Cowls woodland since 1888
Up to 170 cottage style student housing units sheltering a total of 680 tenants could soon be developed in the Cushman Village Center near Amherst's number one employer and target demographic, the University of Massachusetts.
Landmark Properties bills "The Retreat" as a "cluster conservation subdivision" that will "provide students with an award winning, high quality, highly amenitized lifestyle in their own community of single family and attached homes."
Map of proposed development (click to enlarge)
The 154 acre parcel is currently owned and manged by the W.D. Cowls company, the state's largest private landowner. The property is in Chapter 61 Forest Conservation. As a result the wooded acreage is current valued at $67/acre or a little over $10,000.
The Amherst Select Board will have to sign off on releasing the land from Chapter 61, and they have 120 days to implement a"right of first refusal".
Considering the $6.5 million purchase price, it's highly unlikely the town will buy it. Amherst could, however, transfer the right of first refusal to another non-profit agency, such as the Kestrel Land Trust. But again, at that price, hard to match.
If developed by a private entity the project would also pay Amherst hundreds of thousands in property taxes annually.
Amherst currently has an exceedingly tight 3.5% vacancy rate and conversions of single family homes to student rooming houses have caused problems all over town.
A classic Catch 22: any proposal to add student housing is met with NIMBY resistance for fear of it becoming a riotous Frat Row. Because no dense developments have been constructed to match increasing enrollment at UMass, the penny ante developers have converted traditional single family homes to student housing with no professional management, a recipe for disaster.
Safe to say locals are already sharpening their pitchforks and soaking torches in gasoline.
This is what the residents need, not pitchforks and gasoline. What is the number one complain that cannot be paid away? Noise. Separate the students, and some problems are solved.
ReplyDeleteAlthough if I were given the choice, I'd prefer mixed use developments over these type of segregated communities, I've been to some of these communities in TX, and they are actually really nice. The apartments are kept to a really nice standard, everything is included in the rent, and students have everything they need available right at the complex.
ReplyDeleteThis is an example of the exact thing Amherst needs: high quality (student) housing to compete with the terribly maintained eyesores of apartments that some price gouging slumlords are currently renting out.
Would the release from Chapter 61 also require the buyer/seller to pay back taxes on the true value of the property?
ReplyDeleteSounds just like what Amherst needs, if you ask this resident. Too bad Cinda hates salamanders though. She once told me a badger sits at the end of the tunnel with his mouth open during breeding season when they travel through the tunnel. As always, the resistance will be huge. I think the environmental impact will be the biggest to surmount given that this is the People's Republic and all.
ReplyDeleteYes but even then the "true value" at for those years will not be nearly what it is selling for.
ReplyDeleteBesides, if they can afford to pay $6.5 million ...
I like this idea! Hope it can come to fruition.
ReplyDeleteCinda absolutely and positively ADORES salamanders!! I have photos and sculptures of them in my office. We helped enable those slamander crossings and encourage HCE work on our land to help salamanders wayfind.
ReplyDeleteAnd, fact check, it was a raccoon not a badger that I said sits at the west end of the tunnel during mating season, with its mouth wide open, waiting for snacks.
Yeah, I've noticed Anons are lousy at fact checking.
ReplyDeletelol. I am anon 7:35 here. I know you <3 salamanders, Cinda, I was just kidding. I think this project is great, and just what the town needs. I just want to be anonymous because of how divided this town is, I don't want to alienate half my customers!
ReplyDeleteStudents should be able to have new housing, they shouldn't be forced to live in slums. I really hope this gets approved.
I hope that the plans call for a 20foot high chain fence and a gate to close on the weekends.
ReplyDeleteI truly hope this doesn't happen! This area does NOT need any student housing. What ever happened to Cowles commitment to preservation of woodlands, etc. How very disappointing!!
ReplyDeleteSounds like another Sorority
ReplyDeletePark to me. That worked real well. It will never happen.
...and I hope it has money to hire some more cops because it seems the University cannot continue to bring more students as the number of cops decreases or refuses to grow.
ReplyDeleteFor those saying the area doesn't need housing, are you aware of the quality and age of what is available? There is a reason that students live in fire-trap basements and garages. It is hard to find decent housing on a bus route. Kids don't have cars like they used to. I agree this stuff is always a tough sell because you NIMBY's don't want anything to change. But it is my belief that this will be undeniable.
