Panel hashes out housing proposal
Would guide bids for parcel
It could be called the miracle of Fisher Hill: Brookline now has an agreed-upon development plan for 24 affordable-housing units (and several more market-rate homes) on the crest of this mansion-studded, Olmsted-designed neighborhood.
"It was clear from the start" of the committee meetings "that there was very little room for agreement," said Kevin Lang, a longtime School Committee member who described himself as a neutral party in the meetings that led up to the agreement. "We got a plan that is acceptable to all sides. Nobody loves it. You need to be very cautious about altering the plan."
But, the result is a detailed document that specifies the look and location of all structures near the periphery of the 4.8-acre site of a former underground reservoir, as well as the driveway's location and configuration.
Selectmen reviewing the plan, devised over 18 months by a committee of 20, were skeptical about its restrictions.
"It is very restrictive, and it is intended to be so by the drafters," said Jennifer Dopazo, town counsel.
"The developer would have a number of hurdles under this document," said Nancy Daly, chairwoman of the board. "I'm not sure a developer could do that."
The draft, which could be the basis of bids to build the complex on what is now town-owned land, is called a request for proposals.
But all was not sweetness and light between the plan's crafters, who included both affordable-housing advocates and abutters.
One committee member and abutter, Laurie Union, showed up at the selectmen's presentation with a lawyer.
Jeffrey Allen, the attorney and a former selectman, praised the project while also demanding a landscape buffer for Union's property.
"This is the exact opposite of NIMBY," he said. "In the plan there are protections for a lot of the abutters. We ask for similar protection for Ms. Union."
Allen, who was also the attorney for the abutting Longyear Estates, which neighbors contend was built beyond what the town approved, mentioned the housing development at the former St. Aidan's parish, which was delayed roughly three years and cost the town an additional $6 million as a result of litigation.
But committee members who spoke to selectmen opposed the buffer. "Laurie Union is the only dissenting opinion," said Roger Tackeff, a committee member and Fisher Hill neighbor. "We're concerned that her family's protection will cost more than $400,000 to the project and will jeopardize its viability. Yet we want her house protected."
Union argued that she was the closest single-family abutter and would be losing the most from the project. "Now I see 60- to 80-foot trees from my house, and a green field beyond it," she said. "The landscaping just mitigates that loss."
Selectwoman Betsy DeWitt, who led the committee through the past year-plus of work, said the issue of protecting Union's property is minor. "I hope this is a side issue, and that folks see it that way," she said in a later interview.
More troubling to DeWitt was the possibility that the other four selectmen might substantially change the proposed bidding document and unravel the committee's agreement.
Selectmen Robert Allen and Dick Benka said they were troubled by an apparent contradiction in the document, which allowed the sale of two properties abutting Union's house on one page, while requiring that single-family homes be built on those two lots on another.
But DeWitt felt that the deletion of the possible sale would not be a deal-breaker. If revisions are limited to such items, the board could vote on the request for proposals by its meeting on Tuesday.
As the agreement specifies a number of committees, processes, and written agreements that committee members hope will ensure that the development fits the neighborhood, construction could be months, if not years, away. "Frankly, I think this is such a terrific location that we will find a willing developer," DeWitt said. 