Town to appeal Oceanside Village 40B decision

The verdict from the state’s Housing Appeals Committee regarding the ongoing review of Oceanside Village is in, but the town isn’t taking yes for an answer.

Selectmen voted unanimously last week to appeal the HAC’s decision in May to approve the 250-unit 40B proposal as initially presented by the applicant, Oceanside Village, LLC of Westborough. Selectmen cited long- standing concerns with the applicant’s plans to tie the project into the town sewer line and the density of the proposed development.

The applicant first filed the project with the ZBA in 2003. The proposal called for the 250 units to be built on a 50-acre lot of land, known by most residents as the proving grounds, off Tilden and Hatherly roads. There would be 169 units built as townhouses and 81 built as garden-style apartments. As a state 40B proposal that allowed the developer to bypass local regulations if 25 percent of the units were affordable, 62 of the units would be sold as affordable housing, while the remaining units would be sold at market value.

In December 2004, the ZBA voted to approve the project with conditions, scaling the project’s density down from 250 units to 150. The board also called for the project to have onsite septic as opposed to tying into the town’s sewer line.

Unhappy with the ZBA’s conditions, the applicant appealed the decision to the state’s Housing Appeals Committee in January 2005. After more than two years of review, the HAC issued a preliminary decision in May to uphold the original plans as presented by the applicant, effectively overriding the ZBA’s conditions.

Selectman John Danehey, who was instrumental in reviewing the proposal as a former member of the ZBA, said the HAC’s decision is inconsiderate to the needs of Scituate residents, many of whom he said have been waiting for years to tie into the town’s sewer line.

“We feel that this is an unfair decision,” Danehey said. “It’s not right to leapfrog these people who have been waiting many years for sewerage.”

Danehey said selectmen and the ZBA will jointly appeal the HAC decision in Plymouth Superior Court. In addition to providing for onsite septic, he said the town would likely accept a proposal that scales down the density of the buildings, grants land across the street from the site back to the town to be protected as open space and is designed in a manner that fits in architecturally with the character of the town.

“The current plans look like they came out of a textbook,” Danehey said of the current designs for the buildings. “They don’t fit in.”

The project is currently under review by the conservation commission, who is evaluating the project to see if there are any potential environmental or wetland impacts that could come as a result of building on the site. Members or resident groups such as the Concerned Parents of Wampatuck have raised concerns with the impact that building on the site would have on abutters, namely staff and students at the neighboring Wampatuck Elementary School.

 In 2004, DEP conducted testing on the proving grounds — which over the years has served as a testing site for weapons and was the site of an old textile finishing business — and uncovered various chemicals and contaminants in the soil linked to birth defects, skin diseases and various forms of cancer. Members say plans call for the affordable hosing units to be built on areas of the site that have not yet been tested for contaminants.

Danehey said the appeal will not interfere with the commission’s review of the project, expected to continue sometime later this month.

Reporter Ryan Bray can be reached at rbray@cnc.com