I think it is extremely sad that two major housing developments are being planned for “northern” Harvard (the Ayer Road village, Toreku site project, and the “Shaker Village” project on the Shaker Hills golf course). Our family recently moved to Harvard and had no idea about such projects. I have quickly educated myself about the issues around 40B affordable housing building projects and the noose they place around small towns. I wish to reiterate some of the points that citizens and town planners have raised at planning meetings. And I wish to add one major consideration that I think needs to be pondered.
Kudos to those who have raised the following concerns: With the development of potentially 172 housing units between the two projects, where will the children who live in these houses go to nursery school, elementary school, and high school? What impact will this have on our schools—that have worked so hard to become outstanding schools? What cost will there be to the developers to help with these dilemmas?
What impact will this expansion of our town population have on other resources, such as the library, policing services, and, as mentioned at the meeting, fire services? Who will pay for these new burdens? Are there any guarantees that our taxes will not be affected?
How will the historic area of the real Shaker Village be affected by these changes? How will the roads and neighborhoods (my road and neighborhood!) in this area be affected? How will the children that play near this area be affected as the new influx of an estimated 1,400 trips of cars go passing by each day? Will the developers pay for repairs to the roads, new roads, safety signs, and safety changes to the roads?
What is the environmental impact; not that impact that is obvious, but the hidden impact that often is not studied well enough? There are wetlands all around this area; there are our wells; there are animals and birds and ecosystems? These are things that can’t be paid for by the developers even if they wanted to.
How much profit is enough? Not to be too socialistic, but can’t these projects be done on a smaller scale—one that would have them blend in with the current development in Harvard?
The final thing I would like to consider here has not been mentioned in the papers or at meetings as far as I can tell. Why are we selling out the northern part of our town? We pay the same taxes; we love this community to the same degree; we want our children to grow up on quiet streets and appreciate wild life; we opted to join this town because of the values it represents. It is not okay to preserve Harvard south of Route 2 and let a portion of it go so that affordable housing percentages can be achieved and so that growth of population and industry can be achieved. We “northerners” are part of Harvard, too. Please don’t abandon us.
I, too, feel that affordable housing is important. These proposals are not the way to achieve this goal. At the very least they should be downscaled and the developers should have to escrow funds to cover the concerns we all have raised for expansion of schools, repair of roads, etc. The cost to all of us is too high. These are your schools, your fire services, your library, your roads, your environment, your taxes. Please take time to make your opinions known about these plans that will affect all of our ways of living here in our town of Harvard.
Hugh Silk is a resident of Ann Lee Road
