at least one person aged 55 or older, and another in which all residents must be 62 or older. Ryan explained the rationale behind these choices: The federal Fair Housing Act generally forbids age-based descrimination in housing. However, the Housing for Older Persons Act (HOPA) outlines exceptions for the two age restriction options in the proposed bylaw.
At the Sept. 15 Select Board meeting, Select Board member Kara Minar had questioned the looseness of the bylaw’s language on age restriction, which states that a senior development “anticipates and is marketed to” senior residents and that all units in such a development “may” be subject to a deeded age restriction. The Planning Board did not discuss further tightening this language.
Ryan also said he had already submitted the proposed bylaw to the state attorney general’s office for legal review due to concerns about the age restriction, but that he had not yet received a response. According to Ryan, Town Counsel Mark Lanza approved an earlier draft of the proposed bylaw, but has not examined the most recent version.
Planning Board member Stacia Donahue reported comments she had received from Parks and Recreation Commision Chair Bob O’Shea, who asked that active recreation be added to the list of allowed types of open space. O’Shea hopes that a development may provide the town with additional sports fields. The board agreed to add sports fields to the list.
Now or later?
The final topic of discussion was whether to go ahead with the bylaw at all, or to spend more time altering it before presenting it at a future town meeting. Brown and Donahue strongly supported presenting it at the Oct. 3 meeting. Donahue reported that Council on Aging Board of Directors Chair Beth Williams, who also supported this idea, said she would rather see the bylaw fail at Town Meeting and get people talking about how to do better next time than die quietly in a back room. Leonard suggested waiting until the spring, saying that waiting six months to properly incorporate the current feedback would be better than having to wait two years after losing a vote. Nickerson remained on the fence, saying she was not sure if the current proposal is up to the task of securing housing for Harvard’s older population.
The board has not reversed its previous unanimous vote to present the bylaw to Town Meeting Oct. 3.
Valerie Hurley contributed to this article.
