Town Administrator Michael Gilleberto read the following statement at Monday night’s Select Board hearing regarding the state’s rejection of the town’s ‘safe harbor’ claim with regard to the 2019 application for 200 apartment units on the former Thomson Country Club land at 20 Elm St. proposed by NY Ventures.
The Zoning Board of Appeals will hold an executive session meeting virtually on Thursday, Oct. 19 to discuss litigation re: 20 Elm St.
“On October 10 the state Housing Appeals Committee (HAC) denied the ‘safe harbor’ declaration issued by the Board of Appeals in response to a ‘Chapter 40B’ housing development proposed for 20 Elm Street in 2019 by NY Ventures. The Housing Appeals Committee found that the town did not meet the 1.5% ‘land area minimum’ of acreage associated with affordable housing. The HAC had previously denied the Board of Appeals’ assertion that certain mobile home units and potentially unaccounted for group home units increased the town’s affordable housing unit count above the state 10% threshold to assert safe harbor from a Chapter 40B housing development.”
“The Board of Appeals and Town Hall staff made a good faith effort in 2019 to calculate land area directly associated with affordable housing, including relying on information provided by state agencies at that time for confidential group homes, in determining that the town met the 1.5% land area minimum threshold to declare safe harbor. The Housing Appeals Committee sided with land area calculations provided by the developer for 11 of the 12 identified affordable housing parcels, including denying the inclusion of septic fields as land directly associated with affordable housing, and also elected to reduce the land area associated with confidential group homes by nearly 50 acres based on changes made to state guidelines in 2020.”
“While an appeal of this action is a possibility in the future, the HAC has remanded the case back to the North Reading Board of Appeals to be considered through the public hearing process. An appeal, if any, cannot occur until after the hearing process has concluded and the Board of Appeals has issued a decision. The Board of Appeals is expected to open a public hearing on the application at an upcoming meeting.”