Veterans’ subsidy program continues to be sticking point in Chapter 40B construction

The Zoning Board of Appeals voted to allow the legal team of a proposed residential development in Waltham to begin finalizing a draft of its permit with the city’s Law Department.

The decision came at the ZBA’s Nov. 18 meeting, where it discussed plans for a new residential building at 455 Totten Pond Road that was first proposed in March under the state’s Chapter 40B law. This statute allows special permits for residential buildings if they provide sufficient affordable housing. 

Much of Thursday’s meeting involved updates from the building’s development team, updates necessitated after the team earlier this fall requested to add 25 additional units to the building, bringing it to 340 units.

The project team resubmitted sewage, traffic and stormwater engineering reports to reflect this new number, which they discussed with the ZBA alongside responses from third-party “peer review” firms that the ZBA hired to review the designs.

The development team also presented new design features to break up the building’s silhouette; a building layout change to create two internal courtyards instead of one; and an updated unit distribution map. 

Additionally, the team added walls and landscaping to improve privacy, updates stemming from a recently held neighborhood input meeting

ZBA Chair John Sergi reiterated a request for the developer to work with other Chapter 40B projects to install a sidewalk along Totten Pond Road to Lexington Street. Philip B. McCourt, Jr., one of the project’s lawyers, said his team will estimate  the cost of meeting that request.

Veterans’ preference

Meanwhile, Matthew Deveaux, the board’s clerk, told the development team he wanted to drop a plan to subsidize some of the project’s low-income units using U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development vouchers for formerly homeless veterans.

Jim Ward, one of the lawyers for 455 Totten Pond Road, had proposed the plan at a meeting in July. Under the plan, participating veterans who no longer require supportive housing programs and want to move into the community would pay 30% of their own income for the units, with the voucher covering the difference required to meet the units’ market-rate rents.

At previous meetings Deveaux had spoken against that plan, saying he didn’t think the developer should use the HUD program to increase its affordable unit count. 

“You’re getting full market rent out of those units, which is not in the spirit of a 40B. And I understand that MassHousing said OK to it, but I’m not OK with it,” he reiterated on Tuesday.

Waltham veterans’ advocate Dave DiGregorio also spoke against the program, saying the veterans he represented didn’t want to be used as bargaining chips. He said they would prefer having a Waltham veterans’ preference on 10% of the building’s affordably priced units. DiGregorio asked for the project to reserve eight units for Waltham veterans, priced to be affordable for households making 60% of the area’s median income.

He added that he wanted to focus assistance on veterans from Waltham or its immediately surrounding community.

DiGregorio told the board that a high percentage of veterans in Massachusetts experience PTSD and suggested the HUD vouchers should be used for apartments in developments that provide more specialized care. 

He added that he thought bringing in veterans who had recently been in a more intensive support program could be hazardous to other veterans and residents paying “high-end rent.”

“I don’t want to see my brothers and sisters in harm’s way that can’t handle that type of living,” he said. “We want our eight — that’s all we want. And we’ll take care of them. Waltham first.” 

Ward told the board that the voucher program was designed for veterans who no longer needed wraparound services. “We’re trying to help the veterans. We don’t think they’re going to be the burden on our project or the city that you’re suggesting.”  

He added that he would collect more information on how the program selects veterans to share in his next presentation to the board.

The project is slated to come before the ZBA again at the board’s Jan. 6 meeting.