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Minutes from Meeting with Chris Scott Hanson: 6/8/2002
John & Judy's House, Natick

Attendance: Chris, Kim, Rick, Gabe, John, Judy, Roxanne, Virginia, Sarah,
Ben, Greg, Steph, Dwight, Jim, Abby, Brendan

1) Chris gave description of new Quirk (land owner/developer) properties for us to consider

Maynard - Taylor Brook
- 6.1 acres, off of Boeske Rd
- S-1 residential zoning
- 24 units possible (no 40B needed)
- zoning allows clustering, 2-, 3-, 4- unit buildings
- $1.8 million
- has 1 house and a pool on it
- neighbors
- on 2 sides are US Gov't land, with trails
- other single-family houses are neighbors, have formed neighborhood coalition, some are likely to have objections and could block our project - 3 neighbors are part of Taylor Brook Coalition, including David Hunter, who is leader of coalition and would really rather have us develop the land than Quirk. - Current moratorium in Maynard on sewage until December
- Because this is a Quirk property, and he doesn't like Taylor Brook Coalition, we cannot be seen as being involved with them

Maynard - Rockland Ave
- 6 acres
- no price set (Chris thinks $600-800K reasonable)
- neighbors
- across road is an office park, with Sea Change, and AT&T Broadband Head End with giant generators - on another side, another office park going up
- one side has conservation land
- fourth side has one newly built house, one empty house
- noise from highway and generators (but Dwight thinks he means air conditioning compressors) can be heard on all parts of property- some wetlands, some trees
- zoned industrial, so either needs rezoning or 40B

Stow - Athens Rd
- 65 acres
- next to O'Grady property
- 20 acres under water
- Quirk has dumped a lot of stuff, left a lot of debris
- Will be gorgeous land after clean-up
- No price yet
- Zoned industrial, will require 40B
- Lots of gravel - perc no problem
- Possibility to partner with Nexum on a larger project

Framingham - Eastleigh Farm
- 124 acres
- northwest Framingham (near Sudbury Valley School)
- $12.5 million
- 30,000 sq feet of existing buildings - high end large farm house buildings
- 50+ acres of wetlands
- to get density, would need to do this as 40A, because Framingham has met affordability requirement and can't do 40B- no idea what 40A process costs, or how long it takes, but Chris and Kim will be looking into it, and Stew at Nexum has also been doing a lot of research- 40A requires some educational component to the project
- Chris has an EcoVillage proposal (think EcoVillage in Ithica, NY)
- Arrange a long-term financing deal, pay off over something like 10 years
- Some families would move in to existing buildings while the project is built - Mix of residential units (120 or so needed) and commercial to support community - Residential units could be built in small clusters over a period
of time
- Cohousing Network might be willing to partner with us, lend us their 501(c)3 status, and become the educational arm of the project

Framingham - Nexum
- They currently own 32 acres in northwest Framingham, near farm
- Also sent information on another 8 acres with 7000 sq. foot house
- Any of these properties would also require a 40A


2) Brief update on other properties
- Stow - O'Grady property
- Polty(?) has option on it, may be looking to sell it because did not
get approval for senior development- Lincoln - Heinrich property
- Greg, Jim, Chris & Karen are meeting with AquaPoint tomorrow (Sunday)
- Acton
- Karen has a couple properties to show, 2 ugly houses that aren't selling well, each has some amount of acreage with it (5 acres?)

3) Went around the room, asked people to rank the properties that were discussed. Most people listed top 2, some listed top 3. Kept Framingham farm property separate, since concept of EcoVillage is something radically
different. Tally of rankings:

Maynard - Taylor Brook 9 - 1st choice
Maynard - Rockland 1 - 1st choice, 1 - 2nd choice, 1 - 3rd choice
Stow - Athens Rd 2 - 2nd choice, 1 - 3rd choice
Lincoln - Heinrich 2 - 1st choice, 5 - 2nd choice
Acton 2 - 2nd choice

Comments that were made after ranking:
- Chris was surprised that Taylor Brook property was 1st choice, due to possible issues with neighbors, but a few people said that risk was outweighed by not needed to do a 40B- Dwight pointed out Taylor Brook might be
too expensive, at current price & density, would add $32K to each unit cost. This brought up concerns of
some people being priced out of the project.- Stow property could be more attractive for the right price - we don't
currently know price

4) Chris will start a matrix with the properties on one axis and criteria
on other axis. List of criteria as follows

- Price
- Units
- Price/unit
- "doability"
- 40A/friendly 40B/unfriendly 40B/none
- sewer/septic issues
- noise issues
- aesthetic (forest/meadow)
- acerage
- existing buildings (sq foot)
- proximity to mass transit
- toxic risk
- time to move-in
- public schools (Jim will rate towns for this)
- proximity to Sudbury Valley School
- % wetlands
- smell issues
- distance to Boston?

5) Action Items
- Chris
- Meet with Quirk hopefully Monday or early Tuesday, to get prices
- Will also talk with Quirk's realtor
- Meeting with Nexum, will get information about partnering with us, and what they know about 40A- Kim - research 40A
- Sarah - research EcoVillage (talk to Chris)
- Jim - rank towns for public school system

 

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