Reasoning For Medfield Meadows Denial
Medfield Meadows was a proposed Chapter 40B project (non-Local Initiative Program (LIP)) originally proposed to have 200-units on two parcels of land on both sides of North Meadows Road (Route 27) in Medfield, Massachusetts, that was scaled-down to 183-units before it was outright denied by MassHousing. It is true, not all Chapter 40B projects get approved. The reasons for MassHousing's denial of your applications are as follows:
MassHousing considers the design of the building and the proposed site layout to be inconsistent with the design requirements outlined in 760 CMR 56.04(4)(c) and the related Guidelines dated May 2013. Specifically:
The proposed apartment structure is inconsistent with nearby existing residential building typology. This is particularly true for the rear portion of the north parcel and the proposed building's relationship to the existing neighborhoods closest to the Site along Joseph Pace Road, John Crowder Road and Dale Street. The applicant's revised site plans do not adequately mitigate the impact of the proposed building's connection to the existing neighborhood from the initial proposal; the Project still fails to make a reasonable transition to this well-established residential neighborhood.
The proposed three to four-story apartment structures are not compatible with nearby structures in terms of height, mass, and scale. Building elevations indicate that the proposed buildings (the three proposed buildings range in height from 60' to 77.5' tall depending on the topography of the Site) are at least triple the height of most surrounding 1-2 story structures. The building massing in the original submission was entirely inappropriate for both the Site and its relationship to the adjacent residential neighborhood. While the revised site plan, particularly that of the north parcel, has addressed some of the most glaring impacts to its closest abutters, the overall perception of the massing has not been adequately reduced to make the findings required under the regulations. The proposed massing on the south parcel is not significantly improved by the revised site plans and the presence of wetlands on that portion of the overall development Site is a constraint to a more logical relationship to the Grove Street neighborhood.
Appropriate density of residential development depends on a number of different factors and must be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. In this case, however, it appears that the Project is simply too dense for the lot on which it is located; nearly the entire Site is occupied by the proposed building program and the limited areas for open space are not sufficient to mitigate the project's effective density. While there are no maximum density thresholds, it is advisable to develop at a density that takes some cues from the existing community context. The nearest rental development is the Parc at Medfield which has a considerably lower density of approximately 10 units/acre as compared to the almost 30 units/acre proposed for this Project.
The site plan does not provide a satisfactory design treatment of the edge between the Site and the surrounding streetscape and does little to enhance the visual quality of the streetscape. The northern and southern building facades face Route 27, which is the principal access to downtown Medfield, and create a poor visual relationship to this adjacent roadway.
In MassHousing's review of any application for Site Approval under Chapter 40B, the Agency does not consider any one factor in isolation. Rather, the site as a whole is considered as well as whether the development proposal is consistent with applicable Regulations and Guidelines. After a thorough review of your application, MassHousing does not find that your proposal is able to meet all of the required findings. Therefore, your application is denied.
After the denial, the developer decided it was in his/their best interest to engage and work with the neighborhood and town of Medfield through a Chapter 40B Local Initiative Program (LIP) process. In the end, the developer obtained approval of 36-units on north side of North Meadows Road (an 82% decrease over the original 200-units through a Chapter 40B) on the second time around, now known as Medfield Green.
There are some similarities between the proposed Medfield Meadows project and the currently proposed Chapter 40B LIP Rice Pond Village project that we should refer to and leverage in the public hearing before the Millbury Board of Appeals, in addition to all the public safety problems and other issues previously documented in the Millbury Planning Board’s denial of the previously proposed Rice Pond Village project on the same site. As you may recall the original proposed project started out as 52-condominiums, was downsized to 46-condominiums, and then the proposed project was denied mostly due to Steven F. Venincasa and James Venincasa’s adamant failure to address the public safety problems. A position that has not seemed to have changed according to public statements of Mary Krumsiek, Chairperson of the Millbury Board of Selectmen, and Sean Hendricks, Town Manager in Board of Selectmen meetings. Refer to Meeting Replays.