Stockbridge — As one Stockbridge resident described the town’s January 16 special permit hearing on plans for the former DeSisto School, “this is like déjà vu.”
For years, the prime 314-acre tract at 35–37 Interlaken Road has been the subject of development attempts—stops and starts ending in futility—with the latest proposal eyeing the front 30 acres of the site for 24 single-family cluster homes, a 132-room hotel with nine residential units, four workforce housing units, and a new façade on its 1892 manor house.
Owned by a trust that includes Patrick Sheehan as trustee, the property had served as the DeSisto School until 2006. In 2016, the town rejected a proposal made by the same 35–37 Interlaken Road Realty Trust that is behind the current special permit application. The earlier project involved developing the back portion of the tract where objectors had environmental concerns and, at 34 single-family homes, 139 hotel residence units, and 43 hotel suites, a higher site density that proved to be a sore point for neighbors.
Comparatively, in the eight-plus years since the first iteration of this project, the amount of undeveloped rear acreage required to be cleared on the tract has gone from about 41 acres to about 17 acres to be used for agricultural purposes.
On November 22, attorney Jonathan Silverstein filed a special permit application with the Town of Stockbridge on behalf of the ownership group. Silverstein and project engineer James Scalise, president of SK Design Group, urged Select Board members that the project falls under the town’s Cottage Era Estate bylaw since it has at least 75 percent of the land it contained in 2002 when that bylaw was conducted and a historic home is planned to be rehabilitated, or at least its façade.
Following the two-and-a-half hour session, the Select Board approved continuing the public hearing to February 27 at 6:30 p.m.
Applicant’s presentation
At the hearing, Silverstein argued that town bylaws allow all proposed uses on the tract: hotel, restaurant, event space, open-space recreation, agriculture, and single-family homes. He informed the dais that the historic manor house will be used for weddings and other events in the summer, with its grand front lawn serving as a parking area for overflow vehicles during large events.
Silverstein’s slideshow presentation can be found here.
In his filing, Silverstein distinguished the new proposal as “represent[ing] a density reduction of approximately 24 percent and a reduction in land clearance of approximately 63 percent,” putting all of the development in the front of the tract and offering four workforce-housing units to be sold at cost in favor of residents and town employees as Stockbridge officials try to gain relief from its housing-affordability issue.
According to Silverstein, his client’s traffic analysis shows no “significant impact” on the area from the build, the town’s infrastructure is able to handle the development, and the project’s lighting will comply with dark-sky provisions. About 90 percent of the site will remain undeveloped, he said, and according to Scalise, the project will be constructed in phases to be completed in five to seven years.
The applicant deposited $30,000 to cover the cost of a peer review of the proposal to be performed by the town, with the Select Board unanimously approving the firm, Beals and Thomas, for that task.
Silverstein pointed out ways the project benefits the town besides preserving one of its iconic structures: adding tax dollars to Stockbridge coffers, preserving open space, growing its tourism economy, and creating local jobs. “Perhaps, most importantly, it will be a unique opportunity for the town to bring in new housing and new types of houses that are not currently available throughout the town,” he said.
Select Board members, residents respond
Select Board members and residents questioned the applicant’s adherence to the town’s relevant bylaws limiting new detached structures to be at least 200 feet from the main building. Silverstein responded that the design’s covered walkways between the proposed new outbuildings and manor house conform to the provision, as he interprets it, since those structures are essentially additions to the manor house and are not detached buildings subject to the minimum 200-foot provision. “I think the [Select] Board could reasonably interpret some of these provisions one way or another,” he said. For Silverstein, a change to this aspect of the development would mean “there’s no project.”
Select Board member Patrick White questioned the planned height of the new buildings surrounding the manor house as contrary to town bylaws and whether the square footage of the original footprint was exceeded.
The parking proposal proved problematic to residents. Silverstein presented a plan for 782 spaces throughout the site, with 324 of those spaces designated as temporary overflow parking on the lawn in front of the manor house during the summer. Although that feature allowed for the turf to remain—a preference over adding pavement—and provided for basement parking below the other planned buildings, attendees voiced concern that the picturesque grassy area would not be maintained from the vehicle use, with the parked cars marring the view of the manor house.
“We took the context of the existing property and tried to fit the density to try to make the project feasible while, at the same time, respecting the open space,” Scalise said.
Anticipating the project’s residences to be “ridiculously expensive” and house “transient people,” Stockbridge resident Sally Underwood-Miller, who serves on the town’s Conservation Commission, suggested developers create 24 workforce houses and four new homes instead of the contrary. “We don’t need new houses; we need places for people who can actually live in this town,” she said of local workers including firefighters and teachers.
At issue is “a 50-foot not-disturbance zone,” Scalise said, referring to the project encroaching on the wetlands area within the tract. However, officials stated that buffer zone is required to be 100 feet.
Underwood-Miller felt that, if the Conservation Commission permits this proposal within 50 feet of wetlands, the rest of the property should be “preserved forever.” Silverstein declined to consent to a permit provision prohibiting other development on the property. “There’s so many questions, there’s so many problems with this, that I can’t even begin to fathom,” Underwood-Miller said.
With a master’s degree in historic preservation, Lisa Sauer called the manor house and property “demolition by neglect.” She said the new plan wasn’t very different from the prior proposal. “I would really love it for anybody who comes before the town, especially a town like Stockbridge, with development plans [to] present something we can understand and could feel is appropriate because everybody brings before the [Select] Board the biggest, most built-out [plan] possible [that] you can imagine,” Sauer said. “And we’re expected to take that pill.”
Despite the positive traffic study produced by Silverstein, abutters feared the added road noise and vehicular impact from the project. Many pointed out that the posted traffic analysis was performed in August, on a date during which a relatively obscure artist was performing in the area, instead of at a time when a popular artist concert was being held at Tanglewood providing considerably more traffic.
Lynn Schmitter approached the dais as a 40-plus-year homeowner on Old Tree Farm Road. “We bought into a neighborhood,” she said. “We didn’t know there’d be a huge development next to us with events, a hotel and whatnot.”
One proposed outbuilding will be constructed adjacent to Schmitter’s backyard, she said, “and that will change everything from what we’ve always known there.”
However, a few residents cautioned the Select Board not to condemn the proposal.
Tom Schuler, who heads up the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals, asked officials to take a more “open-minded” look at the proposal that would shore up a deteriorating structure and devote a significant amount of property for agricultural and preservation uses. “I would suggest that we should consider carefully any effort to find a creative use of this property in a way that is consistent with the environment of Stockbridge,” he said.
For Conservation Commission Chair Ron Brouker, the sale of the DeSisto tract is inevitable, with town bylaws and conservation restrictions as stop-gap measures. “Something’s going to go on this property at some point in time,” he said. “It wasn’t the first proposal, and it may not be the second proposal, but something is going to go [there]. There’s too much land there, it’s too valuable, and somebody is going to make something out of it.”