Developer proposes affordable housing options for Regis site

Conversation around the potential development of 30 acres of land at Regis College continued at the Planning Board Wednesday, July 15, with a focus on how the proposed housing complex for older adults would factor into the town’s long-term affordable housing goals.

Under the state’s Chapter 40B statute, if a town’s housing stock is deemed as less than 10 % “affordable,” developers can bypass certain zoning restrictions to receive a comprehensive permit. Once a town reaches the 10 % threshold, it can reach “safe harbor” status and deny 40B applications for two years. At present, Weston needs 294 affordable housing units to meet the state’s minimum for safe harbor. There are several projects in various stages of development including litigation; if all are completed the town would meet the 10 threshold.

HYM, the developer seeking to build Reserve Weston at 300 Wellesley St. across from Regis College, presented two options for the town to consider: either reserving 10% of the units as on-site affordable housing or accept a $300,000 payment of $300,000 per unit to be used for off-site affordable housing where the town chooses.

Developing the Regis parcel requires approval of a zoning bylaw amendment to create a senior housing district on the property at Town Meeting and special permit approval. HYM hopes to get the question in front of Special Town Meeting this fall.

If the town chooses the onsite option, Douglas Manz of HYM said the result would be 18 affordable units. The second option would be the equivalent of 15% of units, for a total of 27 units valued at about $8.1 million.

Manz said, “We know the Planning Board has been looking for more, as much as we can possibly achieve.”

HYM is proposing to build two connected three-story buildings for independent living and memory care as well as separate town homes for over-55 housing, for a total of 215 units on the site. Both buildings would be staffed around the clock and there would be daily programming, housekeeping, laundry services and meals as well as transportation to appointments available to residents. Memory care residents would receive more intensive care. The state does not qualify memory care units as affordable housing because they do not have full kitchens in the units.

Manz said some towns choose the off-site payment because they can combine it with other resources to add more or larger housing units or increase the affordable percentage at other projects.

He said that Brookline, which has a HYM senior housing project similar in scope to what is proposed for Weston, chose an off-site payment of $6.5 million and were able to create more units at a different project offsite than doing it onsite, after accessing state and federal resources.

“They actually had another affordable housing project that was teed up, and that project was able, beside the funding we gave them, to leverage low-income housing credits through the federal government. They were also able to get state funding through the state affordable tax credit program, and additional direct grants,” he said.

Planning Board Chair Alex Selvig said Weston had never made the type of agreement Manz was proposing.

“This is uncharted territory for Weston, if I’m not mistaken,” Selvig said.

Board member Adrienne Giske said she was concerned that the proposal was beyond the purview of the Planning Board, and a development agreement would need to be brought to the Select Board.

“It could be good but we can’t have an advertising come-on for a zoning change,” she said. “Our zoning means too much for us in this town, and it could work either way, but on the town’s behalf we need to stick when we make a zoning change, how it’s going to be for the betterment of the town. I think these units would be in the betterment, but it’s not in our purview unless it was a new traffic light or unless it was a way to collect stormwater runoff, something like that.”

Manz replied they were not looking to put anything in zoning that was inappropriate, but were responding to the Board’s prior request to provide more than 10% affordable housing.

“We were really trying to carefully look at something that would give real resources to be able to do something of substance offsite and just balance it with the cost of the project itself to make sure it’s still viable,” he said.

Leslie Glynn, Board member, said she thought on-site affordable housing was acceptable for the Planning Board to discuss, but wanted direction from town counsel regarding approaching the off-site option.

Manz said, “We want to make sure the town always maintains its 10%. We know how important that is to the town of Weston. The warrant article is to make sure the town has the flexibility. We will be spending time with the Select Board on this because this would be in a development agreement before we get to Town Meeting. We are trying to improve the town’s flexibility around this. At the end of the day, that’s one of our goals because we heard flexibility could be a good thing.”

Discussion will continue in September. To read more about the proposed development for the Regis property, please visit westonobserver.org.