Highland number talks continue
Published on December 24th, 2003
STONEHAM, MA - A Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) hearing for a proposed 16-unit affordable housing project on Stoneham's Christopher Streets has been continued until January 8.
Boston-based engineering firm Haley and Aldrich will now review the petitioner's blasting plan for the site, which calls for removing 3,490 cubic yards of ledge and blasting as close as 20 feet to some existing homes and structures abutting the property.
According to ZBA Chairman William Sullivan, while he will wait for an official word from the independent consultant, the close proximity of the blasting to other structures is not a major concern to him given modern advances in construction technology.
"That's what the experts are for," remarked Sullivan when asked to give his opinion on the blasting plan.
"But it's not like the old days where they took a mat and a couple sticks of dynamite and just blasted away...Now they do a lot of drilling and hydraulically split the rock. With technology today, I see it done all the time...Any blasting near structures will obviously be done with low charges," he added.
While Anderson and Kreiger attorney Dan Hill, who represents neighbors opposed to the 40B development, will also wait to hear from the independent consultant before commenting on the blasting plan, he did take issue with a town review of Malden developer R. DiNanno & Son's proforma, or financial statement.
The review, performed by New Hampshire's RKG Associates, Inc., concludes that the developer's appraisal of land values and costs associated with the development are reasonable.
"The total proforma development costs of $4,853,065 also appear to be reasonable. Subtracting the total development costs from the anticipated revenues from the sale of the units leaves a development profit of just over $500,000 or 11 percent of the revenues, well within the permitted guidelines," writes RKG Vice President Craig Seymour.
While Hill doesn't dispute that a 16-unit development would be profitable for the developer, he believes the report falls short of offering the ZBA useful information to utilize when deciding what types of conditions to impose on the project.
Arguing that the town can't impose conditions on the project that renders the project unprofitable, Hill believes the town should conduct another review of the proforma that considers the financial impacts of downsizing the development.
"RKG gives an opinion as to the viability of a 16-unit project which doesn't really help the board," Hill commented.
"There's no reason to scrutinize a proforma unless it's to find out what conditions would render it economically unviable. ..What the board needs to know is how many units can be shaved off the project and so the question still remains -- can the board approve a project with eight units or four units?" the attorney added.
Saying that he wasn't asked by the town to review the financial impacts of a development with less than 16-units, Seymour couldn't comment on whether a downsized project could generate a reasonable profit.
"I wouldn't know that because I wasn't asked by the town to review anything but a 16-unit project...I don't know how that impacts the property or the site acquisition costs," commented Seymour.
However, according to Sullivan, the town will ask both Seymour and a 40B attorney recently hired by the town at the petitioner's expense to look at the economic effects of a reduced project.
Hill also challenged the developer's decision to include the costs of acquiring the property in the proforma. With the back lots being listed as worth $480,000, Hill characterized the supposed "cost" deceptive given the fact that the property has been owned by the developer since the sixties.
"The applicant already owns that. He's listing that as a cost, which is fine for financing from a bank, but it's inappropriate to list it as a development cost...so that's $475,000 that can be taken out," Hill claimed.
Referring to Seymour's opinion that including the property cost is fair, Sullivan didn't necessarily agree that the $480,000 line item needed to be removed from the proforma.
"Supposedly that's a fair assessment of what the property's worth...He bought it in a tax foreclosure years ago for next to nothing, so I was surprised at that value as well," said Sullivan.
"If it is worth that, our Board of Assessors should get their end because, if I remember correctly, [the developer] only pays $1200 a year in taxes," he added.
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