Day, Lewis Pen Letter to MassHousing on Forest Circle Development

WINCHESTER, MA — Many residents have spoken in opposition of the proposed 296-unit apartment complex on Forest Circle in Winchester, and now local legislators have begun to voice their own concerns.

Senator Jason Lewis and Representative Michael Day penned a joint letter to MassHousing Executive Director Timothy Sullivan expressing "deep concerns" regarding the application for the 296-unit apartment complex, which contains an access road to Stoneham. The town became aware of the project on June 15, which is backed by the Krebs Investor Group, LLC.

"We are hard pressed to identify a worse location in Winchester from the perspective of accessibility to amenities, both public transit and otherwise," the letter wrote.

According to the state's 40B affordable housing laws, 25 percent of the units would have to be in a price range for households earning 80 percent or less of the median area income. Under the law, developers can bypass local zoning laws if 25 percent of the project is priced as affordable and the municipality has less than 10 percent "affordable" housing.

Day and Lewis highlighted concerns in regards to location, access to the site, traffic concerns and more.

"It is troubling to hear that a developer would propose a large apartment complex, presumably designed to provide housing to low-income residents, placed as far from public transit and our schools as possible while seeking to receive official sanction for waiving important permitting reviews," the letter read."The nearest grocery store is more than 2 miles away."

The letter also criticized the nature of the application, stating that further consideration is needed before the application should be considered.

"The application fails to go into any meaningful detail on the municipal resources that will be required to sustain the site, from sewer to water to electricity to the very real burden it will impose on the first responders from both Winchester and Stoneham, but we know those will be substantial, particularly given the relatively remote location of this site from the town center," read the letter.

The full letter can be found below.

Lewis and Day Letter to MassHousing