by Valerie Hurley ·
Friday, March 28, 2025
The state has awarded Harvard a $1,145,000 grant to bring municipal water and sewer to the 8-acre multifamily district at the intersection of Ayer Road and the Route 2 interchange. The award was announced March 13 by the offices of Gov. Healey and Housing and Livable Communities.
“Harvard will extend water and sewer utilities to its 3A district and leverage MINCO Development Corporation’s construction of 220 new units,” the release said. The town worked with MINCO and the property owners as co-applicants for the grant, according to Town Administrator Dan Nason.
Nason said that although the town has yet to receive a formal development application from MINCO, a preliminary plan proposed 220 rental units, of which 180 would be in the new multifamily district. But according to MINCO executive Eric Loth Jr, the exact number and distribution of market rate and affordable units is not yet final. As it is, the developer will need to qualify for a density bonus to build 180 units in the district. By right, 120 units are allowed in the zone—10% of which must be affordable. But to build 60 more units would require that 33 of them also be affordable. ”We have not settled on a unit count yet. We are working through a few scenarios and hope to apply to the town in the next few months,” Loth told the Press.
As for the utilities, Nason said water and sewer will be brought in from Devens to “serve the project and the parcels which the utilities pass along the route.” He added, “There is no plan to install water and sewer utilities in all of Ayer Road at this point since it would be outside the scope” of the major overhaul of Ayer Road, slated for 2026 and largely funded with federal grants.
MINCO Development has been interested in building apartments at the Route 2-Ayer Road intersection since the spring of 2023 and has met several times in informal discussion with town officials, Nason said. The latest meeting took place last week, after the grant was awarded, “to look at preliminary design scenarios.”
The multifamily, or 3A, district was approved last spring by Town Meeting in compliance with the state’s 2021 MBTA Communities Act, which applies to the 177 towns with or near MBTA stations. Harvard created a district allowing 120 units by right, with additional units allowed by special permit if 25% of the rental units are affordable.
Harvard’s multifamily zone sits across the road from Dunkin’ Donuts, encompassing 185, 187, and part of 203 Ayer Road, at which construction of a badminton facility is underway.