Great Barrington — It was a long, hot night in a packed Town Hall meeting room as the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) Tuesday (July 26) tried to come to grips with a $12 million affordable housing plan that is the latest proposed development to stir controversy across town.
While Community Development Corporation of South Berkshire (CDC) has presented its plan for 45 units of affordable housing to several boards, ZBA is the one that has to decide whether to issue CDC its comprehensive permit to allow the project to go forward on 2.2 acres of a larger 8-acre brownfield off Bridge Street.
During the hearing the CDC addressed the conditions that had been set by previous boards. Each one was read before the ZBA, including those 21 conditions set by the Selectboard. At around 10:40 p.m., the room a furnace, the board unanimously voted to close the public hearing and continue its decision-making on Monday, August 15, at 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall. A decision must be made 30 days after the close of the hearing, said town attorney David Doneski, who was present at the entire meeting.
For permitting and financing purposes, the CDC’s affordable housing units had to be separated from the larger plan for a $40 million mixed use development. The CDC did it to avoid state oversight and profit limitations for the larger development that will require private money while the affordable housing is publicly funded.
It was this isolation of the affordable housing, however, that has had boards and residents worried it will end up standing alone while the rest of the 6 acres remain toxic, leaving no play space for children on that 2.2 acres, among other concerns.
In 2014 the CDC tried a pilot bioremediation project on the parcel using a groundbreaking technology, and the Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) shut the project down for several reasons. While, according to bioremediation company Biopath Solutions, later sampling results did show success in removing dioxins and pentachlorophenol from the soil, MassDEP has said that door is still bolted shut and recommended the containment (capping) and monitoring method.
MassDEP’s Eva Tor wrote the following to the CDC last August: “As we’ve stated previously, MassDEP is willing and available to discuss a capping strategy to allow the redevelopment to go forward. Prior to the concept of the pilot, capping the site was identified by your consultants to be the most cost-effective, feasible method for eliminating site exposure to future users of the property.”
Information about the site and correspondence between MassDEP and the CDC can be found here.
Town Manager Jennifer Tabakin produced a more recent letter to her from MassDEP last night confirming the agency recommends a “robust cap” and “multiple layers” of containment.
While CDC Executive Director Tim Geller has previously said it made most sense to remediate the site by doing it all at once, CDC board member and attorney Peter Pucilosky told the ZBA that while “we would love to do the whole site at once,” it would cost around $1 million. It would also result in remediating parts of the site twice, since much of the capping occurs by simply laying foundations and pavement.
“That would certainly make the project ‘uneconomic,’” Pucilosky added, using the Department of Housing and Community Development’s (DHC) language about local boards placing conditions on a proposed project that could financially sink it. “The board is required to waive any local rule that determines [a project] ‘uneconomic’.”
He also said that CDC could appeal the ZBA’s decision if it was “dissatisfied” with it. The appeals committee gives a quick turnaround, he noted. If an “abutter is unhappy,” however, that goes to Superior Court. In his experience, he added, the State Appeals Committee “really disdains” conditions that require a reduction in the number of units or height. While the CDC’s plan proposes three separate units of four stories each, Pucilosky reminded the board that the town allows five stories for housing.
The handwringing over contamination and how it would be dealt with continued throughout the 3-hour meeting. But, at each turn, Geller and Pucilosky told the board that MassDEP was in charge of that: period.
ZBA member Michael Wise tried to get a handle on what number would, in fact, make the project “uneconomic.” He asked about other projects of similar size in South County and how that worked. CDC board member and developer Jeff Cohen explained the complex economics of subsidized housing, and how easy it is for such projects to become unfeasible. “That’s why you don’t get huge amounts of affordable housing around the county. You can’t put a number on it.”
“I’m trying to quantify it if I can,” Wise said. “Getting costs could help us make a decision.”
“A single number can’t be produced,” Geller said.
“If you’re looking for a number, we don’t have it,” said CDC board member and developer Richard Stanley. He went on to say that this project is a tough one, that the CDC has had to “twist [developers’] arms to maintain their interest because of the [small] size of the project.”
Once the permit is issued, Geller later told the Edge, the CDC “will apply for state funding this winter, hear from the State in August 2017 (it’s very competitive), and if the state commits the funding, remediation/construction will start Spring of 2018.”
Geller told the board he expects 100 percent occupation of the units, since low to moderate income housing is so hard to come by in Great Barrington.
The income level required to live in this housing will be between $45,000 and $60,000, Stanley said.
Geller noted other benefits to the town, like almost 2 acres of public open space proposed for the larger development and improvements to the sewer system that will save money.
But salvos against the project from various quarters haven’t let up.
Apart from the toxic soil, there is the sewer plant at the south end of the site, which the housing units will abut. Neighbors Adrienne and Mark Cohen were back to draw attention to the noise, smells and possibly toxic emissions from the plant. Though town officials have told the Edge no such emissions come from the plant, there is an occasional smell from mechanical failure. Most smells, they said, come from bioremediation products that remain at the CDC’s site. The plant’s superintendent told the Edge that noise from the plant has been more audible since the site was cleared of trees, and said he hoped the CDC would add plantings between the housing and the plant.
After concerns by other boards about orientation, Geller told the ZBA that the units were constructed to avoid direct views of the plant, instead looking toward East Mountain or west to the Housatonic River.
Traffic is another hot point. A June traffic study did not raise too many red flags, but people had trouble believing it given the Bridge Street traffic potential of high tourist season. “It’s been a bugaboo for me,” said board member Madonna Meagher. She said the CDC’s traffic studies seemed “a little fictional.”
Town Planner Chris Rembold stepped in, however, and said, while the study was done in June, “multipliers” had been added to simulate a July/August increase.
Another issue is play space for children on that 2 acres where the housing will go. Board members Don Hagberg and Meagher said they were concerned about the lack of space there, though they are aware the larger project, if completed, will feature about 2 acres of it including a riverfront park.
Resident Dennis Irvin asked if the money saved by granting the CDC $83,000 in requested utility hookup waivers would help them remediate the riverfront park space. Jeff Cohen said it would help.
Sharon Gregory, Ron Blumenthal and Bobby Houston all said here and on earlier occasions that, while they support the construction of affordable housing, they are not happy with the siting and design of this project. Gregory said “there was plenty of buildable land” out there, according to the town. Houston said traffic will present a problem, and that this housing plan is “the least successful part of the larger 8-acre project.”
As for design concerns, Tabakin told the board that, after the permit is issued, “working with the town on the design…is not happening. The permit locks in the design.”
Geller wondered aloud why the CDC had not been invited to a Design Advisory Committee meeting where the project was discussed and those comments sent to the ZBA.
Like Tabakin, Doneski also advised the board that “details of conditions be spelled out as extensively as possible.” And to help the board with its decision-making, Tabakin suggested asking the State Housing Authority for “technical” help.
Apart from Construct Inc. Executive Director Cara Davis, resident Seth Keyes is one of few supporters of the project to speak publicly. He said while there were “issues and challenges,” the project was “positive for this town and community for many reasons.”
Geller said he couldn’t change the siting of the affordable housing, but that the “town will have “exceptional say on what happens on the other 6 [acres].”
Jeff Cohen warned the ZBA that the CDC would appeal any decision that made the development too onerous or sink it financially. He said if conditions like those involving remediation on the other 6 acres were placed on this permit, which is specific only to the 2.2 acres, “we’ll have to appeal, and you’ll get overruled, and the town will lose 45 units for a least another year.”
Editor’s correction: Geller later told the Edge that construction would begin in spring 2018, instead of spring 2017, as the Edge had first reported. H.B.
