by Frank Schroth

The Milton Board of Appeals voted yesterday to send a letter to DHCD that will provide evidence in support of the town’s claim that 1.5% of its acreage has affordable housing. Kathleen O’Donnell, an attorney representing the town, and Bill Clark, Town Planner, presented the materials to the board which consisted of a map and inventory of affordable units.

Ms. O’Donnell said evidence submitted supported the town’s claim that two statuatory requirements had been met.One is the amount of town acreage containing SHI units (SHI = subsidized housing inventory). The second was demonstrated progress the town made with regard to its housing production plan.

Town Planner Bill Clark working with Alan Bishop, the DPW’s GIS expert, calculate the town acreage with SHI housing to be ~93 acres. The 1.5 % requirement of Milton’s total acreage (3,555) is ~53 acres (Note: the acreage does not include such parcels and land as state highways and state owned land). O’Donnell stated the inventory of acreage exceeds state minimum. Attorneys for H&W, the developer, disagreed with the manner in which the calculation was arrived at. They did their own calculation which resulted in ~46 acres.

They also took issue with the claim of progress on the housing production plan. O’Donnell said progress had been made with recent inclusion of units from Fuller Village. The opposing attorneys challenged that arguing that units could not be applied to housing production plan until they were certified by DHCD (Dept of Housing and Community Development). They cited a variety of regulations It also became apparent that the regulations have changed over time. There was not clear agreement on how the calculation should be derived and how that calculation met existing law.

This was all a bit much for the BoA. Chair Leonard, as did member Jeff Mullen, acknowledged that this area of law was not their area of expertise. They heard what was said but Leonard did not want to get into a protracted evidentiary hearing on the two arguments being made. He did not believe either party would be well served. Mullen said “I don’t think we have enough evidence [but] . . . the town has met the burden of proof [and I] feel confident the letter should be submitted.” Member Virgina King agreed as did Chair Leonard. Leonard said the submission of the letter by the BoA did not represent an endorsement of either parties position concluding that the matter could be “handled with dispatch by skilled administrators.” The letter will be submitted no later than Monday.

Leonard also brought up the issue of peer review. The board will request a peer review of the applicant’s engineering and traffic studies. However, Leonard noted that he did not want to request they do that before a ruling arrived from DHCD in event that the ruling made a peer review moot and possible waste of funds. The developer did not share the concern and expressed interest in keeping the process moving. Leonard agreed to forward on recommendations of firms to perform a peer review. The hearing is scheduled to resume on January 22 at 7:30 at a location to be determined.