Rolling Away

 

Rolling Green Apartments, 204 units

The Amherst Select Board seems to have simply thrown up their hands and quit the fight to maintain our 10% minimum threshold for Subsidized Housing Inventory, a vaccine against a Chapter 40B mega-housing development being shoved down our throats.

Currently with 1,035 affordable units out of a total of 9,621, the town stands at 10.8%.  Rolling Green's 204 units represent 20% of our total stock of affordable housing, so once lost the Town's overall SHI drops to 8.5%.

Town officials have known for a half-dozen years that Rolling Green Apartments would be eligible to go to market rate because their federally subsidized loans were closing out.

The 50 year old complex is currently valued at $9,119,200 so an eminent domain taking is unlikely.  Town Meeting showed little stomach for eminent domain action last spring, rejecting the idea of taking Echo Village Apartments or the "development rights" of the property in northeast Amherst now slated to become "The Retreat" student housing development.

Almost three years ago Town Meeting appropriated $25,000 for a study pretty much specifically targeting the Rolling Green situation.  With the deadline now a mere three weeks away, it would appear Rolling Green is a lost cause.

Not overly "affordable"

And clearly Select Board Chair Stephanie O'Keeffe is not happy about the pace or focus of the process thus far.




You also have to wonder how uncomfortable this makes about-to-be-displaced tenants at Echo Village feel? Their situation came on suddenly, as Jamie Cherewatti only bought the property in January and then immediately jacked up the rents.

Plus, unlike Rolling Green,  the 24 Echo Village units do not count towards our affordability index, so town officials have a little less to lose with their instant transition to market rate.  And in Amherst, "market rate" is EXPENSIVE.

The Feds lump Amherst in with Springfield when setting maximum allowances for Section 8 housing vouchers.  But since Amherst rental units are so expensive (median rent of $1,108 in 2010) those vouchers go elsewhere.  Currently only half the 400 vouchers administered by Amherst Housing Authority are used by clients living in Amherst. 

Fortunately the town recently commissioned a "Housing Production Plan" to shed light on this chronic housing problem, so the state allows a one year reprieve from an unfriendly Ch40B development.

Maybe now town officials will get serious.

If You Build It?

Revive the Gateway Project

Actually they are already coming (2,000 over the next seven years) so the need for additional student housing is a given.

Two years ago UMass was willing to donate a prime swath of lush lawn for a mixed use development that would help solve two imbalances in our little college town:  taxable housing for our #1 demographic and commercial space for goods and services -- all within walking distance of the heart of the campus or downtown Amherst. 

The Gateway Project died because public officials failed to show resolve in the face of adversity:  NIMBYs with sharpened pitchforks and flamethrowers.

Now after the tumult created by "The Retreat," it's time to take a second look at The Gateway, and this time GET IT DONE.

According to a recent Op/Ed column in the Amherst Bulletin, UMass Chancellor Subbaswamy states "The university is committed to exploring the feasibility of a legislative remedy that would allow us to pursue public-private partnerships to address our housing needs."  Bingo!

What the Chancellor is referring to is a work around of the 1993 "Pacheco Rule" that protects public services from being privatized (no wonder then Governor Weld tried to veto it):

A "Special Act" exempting Amherst and UMass from the rule -- but only in a case of public/private partnership to construct new student housing on campus property.  The former Frat Row for instance.

 Former Frat Row, ready to go!

This "Home Rule Petition" is just what the Chancellor ordered, and would fall into the hands of able state legislators Stan Rosenberg -- a shoe in for the next Senate President -- and Ellen Story.

Two recent influential housing studies indicated the clear and desperate need for student housing, starting with the simple fact that 59% of our population are "college aged".

And until that problem is solved all other aspects of housing concerning families, retirees, low-and- moderate income, or the homeless will never be solved.

If the "rising star" Housing & Sheltering Committee really wants to make the difference, they need to prepare a warrant article for Town Meeting initiating this Special Act process.  Now!

A Rightful Place

Amherst Town Flag at Statehouse Hall Of Flags

After three long years of design process Amherst, finally, has an official town flag in the Statehouse Hall of Flags.  Big enough so that it requires three Select Board members, the Town Manager, State Representative Ellen Story and State Senator Stan Rosenberg to hold up.  Salute!

DUI Dishonor Roll

70% of 2011 fatal drunk driving incidents involved hardcore drunk drivers 

Well I guess it did not take long to make up for last week's lull, when we only had one DUI arrest.  This past week APD took four drunk drivers off the road, three of them UMass students (all males).

Ryan Micheal Holmes, age 23; Robert J Carroll, age 21, Patrick O Oyede, age 24 and our lone non-student female, Kathryn M. Denny, age 54.

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Many Bridges To Cross

 

Toppled Jersey barrier on Mill Street Bridge

Vandals -- rather strong ones -- managed to tip over this road block on one side of the Mill Street Bridge which has been closed for over a year now due to unsafe structural support.  I say strong because a Jersey barrier weighs a couple tons.    

 Barrier on southern end was undisturbed (maybe they were too tired)

According to DPW Chief Guilford Mooring town officials are "putting some options together and then there will be public discussion" about the future of the bridge.   

But the more time that passes the more likely it will stay closed forever, like the Woodside Avenue Bridge over the bike path that was totally replaced 13 years ago and then never allowed (by Select Board vote) to reopen to vehicular traffic.

Woodside Avenue bridge:  The bridge to nowhere

The Mill Street bridge is strategically located between State and Summer Streets and is perfectly parallel to the Puffer's Pond waterfall.

Puffer's Pond:  popular summer destination spot

Select Board Just Said NO

Not

The Amherst Select Board voted unanimously 4-0 (1 absent) NOT to a invoke a $6.5 million "Right Of First Refusal" for 154 acres of run-of-the-mill woodland in northeast Amherst to stop "The Retreat", a controversial 700 bed upscale student housing development proposed by a private, taxpaying, enterprise.
 
In June Amherst Town Meeting voted 98-90 to dismiss a warrant article calling for a $1.2 million appropriation to take by eminent domain only the "development rights" of the parcel.  And over the past two weeks the Planning Board voted 8-1 against the purchase while the Conservation Commission opposition was unanimous.

 

Crowd of 80-85 pack the meeting

The Select Board meeting was one of the best attended in recent memory with over a dozen project opponents voicing their concerns about noise, traffic, vandalism, and -- what they greatly fear --  the destruction of Cushman, a quaint historic village.

Speakers questioned the transparency of process since the town took a long period of time to acknowledge the 2nd $6.5 million offer between Cowls and Landmark Properties was indeed "bona fide", which started the 120-day clock ticking for the Right Of First Refusal.   

Project proponents have repeatedly cited the desperate need in this "college town" for more student housing, with current make shift solutions -- the conversion of single family homes to rooming houses -- being far more destructive to quality of life in neighborhoods town wide.

John Musante (center) Any change in contract would bring on new 120 day Right of 1st Refusal

"The Retreat" would also generate $400,000 per year in property taxes in a town where half the property is tax exempt.  In 1987 the town took by eminent domain the Cherry Hill Golf Course to stop a 134 unit high end housing project, squandering a historic $2.2 million ($4.4 million in today's dollars).

 Cowls also owns 150 acres near Cherry Hill Golf Course (in gold) that could also be developed on the same scale as The Retreat

Tonight by NOT taking this exceedingly expensive 154 acres of woodland, town officials demonstrated they have learned from history.   Finally. 

The Republican reports

Amherst Being Amherst

Noon protest @ TD Bank, Amherst town center:  Pipelines, climate change, the usual