War Over "The Retreat" Continues

 Landmark Properties has agreed to "save the salamanders"

By NICK GRABBE

Where you stand on the Retreat depends on where you sit.

Jack Hirsch, whose column appears in this week's Amherst Bulletin, lives in Cushman, so it makes sense that he doesn't want to see open space near his house turned into a student housing development.

I live near the Regional Middle School, and have three student houses within 200 feet of me (the closest house to the Retreat will be more than 300 feet away). I think it makes sense for student housing to be clustered together, under close supervision, rather than spread out on residential streets, in houses owned by absentee landlords.

In my Bulletin column of Aug. 16, I gave three reasons why I think this development is in the interest of the town as a whole. In this week's Bulletin, Hirsch responds to two of my reasons – and ignores the third.

First, I argued that the Retreat will bring in $395,000 a year, as estimated by the town assessor, in desperately needed tax revenue. Hirsch maintains that Landmark Properties, the owners of the Retreat, may not pay their taxes.

There's no evidence that Landmark has been a tax evader in other towns where it has built student housing. And even if it didn't pay its taxes, Town Hall could easily put a lien on the property until payments were made.

 

Jack Hirsch ill-fated presentation to Amherst Town Meeting

I thought Hirsch was going to say that the $395,000 would be offset by increased costs for police and roads, as some Cushman residents have maintained. Maybe he's realized the absurdity of that argument. Some of the $395,000 might be offset by increased costs, but it's well established that the biggest loser for the town in the tax-vs.-expense calculus is single-family houses (like the ones in Cushman). 

That's because of the cost of educating children (the Amherst elementary schools spend $17,000 per student). The Retreat will not have many tenants with children in the schools.

Second, I argued that if Amherst continues to resist new student housing, speculators will have even more incentive to buy up single-family houses when they come on the market and convert them to student rentals. That's because the demand for rentals will far exceed the supply. 

First-time home-buyers will have a harder time competing with speculators, and there will be more conflict between students and longtime residents.

Hirsch responds that there are 14,000 UMass students living in the Amherst area, so the 700 beds in the Retreat wouldn't make a difference. UMass plans to expand its student population, so any contribution to the housing stock will reduce the flow of students onto residential streets. Those extra students won't go away if the Retreat isn't built; they'll just live in neighborhoods like mine. 

Hirsch did not respond to my information that many of the houses northeast of the Retreat site have had septic system failures, and are close to tributaries of the Atkins Reservoir, a major source of Amherst's drinking water. 

When the Retreat is built, the developer will pay to extend the sewer line to Flat Hills Road, making it much less expensive for the town to extend it to the streets with failing septic systems.

This was not speculation; it was the opinion of the superintendent of public works. The Cushman people like to present their cause as being environmentally virtuous, defending the spotted salamanders that live on part of the Retreat site and decrying the cars the students would have (but why would they drive them to campus, where there's little parking, rather than take the bus?) 

I'm not surprised that Hirsch ignores the news that the Retreat would help clean up an environmental hazard caused by his neighbors.

Stop The Retreat:  Campaign is starting to list

The letters written by Cushman residents, and the red-and-white signs they've convinced friends in other parts of town to put on their lawns, may lead some people to believe that Amherst will be voting on whether to allow the Retreat. No such vote will take place, because Landmark Properties has a legal right to built student housing on this land. 

The plan will be reviewed by the Planning Board and Conservation Commission, but they don't have the power to reject it. These two panels and the Select Board voted nearly unanimously not to have the town buy the land to prevent the development.

It isn't clear to me how “Save Historic Cushman” plans to stop the Retreat. Will the opponents lie down in front of the bulldozers? The organization has hired an expensive Concord attorney, who has filed an appeal in Land Court maintaining that the Retreat is a dormitory, which is prohibited in this zoning district. 

More appeals will probably follow, in an attempt to delay the Retreat. But in San Marcos, Texas, it took Landmark 20 years before before it got approval to build the student development. Are the Cushman residents willing to keep paying their attorney that long? 

For now, they are willing to have the town spend public money on their appeals.

I think they should use their time and energy lobbying Sen. Stan Rosenberg, soon to be the Senate president, to get a law change that would allow a public-private partnership to build taxable housing on property owned by UMass. 

That would provide clustered student housing near the campus, but allow Amherst to reap the tax benefits.

The Retreat may have some negative consequences on Cushman, chiefly weekend traffic, but the neighborhood will still be “historic.” For Amherst as a whole, the Retreat has substantial benefits.

Nick Grabbe is a former Amherst Bulletin editor/reporter and a long time Amherst resident.