The Housing Production Plan vendor choice slipped a month as the review panel deadlocked on Aug. 11. Member Jean Milburn reported that the four-person selection committee could not choose between Goldsmith, a larger firm with a “cookie cutter approach,” and a smaller, outreach-focused bidder, Barrett Planning, who produced the last HPP and will now send follow-up questions to both.
The partnership also welcomed Planning Board member Robin Borgstedt as its new liaison, and heard that Wayland ADUs are running roughly $300,000 per unit, with applications slowing.
Chair Mary Antes reported not hearing back from Philip Crean of the Planning Office of Urban Affairs on their progress on working through a financing gap on the Good Shepherd Saint Anne affordable senior housing 40B project tied to a federal award whose cost basis has shifted. Member Jean Milburn suggested the sponsor may also be watching pending state legislation in the House, sometimes called “YIGBY” (“Yes in God’s Backyard”), that would allow religious institutions to build affordable housing by right.
Milburn also reported that Select Board member Tom Fay told her the RFP for 212 Cochituate Road has not gone out and he indicated that two full sets of transaction documents, one for each scenario, whether to sell the parcel or lease it, would need to accompany the RFP so that bidders know what they are responding to. She quoted Fay as describing the eventual supportive housing use as accommodating anywhere from five to 30 residents, a range she and other members welcomed.
Member James Grumbach called the Cascade 40B application, now on its third owner, a project that “stinks” and agreed to draft a letter supporting the Conservation Commission against reported state pressure to relax a cold water trout-stream buffer on Pine Brook.
