ZBA talks restrictions on Langwood site
Published on August 17th, 2005
The town's Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) recently considered hinging more than 65 separate restrictions and conditions on its approval of the 450-unit Langwood
Commons proposal
Continuing the hearing on the mixed-use project without a massive audience for the first time in five-months - only two citizens attended the meeting last Thursday - the ZBA was provided a draft proposal of conditions by town-hired 40B attorney Diane Tillocson.
According to the lawyer, who works for Boston-based legal firm Hemmingway and Barnes, she needed board members to approach the restrictions on the property by considering several broad categories.
"Primarily, I want to use this [draft] as an opportunity for the board to look at the conditions from a broad brush stoke. Whether the board wants it more restrictive or less restrictive, these are the things I need to know," said Tillocson.
Affordability
One of Tillocson's major categories for discussion, the local attorney explained that the affordable housing component of the housing development would include a local preference for "persons with a connection to Stoneham".
With up to 70 percent of the affordable units designated as local preference, the local attorney's draft of conditions defined citizens with a "connection" to the town according to the following criteria:
- A least one member of a household is a legal resident of the Town of Stoneham
- A person shall be deemed a resident if that person is eligible to be registered to vote in the Town of Stoneham
- At least one member of the household is a son, daughter, sibling, parent or grandparent of a Stoneham resident
- A least one member of the household is a person employed by the Town of Stoneham for at least two years within the previous five years
According to ZBA member Bill Sullivan, he was satisfied with that definition, which requires that a potential buyer or renter of the development looking for a local preference dwelling meet one or more of the requirements.
However, Sullivan did worry about how those potential tenants would be located, especially in light of a recent 40B development's local preference lottery. Specifically, the ZBA member argued that his board should be in charge of designating who will ultimately run the lottery determining who will live in the units.
"When it came to that point, the lottery agent came before the Board of Selectmen. I would think any lottery agent should come back to the ZBA, as where we're the appointing authority," Sullivan remarked, saying the Selectmen appeared puzzled by the lottery agent's presence.
According to the ZBA, their biggest concern was ensuring that the local preference units were advertised primarily to Stoneham residents, as the Christopher Village lottery agent reportedly spent a large portion time wooing minorities to the apartments.
"She was advertising in Lowell and Lawrence and that kind of defeats the purpose of keeping it in Stoneham," said Sullivan, asking the attorney whether the dwellings had to go to a certain quota of minority populations.
According to Tillocson, the best way to run the lottery would be to assign it to the Stoneham Housing Authority, as the agency maintains a list of residents who are both looking for and qualify for affordable housing - which requires a person make 80 percent or less of the region's median income.
However, Stoneham attorney Charlie Houghton, who represents the developers, made it clear that the Selectmen wanted to control the selection process.
"We thought the Housing Authority would be great, because they do have that list. But that's not the way the Selectmen want it," Houghton commented. "Maybe there needs to be some dialogue between you [the ZBA] and them."
Traffic mitigations
Three other areas of discussion, the 40B attorney also sought the ZBA's input on conditions that should be implemented on the project's traffic mitigations and construction phases.
According to Tillocson, the board should retain an independent consultant to review the petitioner's proposed traffic mitigations, which would cost the developers approximately $2.2 million to implement.
However, according to documents submitted to the ZBA during the hearing process, Simpson Housing, LP, and the Gutierrez Company considered that $2.2 million price-tag to be a worst case scenario. In the best of circumstances, according to a memo between the two developers, the traffic improvements would come in at a cost of $1.84 million, nearly $300,000 cheaper.
Immediately objecting to Tillocson's suggestion, Houghton pointed out that the town and the developers had each already hired consultants to review the traffic assumptions associated with the mixed-use project.
"We've already hired VHB for us and the BCS Group for you guys," Houghton countered.
"I'm not talking about [the traffic] counts," the attorney responded, who also felt that a local committee should be established to monitor the developers' progress in implementing the various roadway improvements.
"We want somebody to get an estimate for how much these improvements are going to cost. I want to make sure that whatever types of mitigations were agreed to are granted in some way," Tillocson added.
With no board members objecting to the 40B attorney's suggestion, the ZBA did decide that for traffic monitoring of surrounding roadways such as Ravine Road, the local police department should determine what types of mitigations are necessary.
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