ReplyDeleteGateway project doesn't seem like that bad of an idea now does it???
ReplyDeleteI say build it's the only allowable business in this town. If we are going to rely on property taxes to pay the bills this can only help. and if we get more student housing that means someone might be interested in opening a pizza place or bar to accommodate any new arrivals.
ReplyDeleteHey Cinda, do you ever do something similar to what the paper companies up North do -- allow people to cut firewood for a nominal charge?
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking that with all that land, and the October storm bringing down fully-leafed hardwoods, you are still going to have an awful lot of sizable boughs (if not outright trees) still on the ground, not to mention a lot of damaged trees that your foresters want to see removed for timber quality purposes. I imagine that in some cases there probably are some fire hazard concerns being raised as well...
Larry knows how to reach me, and I do need the exercise so if you ever do have something like this, I'm game...
Thanks Dr Ed- We used to let folks harvest downed trees for firewood before the days of incredible legal liabilty. Now we have a strict insurance-agency-mandated policy that folks have to be insured at a pretty high rate and name Cowls as secondary insured.
ReplyDeleteIf you're still interested in the idea and seeing what it might take insurance-wise, you can get in touch with our VP for Forest Opps, Shane Bajnoci,forestry@cowls.com.
A better idea might be to pay one of Shane's subcontractor loggers, who buys and harvests Cowls firewood logs, to drop off tree-length logs where you want to process them into firewood.
Better than that, though less exercize you seem to enjoy, would be having loggers deliver cut and split wood, green or dry.
Shane can help you set up any of these options.
CJ
Cinda --
ReplyDeleteOh, yes -- the difference between a jury in Aroostook County, Maine and Hampshire County, Massachusetts -- and people don't realize the true price we all pay for this liability stuff. You can't even get the little parts necessary to rebuild some aspects of your car (e.g. brake units) anymore because of these liability fears.
My personal favorite is the case of a drunk driver who, while his tank wasn't completely empty and he could have kept going had the gas station refused to sell him gas, with the gas they had sold him he was able to go further than he could have without it, and at that extended range, he caused an OUI crash that killed someone.
The gas station was liable. Not the drunken schmuck who ought not have been on the road and who caused the accident, but the gas station who sold him a legal product. Yes....
Cinda, this liability will eventually extend to just letting people hike across your land (if it doesn't already) and what I don't understand is why there can't be some statutory equivalent to the "good Samaritan" statute -- excepting situations where the landowner is grossly negligent (e.g. a known un-marked/un-covered well that someone falls into, or a drunken employee driving a vehicle into somebody), and where the property owner reasonably describes the risks to guests who affirm that they know what they are doing, why the property owner couldn't be held harmless if the guest got hurt because of the guest's own actions.
Maybe this law needs to be proposed because we have a long tradition of private ownership of land that the public is allowed to use, and if some idiot hikes in wearing sneakers and gets frostbite, I don't think you should be liable for it. And sooner or later, I fear you will be....
"If developed by a private entity the project would also pay Amherst hundreds of thousands in property taxes annually."
ReplyDeleteAnd require a huge amount of town services as well.
Which bus route is this on? Since the need for better PVTA bus service to the Cushman area will increase the operating cost by a few $$$100K per year, Landmark should be required set aside a few million $$$$$$ more to "endow" additional PVTA service - agreed?
ReplyDeleteIt might be a good project, esp. all that forest land is put into permanent town and state and Kestrel owned conservation easement, but why not try a TDR and build something like this at the old sawmill instead?
A development like this should really be adjacent to or on campus. 800+ students driving through tiny Cushman neighborhood roads will destroy the Historic integrity of the area. I understand the need to increase the tax base but it needs to be done tactfully and with integrity intact or what is the draw to living in Amherst after all. This is not a NIMBY situation. I believe the residents of Cushman would be open to many types of cluster development but this particular "retreat" for students is not a sound option for this site.
ReplyDeleteThe site is not on a bus route. It's not even on a street with sidewalks, so students taking the bus will have to walk in the road. In addition, the roads will be more crowded with cars than ever before, thanks to all the students in the complex who do have cars.
ReplyDelete