The Village Center, the heart of a plan to redevelop the shuttered South Weymouth Naval Air Station, includes a mix of retail, apartments and offices oriented around a series of public squares.
After a series of reviews and years of starts and stops, a plan to redevelop the South Weymouth Naval Air Station into a mix of housing and commercial space could be taking a huge leap forward as early as this spring when the towns involved are scheduled to vote on a rezoning and development proposal.
LNR Property Corp., the master developer for the 1,405-acre former Naval site that straddles Weymouth, Rockland and Abington, released its latest plan two weeks ago calling for the creation of between 2,850 and 3,000 housing units, 2 million square feet of commercial space, a 47-acre sports and recreational facility, and a 208-acre public golf course. The project would be built over three phases with each taking about four years to complete, not including a preconstruction phase for infrastructure improvements.
The plan has been praised by many, including regional planners, as a strong example of smart growth and transit-oriented development that will preserve large swaths of open space, provide thousands of jobs and generate millions of dollars in tax revenue for the three towns.
Just last week, the South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp., a quasi-public entity responsible for overseeing the redevelopment of the site, released a complex rezoning plan that divides the land into 13 areas and will serve as a guide for LNR’s master plan.
The South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp. is scheduled to vote on the plan and rezoning in early April. Both plans will then be presented to voters in the towns of Weymouth, Abington and Rockland.
“We strongly urge residents of the three towns to support this plan and adopt this zoning,” said Marc Draisen, executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, a regional planning agency for 101 towns and cities in Greater Boston.
“This is a much better option than the only real alternative, which is for the Navy to auction the site, and there is every reason to believe that they will auction this site if this plan is not adopted,” said Draisen.
The MAPC, along with the Old Colony Planning Council, which represents 15 South Shore communities, spearheaded and prepared a review in January of a plan that LNR released last September. The review included various recommendations, several of which were later implemented in the revised master plan that LNR issued on March 7.
In its most recent plan, for example, LNR expanded the commercial space from 1.3 million square feet to 2 million square feet and diversified its uses.
David Hall, a senior vice president and project manager for LNR, said the commercial component will include roughly 1.4 million square feet of space for a science park that will include medical technology, medical device manufacturing and life sciences companies. Another 500,000 square feet of commercial, retail, hotel, civic and other uses is slated to be located in the Village Center, the focal point in the plan that is within walking distance to the MBTA’s Old Colony commuter rail line running to Boston. The Village Center also is central to several of the residential clusters and recreational fields.
But Hall noted that the makeup of the commercial space could change over the next few years depending on what use becomes more desirable. “It’s all up to the market,” he said.
Besides increasing and diversifying the commercial component, the plan took several other positive steps, according to MAPC’s Draisen, including increasing the mixing of residential and commercial uses beyond the Village Center, and introducing so-called workforce housing.
The residential component will include a mix of apartments, condos, townhouses and single-family homes. Anywhere from 10 percent to 20 percent will be affordable, said Hall.
However, Draisen said according to calculations done by MAPC the overall number of housing units that are affordable to those earning less than 80 percent of the area median income was cut from 541 units to 265 units. “That is substantially less affordability than was the case of the original plan. It’s pretty much hard for us to support that change,” Draisen.
And the housing geared for working professionals, which will be priced for households earning 80 percent to 150 percent of area median income, which can mean an annual salary ranging from $66,150 up to $124,000 for a family four living in Greater Boston, is too high, said Draisen.
“We don’t really view that as affordable,” said Draisen, who added that MAPC will continue to push LNR to dedicate 20 percent of the housing units as “truly affordable” – meaning within the reach those earning up to 80 percent of the area median income.
“I’m fairly confident that we’re going to be able to work this out with them,” said Draisen.
‘A Nice Mix’
In an interview last week, Hall pointed out that LNR tried to be sensitive to the needs of town officials who said there was a huge need for housing that was available to entry-level professionals, including police officers, teachers, and firefighters. Many of those professionals earn more than 80 percent of the area median income, he said.
“We don’t want to restrict all of the housing to those earning less than 80 percent [of the area median income]. We want a nice blend,” he said.
Approximately 500 units will be rentals, and anywhere from 300 to 450 of the housing units will be restricted for people 55 and over.
Hall said a total of 400 of the residential units will be affordable to those earning either 80 percent or less of the area median income or those making between 80 percent to 150 percent of the area median income.
Hall said it is not known at this time exactly how many of those units will be affordable to those earning less than 80 percent of the area median income. Part of the reason is that those units were supposed to be located in zoning overlay districts created under legislation that was passed last year called Chapter 40R. Under Chapter 40R, towns that establish such special overlay districts, which must include at least 20 percent of housing units that are affordable those earning 80 percent or less of the area median income, are eligible to receive cash bonuses. But the 40R regulations implementing the 40R legislation are not complete yet.
Hall said, “We need to understand the 40R regulations and their applicability and how they will conform to what we’re building.”
“Unfortunately, the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development has not yet finalized its regulations for implementing Chapter 40R and thus the zoning bylaw that the [South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp.] will submit to the towns this spring cannot incorporate a Chapter 40R overlay district,” states the master plan. “Though LNR cannot commit to compliance with regulations that are as yet unknown, LNR will work with the corporation and the towns to pursue subsequent adoption of appropriate Chapter 40R overlay district(s) and associated revised zoning once the regulations are in place and their applicability to the project is duly evaluated.”
Meanwhile, the workforce housing – homes that will be affordable to those earning 80 percent to 150 percent of the area median income – amounting to an additional 10 percent of the apartments, condos and townhouses outside of the 40R overlay districts will be included and integrated throughout most of the project, according to the plan.
More than 1,000 acres, or 72 percent of the site, will be publicly accessible and permanently preserved as open space and recreational facilities.
“It’s a great plan,” said Terry Fancher, the former general manager of the South Shore Chamber of Commerce who was hired as executive director of the South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp. in January.
The latest plan comes after two other plans for the naval property, which was shuttered in 1997, were ditched. The first proposal by Virginia-based Mills Corp. for a sprawling mega-mall supported by an office park was rejected by the South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp. after intense community opposition over the amount of traffic the project would generate. A subsequent proposal by a previous executive director of South Shore Tri-Town would have created 3.35 million square feet of offices, 700 senior housing units, retail space, hotel rooms and an 18-hole golf course.
With its substantial residential component, LNR’s plan has caused concerns about traffic. It’s estimated that an additional 3,500 cars will travel between Routes 3 and 18 because of the project, said Fancher. But Fancher said a series of improvements to the intersections on Route 18 are already under way, and part of the route will be widened to four lanes.
In addition, LNR’s plan incorporates a network of pedestrian walkways and bike paths that planners hope will ultimately reduce car trips, a two-lane parkway spanning east to west and regular shuttle service to and from the commuter rail station. Hall said that they’re even considering running the shuttle service off-site to key spots like the South Shore Hospital in Weymouth and South Shore Plaza in Braintree.
MAPC is pushing for auto trips to be reduced in half through the shuttle service, by increasing the frequency of the commuter trains and buses, and including more bicycle and pedestrian access.
If the South Shore Tri-Town votes to adopt the master plan and rezoning in April, the plan faces the next hurdle: town votes. The master plan needs to be approved by a majority vote and the zoning changes by two-thirds vote in each of the three towns. The votes will take place in May through the first weeks of June.
