Swampcott Select Board Slams Housing Project Proposal

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — A 160-unit apartment complex proposed for Foster Road in Swampscott drew harsh criticism from the Select Board and residents during a special meeting Wednesday night and, once again, highlighted the struggles the town faces with developers looking to build using the state's Chapter 40B affordable housing statute.

Under the Atlantic Bay View proposal that its representatives said they plan to submit to MassHousing for a 40B eligibility letter, the five-story complex would be built on the 4.5-acre parcel of land between Foster Road and Archer Street.

What was repeatedly termed as a "preliminary" design includes 96 one-bedroom apartments, 48 two-bedroom apartments and 16 three-bedroom apartments. Twenty-five percent of the units would qualify as affordable housing with all 160 units counting toward the town's subsidized housing inventory, which at 3.68 percent in Swampscott is below the state's 10 percent threshold where 40B projects can bypass many town zoning bylaws.

The project as proposed would take up about 25 percent of the town's 19 acres of undeveloped land.

Select Board members and residents harshly criticized the project's potential impact on the area's congestion, character, public services and the amount of blasting that would be needed to put a complex of that size on a plot of land where the town rejected a 22-unit independent living complex about eight years ago.

"Candidly, I think this is one of the biggest examples of over-inappropriate development I've ever seen on a site," Select Board member Don Hause said. "How the heck do you get 160 apartments on that site, up in that area where the roads are already bad?"

Hause's views were generally echoed throughout the three-hour meeting that included a presentation by Attorney Jason Spanos and Hayes Engineering, feedback and questions from the Select Board and nearly two hours of overwhelmingly unfavorable public comment.

"I just feel like there's zero knowledge of this neighborhood," Swampscott Select Chair Polly Titcomb said, "and, honestly, there's a complete and total lack of caring at all about the impact on the neighborhood.

"I get that you own the property and you have to make money off the property. But I don't see any respect, deference, or a level of cooperation, that provides any reassurance or gives me any confidence in this design."

Spanos said the meeting was sought to help the Select Board craft its letter to MassHousig on the project, but noted that because the project was in such a preliminary stage many of the impact studies sought had not yet been conducted.

He allowed that developers were asking for a waiver to many of the town's bylaws because they were in conflict with the project contributing toward Swampscott's "critical local need" of providing more affordable housing.

"I've got to tell you there is literally nothing you can say or do to make it such that I wake up tomorrow and do anything but ... be opposing this project," Select Board member Peter Spellios said. "What I hate the most is that there is this pretense that this is about affordable housing. I hate that because we sit here for the second time (along with the Elm Place proposal) having to talk about affordable housing as if we are against affordable housing.

"If you want to do affordable housing, and come back to us with 160 units of affordable housing, maybe then we'll roll up our sleeves and talk about real affordable housing."

The state's Chapter 40B statute said that if 25 percent of units are considered affordable housing then all units count toward a city or town's inventory. Developers generally assert that it is necessary to have three times more market-rate housing than affordable housing to make financing a project viable.

But because of the state statute, towns like Swampscott have far limited capacity to oppose 40B projects when they don't meet the 10 percent affordable threshold than they do when it comes to any other development.

"It's an uphill battle," Spellios allowed of the town's opposition to this and similar-scale projects. "The deck is stacked the wrong way here ... with how utterly helpless communities are. But I do want to make sure my comments, and (those of) my colleagues, are not taken as being against affordable housing. I just find it awful that 40B, and the use of 40B, for projects like this are used as a pretense for affordable housing."

The Select Board said it intends to request to MassHousing to extend the Jan. 28 deadline to submit its response to the project and hopes to present it for a vote at its Feb. 2 meeting.

Titcomb said she is open to looking at other ways the town can fill its affordable housing void.

"What bothers me the most is that there is not a member of this board that doesn't want affordable housing," she said. "I hate having to say 'no' to something that the town desperately needs.

"But I don't feel like this is truly an affordable housing project."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)