SHIRLEY — When Apple Valley Homes filed its application for Parker Village last year, the proposed new residential condominium development, slated for a 30-acre parcel on Parker Road, called for construction of 22 duplex units and 26 single family homes on the site, which also includes frontage on Great Road (Route 2A).
Now, that plan has changed. For the better, according to the developer, Brandon McCabe, who manages the firm with business partner John Barbadoro. The current plan is for “all single family homes,” he said in a recent e-mail.
Having cleared a Planning Board review, the developer’s Comprehensive Permit application is currently under consideration by the Zoning Board of Appeals, with a public hearing in progress and several continuances to date. ZBA Chairman Chip Guercio said the project is undergoing “peer view” by Weston and Sampson, a civil engineering firm.
In his e-mail, McCabe sketched out his project proposal and his take on the hold-up with the ZBA.
There hasn’t been any “pushback” from abutters or residents, he said. And he’s complied with the Planning Board’s requests, such as placing “electronic speed radars” on Parker Road and installing lights at intersections where the development’s private roads meet both town roads. He has also spoken to neighbors to address privacy concerns, he said.
The Parker Village project is being presented as a so-called “40B.” The designation refers to “Chapter 40B” in Massachusetts law, which allows developers some relief from local zoning restrictions, such as density, if 25 percent of the proposed units are “affordable.” That is, priced below market value per the state’s low-to-moderate income guidelines, factoring in household size.
But the issue in this case isn’t the development’s density. “The big obstacle in getting the project approved is connecting to town sewer,” McCabe said. At first, it was about whether the property was in the sewer district, he said. Apparently, that point is now resolved.
Part of the property was sold before he bought it, he said, and that portion had road frontage on Little Turnpike Road, where there’s a “sewer stub.” Absent that frontage, the Sewer Commission said his property was no longer in the sewer district, McCabe said. “It was … their belief that my lot was removed,” from the district when that lot was sold, he said. He disagreed.
When the proposal came before the ZBA, that objection was “dropped” McCabe said.
The challenge now is determining if the sewer system can handle 48 new hookups for the 48 new single family homes in that part of the district, which has a pressure-controlled set-up. According to ZBA Chairman Chip Guercio, that makes it more difficult to add connections than elsewhere in the sewer district, where the system is gravity-operated. Benjamin Road, for instance, where a new condo development recently opened is gravity-operated.
Homes in Parker Village will have two or three bedrooms, all with one-and-a-half baths, some with add-on options. But Guercio said it’s not only the proposed new homes that must be considered, but also existing ones in the area that are also in the district but not connected to the sewer system yet. Because their properties have access to sewer lines and the owners pay assessed betterments, they may want to connect in the future and any who take that option must be accommodated, he said.
Guercio also noted that water use has come up as a potential problem for this project. But it’s not the ZBA’s purview to look into that, he said, since the Water District is an independent entity.
If connecting the proposed Parker Village homes to town water becomes a roadblock, it would likely be due to a state-set limit on the total amount of water the Water District can tap into. The restriction stems from excess water use the district can’t account for, dating back several years.
McCabe said the ZBA has said it needs more information about the sewer connection before deciding whether to grant or deny the permit. At the latest session on April 6, the board again continued the public hearing, with “no testimony” and the next date set for May 4.
Asked after the meeting why the process is taking so long, Guercio said that the project is still undergoing “peer review” by Weston and Sampson, the firm that maintains the town’s sewer system.
McCabe, who attended with his attorney, believes the ZBA overestimates the Sewer Commission’s say in this matter, stating in a later e-mail that they have “no jurisdiction (over) a 40B,” and that the state law should prevent the ZBA from having a report (peer review) done at his expense.
“The ZBA is now saying they don’t believe there’s capacity” in that system, McCabe said. But he questions that conclusion and wants documentation.
“When we requested the design and capacity details of the pressure system, we were told the documents have been lost,” he said.
The civil engineering firm’s peer review/report should settle that question, determining whether the pressurized portion of the town sewer system can take on the connections the development needs. And, as Guercio pointed out, still be able to handle potential hookups from existing homes.
But McCabe doesn’t think the hold-up is reasonable. “They are requiring me to provide … a report of the sewer system’s available capacity,” he said. But when he wanted to hire the company that designed the system to prepare the report, the town said no, citing a “conflict of interest,” he said.
When he asked for documents from another firm the town contracts with, he said the town was “slow” in providing them and that the company would not comply. “We’ve been trying to get this information for weeks now,” he said.
McCabe said he plans to ask the ZBA to close the hearing at the next session on May 4. Then, if the board denies the permit — or the sewer connections — needed to move forward, McCabe said he plans to appeal to the state Housing Appeals Committee and he seems confident of the outcome. “If they (ZBA) can’t provide the report, then the state will approve my project and/or the sewer connections,” he said.
Original article
Comments