Weston senior housing idea back on the table – Milford Daily News

A new proposal, to be sponsored by the Select Board and likely coming to another special Town Meeting in the next few months, calls for eight housing units, one of which will be affordable.

WESTON After failing to receive a two-thirds majority at special Town Meeting last month, a proposal for a so-called Transit Oriented Senior Development (TOSD) at 255 Merriam St. and 11 Hallett Hill Road will return for another vote.

Currently, the 2.9-acre site near the Silver Hill MBTA station is approved to become a 10-unit Chapter 40B housing project, in which two units will be deemed affordable.

Under the TOSD proposal, which was supported by 216 Town Meeting voters with 149 opposed, only eight units of housing for adults 55 and older were to be built, but none affordable.

Due to the two-thirds rule, the proposal would have required 244 "yes" votes to pass.

A new proposal, to be sponsored by the Select Board and likely coming to another special Town Meeting in the next few months, calls for eight housing units, one of which will be affordable, and additional square footage achieved above garages or by altering roof slope lines.

Select Board Chairman Chris Houston said at last weeks board meeting that the impact on the neighborhood of the TOSD proposal is much less than the 40B possibility, including not having to clear-cut trees (and) not having to build a 12-foot retaining wall going into the ground to accommodate the utility engineering, which would jeopardize even more trees on other properties potentially."

The engineering of utilities and stormwater drainage would be substantially less likely to push the limits under the TOSD, Houston said. You do ten in there, youre packing it super tight.

Also under the TOSD, an historic barn on the property would be preserved.

During last months special Town Meeting, the Planning Board voted 3-0, with two recusals, against the TOSD bylaw proposal.

A zoning provision applicable to only one specific area for the sole benefit of that one area - financial or otherwise - is the very definition of spot zoning, Planning Board member Alicia Primer said at the time.

Houston addressed that concern during last weeks Select Board meeting.

There is a chance that a court could find it to be spot zoning, though the trend in recent court decisions would be that because theres a public purpose - in this case promoting senior housing and affordable housing - it seems like a lower risk that a court would actually find it to be spot zoning, Houston said. Best practices are awesome, but sometimes the real world gives you reason to deviate from best practices. I think the benefits of this compromise outweigh the sort of violation of a best practice, that frankly I still dont understand why its necessarily best.

Houston noted precedent in 2005, when the town created Active Adult Residential Development District (AARD) zoning in order to allow for the senior housing development Highland Meadows between Rte. 20 and Highland Street.

It is true that the AARD is specified in generic terms, so theoretically it is not limited to Highland Meadows, Houston said.

The only reason the AARD exists is because they wanted to address the Highland Meadows situation," he continued. "No one just woke up and said we really need some Adult Active Retirement District here, lets just create them in the abstract. It was entirely oriented toward Highland Meadows.

Town Planner Imaikalani Aiu told selectmen last week that he didn't believe it was good planning practice to put in zoning in reaction to a single development on one lot.

"As a professional planner, I think if theres an expressed need for affordable housing or senior housing, you look at it holistically and you go ahead and you find the best spots for it and you create that zoning," he said. "By that definition, I couldnt endorse a practice like this.

At special Town Meeting, Planning Board member Susan Zacharias said the developer, Geoff Engler, certainly seems to have all of these people in the neighborhood held hostage, and this is not the way to do zoning bylaws.

Select Board member Laurie Bent noted this was one article at special Town Meeting where she changed her mind during the presentations.

I went in thinking, No, Im not going to vote for this, and it was not an easy vote, because of the loss of the affordable (units) and the feeling that we were being held hostage to the developer, Bent said. But the historic impact and the tree impact and how hard the neighborhood worked to try to have some control over what was happening changed her mind.

So I think that this is a win-win, she said of the new proposal.

Michael Wyner can be reached at 508-626-4441 or mwyner@wickedlocal.com.

View original post here:
Weston senior housing idea back on the table - Milford Daily News