Town braces for Roseland project after state forces its hand

After seven years of mostly unsuccessful legal challenges and appeals, the town of Canton has reluctantly conceded defeat in the case of the Roseland Property Company and its bid to build a 220-unit affordable housing development on 81 acres near the Randolph town line.

It was only a few months ago that Selectman Victor Del Vecchio had publicly vowed to continue the fight against the New Jersey-based developer, which had won a favorable ruling from the state Housing Appeals Committee after Canton rejected its request for a 40B comprehensive permit in 2003.

However, since winning a Superior Court decision in 2006, the town has come up empty on every subsequent appeal and now appears to have run out of options altogether. So with a permit set to take effect in 30 days anyway, the Zoning Board of Appeals on July 15 voted to accept the state’s decision, albeit with “voluminous conditions,” according to ZBA Chairman Paul Carroll.

At this point, Carroll said the town expects Roseland and the Housing Appeals Committee to agree to most of the town’s conditions, which include a request for a traffic light at Randolph and York streets, an extensive drainage system, and new soccer fields. Under state law, a ZBA condition can only be removed if it would make the project “uneconomic to build or operate.”

“We’re optimistic we can get quite a few conditions out of them,” Carroll said.

Then again, he said the ZBA would much prefer that town attorney Mark Bobrowski find a new legal avenue to pursue, adding that if such an avenue does exist, “We will take it.”

He said they accepted the state’s ruling not because they had softened their stance on the project, but rather because the HAC decision had left them with no other choice. “The gun was put to our head to sign a decision,” he said.

Carroll also said the ZBA is still “absolutely and unequivocally” opposed to the project, which currently includes plans for 196 apartments and 24 single-family homes.

“It is too much for that part of town. It is too much for Canton in general,” he said, adding that the town has already gone “above and beyond the state requirements for 40B” and has done “more than its share” to provide for people with lower incomes.

But in the eyes of the state, Canton had not done enough to support affordable housing and was below the state’s 10 percent threshold when Roseland first made its pitch for a comprehensive permit. And it appears Canton officials may have outsmarted themselves when they quickly moved to approve a separate project, since it put the town over the threshold but could not be used to justify its prior rejection of Roseland.

Now Canton must accept the project at a time when town resources are being stretched to the limit.

From the School Committee’s perspective, that means the addition of potentially dozens more children when both dollars and physical space remain in short supply.

“I have to think we’re talking about a lot of kids here,” School Committee member John Bonnanzio said. “I think this will put an obvious strain on an already strained system.”

Of course, Bonnanzio said the schools will welcome any child who moves to Canton and will provide that child with the best education possible; however, he said the recent concerns over space that prompted the School Committee to consider establishing a fourth elementary school at the Rodman Center are “absolutely legitimate” and agreed that a long-term solution needs to be identified.

Bonnanzio said the ideal solution would be to have four “neighborhood” elementary schools, with one located east of Route 138 to serve the growing population in that section of town, which will soon be adding Roseland.

“I’m also a financial realist,” he said, “and I haven’t a clue where the money would come from to do this.”

Meanwhile, opponents of Roseland and other such projects believe they have a better solution to address the recent growth: repeal Chapter 40B, the state’s affordable housing law.

Come November, that decision will be put to voters in the form of ballot Question 2, thanks to a massive signature drive led by the nonprofit Coalition to Repeal 40B. If the initiative is passed, not only would the law be abolished, but developers already holding 40B permits — Roseland included — would stand to lose them if they could not secure a building permit for at least one unit of housing by January 1.

Among the local supporters of the movement is Selectman Bob Burr, a candidate for state Senate who has made repeal of 40B the top issue in his campaign.

“I think 40B is a disastrous law,” Burr said last week. “It’s definitely state-level zoning at the town level, that’s what’s going on.”

Burr, on his campaign website, www.voteburr.com, argues that the law forces communities to accept large housing complexes that are actually “not affordable at all” and that cause “crushing financial blows to school department budgets and municipal service budgets.”

He also called the Roseland approval “very unfortunate for the town of Canton,” and as a result, is asking anyone who feels the same way to vote “yes” on Question 2 on Tuesday, November 2.

An employee reached at Roseland’s Massachusetts office declined comment for this story.

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Posted by Jay Turner on Jul 29 2010. Filed under News, Town Government. Both comments and pings are currently closed.