The Zoning Board of Appeals on April 17 opened its public hearing process on a local developer’s proposal to convert a two-story commercial property at 339 Chestnut St. to a three-story, six-unit apartment building with two affordable units.
The plan calls for two units on each floor. The five two-bedroom units would average around 975 square feet each and the one-bedroom accessible unit on the ground floor would be 600 square feet. The one-bedroom unit would be designated as affordable, as would one of the third-floor two-bedroom units.
Built in 1904 as a residence on a 6,200 square foot lot, the structure has been used for commercial purposes for decades and currently has two 700 square foot office units. The planned future use as apartments does not conform with the town’s zoning bylaws, a circumstance that has led to the ZBA serving as the arbiter of the project’s future.
Ordinarily, this project would be proceeding under the jurisdiction of the Planning Board. The ZBA is involved due to the developer’s decision to participate in a state program that facilitates the construction of otherwise non-conforming housing projects in return for the provision of affordable housing units.
The plan proposed by Needham Enterprises requires considerable zoning relief due to insufficient lot size, excess density and height, lack of sufficient frontage and the inclusion of housing units on the ground floor.
Rather than seek a variance or undertake an effort to rezone the parcel, Needham Enterprises owner and former Select Board member Matt Borrelli opted to seek the zoning relief potentially provided by the state’s Local Initiative Proposal (LIP) process.
Under the LIP process, also known as a “friendly 40B” for the state law that promotes affordable housing, the ZBA has the authority to issue a comprehensive permit that overrides the zoning constraints in return for the inclusion of affordable units.
Needham Enterprises obtained the required support of the Select Board last October to follow the LIP process. In January, the state Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities approved the joint application of Needham Enterprises and the Select Board for LIP eligibility.
This allowed the project to avoid a Planning Board permit process and instead seek a comprehensive permit through a more streamlined process overseen by the ZBA. The ZBA still sought comments from multiple town departments and boards that would have been consulted had the project gone through the Planning Board’s special-permit process.
This included the building department, the town engineering department, the police and fire departments, the public health division, the town’s economic development manager, the town’s community housing specialist, the Design Review Board, the Conservation Commission and the Needham Historical Commission – none of which objected to the project.
The Planning Board also reviewed the project at its March 18 meeting. In an April 2 letter to the ZBA from town Director of Planning and Community Development Lee Newman, the Planning Board suggested the addition of a landscape buffer at the front of the property but was otherwise supportive of the project.
“With the above noted comment, the Planning Board wishes to express its support of the project as a whole, as it is consistent with the Town’s 40B Guidelines and represents the type of affordable housing development that the Town wishes to encourage,” Newman wrote on behalf of the board.
At the outset of its April 17 meeting, the ZBA received a primer on the friendly 40B process from Town Counsel Chris Heep, who explained how the project aligns with the town’s longstanding goal of creating more affordable units.
“The main things to keep in mind are you’re acting for everybody else in town,” Heep told the three ZBA members who will rule on the permit – Howard Goldman, Valentina Elzon and Peter Friedenberg. “You are going to be asked to grant waivers of the zoning bylaw and other rules and regulations.”
“Ultimately you’re applying a standard that is somewhat unique to this type of application which is the balancing of the need for affordable housing versus typical local concerns you would be looking at for any other type of application.”
Heep also pointed out the LIP program has profit-limitation rules that cap the developer’s profits at 20% and provide the town a say in the establishment of the rents that are charged. Any “excess profits” would be returned to the town to use in support of affordable housing initiatives.
The market rate rents are expected to be $3,229 per month for the two-bedroom units. The affordable rates would be $2,931 for the two-bedroom unit and $2,605 for the one-bedroom unit.
“The idea was to really make this work for workforce housing,” Borrelli told the ZBA. “Instead of having large units that could be rented for some substantial sum, the idea was to keep the units small in order to keep the price point low for people who wanted to work in Needham and commute.”
There were no public comments at the April 17 meeting. The hearing was kept open and will resume at the ZBA’s next meeting on May 15.
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