Fuller Village hosted a gathering last evening to inform the community about and voice their opposition to a proposed 40B residential development to be built across the street from their Brush Hill location. Senator Brian A. Joyce, Vice President of the Fuller Village Board of Directors, addressed ~150 neighbors, residents and town officials. He began with an explanation of 40B and closed saying that the board of Fuller was unanimous in opposing the development because “the proposal is far too massive for this area.” (See related post here.)
Joyce explained that Chapter 40B of Massachusetts state law promoted the construction of affordable housing. Specifically, it enables real estate developers to bypass local zoning in communities whose affordable housing inventory is below 10% of total housing units. Milton is at ~4.5% and therefore exposed to 40B residential construction. The zoning bylaw most often bypassed is the density permitted. Developers who build 40B projects offer between 20-25% of the units at an affordable price point as determined by the state. Typically they make up for that by builidng more units than the local zoning would typically allow. Joyce stated that the developer, Mill Creek, had purchased 3 properties composing a total of ~22 acres and was proposing a 300 unit development. Fuller Village by contrast is 319 units on 60 acres. Joyce, who is not opposed to affordable housing in the right locations, said this “was the antithesis of smart growth. This is dumb growth.”
Milton had failed to take advantage of some of the tools made available to communities according to Joyce that would have strengthened Milton’s position in fighting this. Chief among them is a Housing Production Plan. Communities with such a plan, which lay out a strategy for increasing affordable housing over time, can be successful in avoiding unwanted developments. Joyce noted that the current sitting Board of Selectmen was not at fault for the failure to implement such a plan but that he “hoped and prayed that the Board of Selectmen would vigorously represent the neighbors” going forward. (Note: there is a housing plan item on the agenda for this Thursday’s Board of Selectmen meeting.) The members of the Board of Selectmen were all present at his session as was interim Town Administrator Annmarie Fagan, Representative Walter Timilty, and Planning Board Chair Alex Whiteside.
Joyce was joined by a series of speakers who also oppose the development. These included:
- Mark Smith, Executive Director of the Wakefield Estate, who spoke of Polly Wakefield’s opposition to the expressway going through fowl meadow (open land that abuts the proposed development). “[There’s] a legacy there to protecting an area unique in so many ways. . . [we have] taken that call seriously.”
- Neighbor Win Swenson who said that while initially open to the idea of an affordable development opposed it due to traffic, health, and “land” concerns. The traffic on Brush Hill Road backs up at rush hour, the health issue is related to depriving deer of natural habitat and increasing exposure of residents to lyme disease, which Mr. Swenson contracted as have several of his neighbors, by forcing the deer closer to residences, and the “pristine” quality of the land which was rare. “[With a] few strokes of a bulldozer that could be gone.”
- Tom Palmer who is a member of the Friends of the Blue Hills and works for the Neponset River Watershed Association, mentioned the wildlife unique to the area such as box turtles which make this an ACEC area (Area of Critical Environmental Concern). As such it will have the attention of state officials. As Joyce would note, 40B developers can bypass zoning but they can bypass state environmental regulations.
The developer is Mill Creek, a spin off from the real estate firm Trammell Crowe. Joyce anticpates that it will be a tough fight opposing the development but concluded, “The worst thing we can be is apathetic.”
Randy Scott, a resident of Hemenway Drive in Canton, offered to take residents on a tour of Hemenway Drive and the area this Saturday at 9:00am. He will meet people at Brush Hill Road and Hemenway Drive.
Here is a map of the proposed development. Please click on the image for a PDF version that can be zoomed in. Note the properties under agreement are 1375, 1383, and 1259 Brush Hill Road.
