Senior housing project preps details for Town Meeting warrant

Ahead of Special Town Meeting, Planning Board members continue to press the developer behind Reserve Weston, the senior housing proposal planned for 300 Wellesley St.

HYM, the project developer, is seeking passage of a zoning bylaw amendment and special permit approval to create a senior housing district on 30 acres of Regis College land.  They had originally sought to bring the project to Town Meeting last spring, but after it became clear the Planning Board was not yet on board, they made significant changes,  including bringing on a new architect and converting the facility from one large building to two connected three-story buildings for independent living and memory care. They also plan separate townhomes for over-55 housing, for a total of 215 units.

During a site visit on Sept. 11, town officials and several abutters toured the Regis property, which was marked out with balloons and flags to indicate building heights and locations. This was followed by a design charette and subsequent public hearing to focus on the details of building heights, open-space buffers and setbacks. At the Sept. 16 Planning Board meeting, Alexa Jakobowski, a member of the HYM development team, laid out the changes made to the plan since last spring’s presentation.

Maximum building height has been decreased from four stories to three stories in two zones, with 37-feet maximum height in zone A, and 59-feet maximum in zone B.

“Instead of zoning the entire parcel to be upward of 59 feet, we changed it to make two zones,” she said. “Height zone A is the underlying single-family home district height and then we push that height zone B up in the top land to be closer to Regis and away from the abutters.”

Units per acre have been decreased from nine to eight, excluding affordable units. The natural buffer of open space has increased from 10% to 20% of the site.

The minimum parking required for independent living has been decreased from one space to 0.75 parking spaces per 1,000 square feet of building floor area. Maximum parking for independent living rose from 1.25 spaces to 1.5 spaces.

The company is offering Weston two options for affordable housing: either reserving 10% of the units as on-site affordable housing or receiving a payment of $300,000 per unit for off-site affordable housing where the town chooses.

Board members requested more specific measurements for buildings and discussed whether height limits should apply to sloped versus flat roofs. HYM agreed to measure both buildings precisely and return with revised height-zone details.

A traffic study will be conducted this fall with an independent peer reviewer.

Planning Board member Leslie Glynn said, “You’ve got a lot of employees, a lot of visitors and a lot of ambulance appearances. There was a lot of concern at age 55, a lot of people in that age group are driving and still working, commuting versus people who are probably retired.”

Regis College COO Tom Pistorino touted the project as beneficial for both the college and the town. 

“Although it may not be the most economically beneficial at the start, there are synergies with senior housing tied not just to our nursing programs, but speech science pathology, our social work programs, a lot of our health sciences and all the things we think would likely happen to that land once it’s sold,” he said.

Pistorino cautioned that if the project is not permitted, the land would likely return to the market for a different type of large-scale development.

“It’s been stated before that the sale of this land is contingent upon getting the zoning changed and the project permitted. If that doesn’t go forward, the land will go back to sale and it would probably sell for some other purpose, probably something that would be as economically beneficial, but perhaps easier to get permitted,” he said.

“The college is very excited for this use and it hopes that it’s as beneficial for the town as the college thinks it would be, and that the community can come and work together and support this use,” he said.

The next meeting is Oct. 7. The Town Meeting warrant closes at the end of October, and the fall Special Town Meeting is set for Nov. 23.