Newton’s Conservation Commission established guidelines for a potential new affordable housing development at 528 Boylston St. in Newton Centre in its meeting Thursday night.
The applicant, Toll Brothers, presented a notice of intent for an affordable housing development, which would include underground and surface parking, utilities, a stormwater management system, and landscaping and mitigation grading and plantings.
The Toll Brothers had numerous violations with a previous project approved by the Ashland Conservation Commission. These violations caused The Trails LLC to sue the Ashland Conservation Committee for stormwater management issues, according to Hopkinton Independent. These violations caused unwanted muddied water to flow into Ashland’s reservoir.
Therefore, residents were wary about this new project with Toll Brothers that could invite similar issues.
Newton resident Carolyn Kraft from Oak Hill, which is Newton Centre’s neighboring community, said the commission should make sure that the development doesn’t cause problems for the neighborhood.
“You should insist upon working with the engineering department to clarify what the groundwater influence would be before you do anything else, because otherwise if there’s a discrepancy in who’s taking responsibility, there’s going to be a lawsuit when the time comes,” Kraft said. “I’ll guarantee it …Toll Brothers can wait. They have plenty of money. Let them wait.”
Newton resident Rob Sellers described his personal reasons for concern over groundwater issues.
“My own personal story as a kid, of having my basement collapse due to that groundwater,” Sellers said. “And the concern is the subterranean structures that will redirect the water and potentially impact that groundwater flow under the ground, and there is not going to be the same absorption of that groundwater as there would have been in the past. So it’s a very sensitive site, as people have noted.”
Commission member Ellen Katz said the project would be especially difficult because of the soil on the site.
“This site was not developed for a very long time because it’s got some of the wonkiest soil in Newton,” Katz said. “It’s just an unusual site in that way.”
Jennifer Steel, chief environmental planner for the Conservation Committee described the project’s erosion control plan.
“[The] drainage plan sheet shows how the discharges from the different stormwater infiltration systems and piping systems will ultimately discharge into the basin and down towards the bordering vegetative wetland, and within the flood zone and the riverfront area,” Steel said. “The project meets the applicable performance standards of the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act.”
Katz described her reservations surrounding the new development aside from groundwater issues.
“I’m not sure how I’m going to vote, to be honest, but I’ve read through everything: the mitigation planting schedule, the non-mitigation planting plans, and they do need a little bit of attention under the mitigation plant schedule under trees,” Katz said.
Katz said the commission should take its time in the development process.
“I’ve been, as I think everyone knows, pretty unhappy about going ahead with pending verification and proposed verification,” Katz said. “When I submit for a building permit, I can’t scale in special services, something that’s, you know, incomplete, and say to them, well, give me a permit, and I’ll get you the contract documents later. I can’t do that. So I don’t know why Toll Brothers is allowed to do that.”
The motion to accept the contingents request passed in a 6–0 vote after the commission solidified that the developer would conduct groundwater tests in the wet season in addition to their previous tests during the dry season. The commission scheduled a meeting for Feb. 20 to finalize the findings and special conditions for the project.
“I think we made a lot of good progress here, just in that this is not a simple thing,” commission member Dan Green said. “It’s not black and white, which we all would like it to be. It’s very nuanced, and we’re going to do our best to protect everyone.”
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