Developer to pursue commercial uses at PR site

Nearly a year after launching its third major rezoning effort only to watch it be soundly rejected by Canton town officials, the owner of the Plymouth Rubber site on Revere Street, Napleton subsidiary Canton Holdings LLC, is abandoning its dream of building a housing development and will instead proceed under the current industrial zoning.

Exactly what that means for the future of the 40-acre site remains unclear at this point, although Rick Brandstatter, the company’s director of real estate, said in a recent interview that they have “feelers out to various commercial brokerage companies” and can foresee a variety of potential uses for the property.

“It may get developed into four different types of buildings,” said Brandstatter, speaking in hypothetical terms. “The process is going to play itself out.”

In the meantime, Brandstatter said company officials are left to ponder what exactly went wrong with their latest development plan — a 348-unit mix of apartments, townhouses, and age-restricted housing that was uniformly opposed by members of the Board of Selectmen, Planning Board, and School Committee at a public hearing last month.

Whereas the density of the proposed project — and the resulting impact on school and municipal services — had always been the primary sticking point for residents and town officials, Brandstatter said Canton Holdings had reason for optimism following the release of an impact study that had been prepared by a team of independent experts.

Brandstatter said a “fair reading” of the study, which had been paid for by the developer at the request of the selectmen, suggested that the project would be at worst neutral and “probably positive.” It also included a determination by consultant Michael Jacobs that the number of units represented a “reasonable amount of density” from an economic standpoint.

“When the report was released, good questions were asked and answers were provided,” said Brandstatter, referring to a public meeting held at the library and a follow-up dialogue that ensued. “Up to that point, it was thoughtful, reasonable people looking at this data, and then something happened.”

“I can’t tell you what happened,” he added. “It was a reasonably positive report and then there was this humongous groundswell of negativity.”

Brandstatter said it is now “painfully obvious” to Canton Holdings that the town will not accept a residential project on that site, yet they remain confused as to why. Furthermore, he said they received plenty of negative feedback but “did not get any positive indication of anything.”

“There’s clearly a group of people out there — whether it’s the majority or a vocal minority, I don’t know — that are afraid of this project in the way that we propose it,” he said.

And while he does not doubt the sincerity of any one town official, Brandstatter said the most oft-cited argument — that the project would generate large numbers of children that would overburden the schools — is not consistent with their findings or with their reading of the independent study.

But whereas the developer seems to be comfortable with the low end of the school enrollment projections, town officials remain wary of the high end, especially when viewed in combination with other factors, such as the addition of the 200-unit Avalon project planned on the Canton-Randolph line.

Meanwhile, Selectmen Chairman Sal Salvatori said the town had made it clear to the developer that there was a general “lack of appetite for a dense, multifamily rental development” and that any such proposal would face an uphill climb at town meeting.

Salvatori said they ultimately agreed to work collaboratively with the developer and remained open-minded throughout the process while encouraging input from various town boards and the public at large.

As for the independent study, Salvatori said it was suggested as a way to perhaps justify the proposed development to the community; however, he disagreed with Brandstatter’s “positive” interpretation and felt that it raised more questions than it answered.

“The board greatly appreciates the fact that they were willing to work with us and willing to go forward with the study,” he said. “But the bottom line is that the study bore out that the project was not much more than revenue neutral for the town and had the possibility to be revenue detrimental.”

Salvatori said there were additional concerns about the number of vacancies in Canton and that the developer failed to provide a compelling argument for how an “additional couple hundred apartments could be positively absorbed within the community.”

“The board has been getting significant feedback, and everbody’s saying that we don’t need to have more apartments,” he said, adding that “no one spoke in favor of the project” at any of the public hearings.

Coincidentally, both Salvatori and Brandstatter pointed to the developer’s original rezoning proposal in 2008 as a more desirable option for the town, with Brandstatter calling it “virtually the dictionary definition of a regional smart growth project.”

While Canton Holdings (then Canton Development Properties) had initially pushed for as many as 650 residential units, including several hundred apartments, the version that went before voters at town meeting called for 395 owner-occupied units, zero rental units, 20,000 square feet of retail space, and a $5 million mitigation package that included preservation of the historic Revere barn and rolling mill and various other amenities.

That particular proposal, according to Brandstatter, had been based on Canton’s own master plan, which was completed a few years earlier with considerable public input.

“Our first attempt to write an article virtually followed that document as closely as we could,” said Brandstatter, adding that the master plan presumably “lays out the wishes, desires, and goals of the town of Canton as a whole.”

Salvatori, who was one of two selectmen at the time who endorsed the proposal, agreed that the plan as presented was “almost completely in conformity” with the master plan.

“Either the town doesn’t care what the master plan says, or it doesn’t accurately reflect what they want,” Salvatori said. “I apologize to [Canton Holdings] for the frustration they feel because our master plan says one thing and when they presented it, the town didn’t support it.”

Brandstatter, meanwhile, recalled how their second unsuccessful rezoning effort in 2011 was also an attempt to mimic something the town had already approved: the Canton Center Economic Opportunity District Bylaw.

“So what I am as a developer to conclude?” he said. “I guess residential will never occur on that property and therefore we need to proceed under the current zoning.”

Luckily, he said, the commercial market is beginning to improve and there are opportunities to be had, although he does not expect the investment to be a “rousing financial success.”

He noted that the company has already spent “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in various legal and administrative costs that are now of “no benefit” to them, including $40,000 on the recent independent study that was, he said, “effectively ignored.”

On a positive note, Brandstatter said the company that had expressed interest in building a senior assisted living facility on the smaller “parking lot” site across the street from the Plymouth Rubber plant are still very much interested in building there — regardless of the outcome at the main site.

Brandstatter said the company had a right to cancel the contract, but they “really like the site” and want to move forward with the project.

“We were forthright with them,” said Brandstatter. “Hopefully it will get approved.”

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Posted by Jay Turner on Jul 18 2013. Filed under News, Town Government. Both comments and pings are currently closed.