Commentary by Frank Schroth

Town Meeting may be shorter thanks to the a group of residents from the Hillside neighborhood. At a recent meeting of the Planning Board Paul Krasinski informed the board that the residents had voted against accepting terms from a developer to build 12 homes on a 15 acre lot. They took exception to a condition that requested their support for a citizens petition article in the warrant that would approve a bylaw for townhouses on the property.

Here is a quick summary of the issue.

The property, approximately 15 acres, sits between Hillside and Ford Ranch Road and is owned by John Fandrey and is being developed by Milton resident Todd Hamilton. Hamilton has applied for an open space special permit that sought to build ~3 homes on the land. The application was opposed by a small but very vocal group of neighbors and the Planning Board denied the application. Mr. Whiteside had recused himself from the deliberation as he live in the neighborhood but, speaking as a resident, he made his opposition clear.

Hamilton appealed the decision but upon looking into a 40B development withdrew the appeal. Separately, an offer was made by a church to purchase the land.

Lastly, a citizens petition was filed for annual town meeting that proposed a general bylaw for condominium development. While the citizens article did not identify a location and was not site specific it was intended in part to provide an alternative for development for this property. The issue with the article is that it is far too open ended. The confominium working group was unable to mold it into anything that the planning board would accept. They recommended against the article. In an attempt to salvage the article and have a viable alternative to a 40B development, Marion McEttrick, a local attorney retained by the developer, worked to propose an amendment to the article that was site specific and inserted language that defined specificity to townhouses that would be developed on the lot. One of specifics was the number — ~40. The neighbors didn’t like that number.

So a group of neighbors met with Mr. Hamilton and, according to Mr. Krasinski, were very close to terms on a 12 house development. However, Mr. Hamilton wanted their support for the 40 condo article as insurance. The neighbors did not vote unanimously. As Ms. McEttrick explained to the Warrant Committee at their session last week – without neighbor support, without Planning Board support, and without Warrant Committee support, the amended article has little if any chance of approval. It is unlikely the amendment will be put forward and very likely Town Meeting will follow the Warrant Committee recommendation will follow the Planning Board recommendation which will be to refer it back to the Planning Board for further study. What is also highly likely is that the developer having failed to receive failing support for a condo development of 40 townhouses will file a comprehensive permit for ~90 units.

It falls to the neighbors to convince the developer 12 homes will be better; but the alternative to that just became much less attractive.