1974-05-21 - Laserfiche WebLink

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1 1 1 Lexington Housing Realty Trust Hearing (continued) Chairman: You have 5 minutes. BRIEF IN OPPOSITION presented to the Board by Mr. Goldstein. (10 pages) Mr. Goldstein: First the general objections from the neighbors expressing their sentiments in opposition and I think the Board should naturally take into consideration the sentiments of the Town. You have letters, you've heard from other members of Boards in Town, you've heard from the Building Inspector and the Planning Board and according to statute, Section 21 of 40B, Chapter 774, you are required to take into consideration those letters and the opinions of the other Boards of the Town. Briefly, Chapter 774 does state that the Town should have minimum requirements for low and moderate income housing. Perhaps the Town doesn't meet the re- quirements at this time, although there's a balance involved here. It's not just a carte blanche for a developer to come in with any plan and say you don't have your minimum requirements so you've got to build this, because I'm petitioning you. He's got to meet certain requirements. It has to be consistent with the local needs. And I submit to you that the proposal that has been presented to you even in its recently amended form does not conform and is not consistent with local needs. Obviously we have got a little problem here and some of the Board members see it and it comes across with some of their questions as to some of the information lacking as to what this will be and we'll take Mr. Ostroff at his word that if he's going to ever build this he'll give us some of the information at sometime. Now, what is consistent with local needs? How do we go about defining this term and to see whether or not the construction which is proposed will comply with that definition which is the definition that this Board must find fits the proposal if they are to allow the proposal. Well, the statute does spell it out and the Supreme Judicial Court in the case which Mr. Ostroff wanted to site does also define what is this to do with local needs. Now, consistent with local needs standards requires that both the Board and the committee, if it should be appealed, balance the regional need for low and moderate income housing against any objections to the details of the proposal. -9 Before you, you have 200 names and you have many people here tonight and I'm sure you realize there are many objections to this proposal. Now, also to the objections you have to balance with this critera. I'm quoting from the case of the Board of Appeals of Hanover vs. the Housing Appeals Commission which is, for the record, in 294 N.E. 2d, pages 412 and 413, the factors to be con- sidered "to protect the health or safety of the occupants of the proposed housing and of the residents of Lexington. This, Mrs. Herscott has mentioned. There are no sidewalks in the area. There's going to be a lot more children. There's a lot of traffic right on Woburn St., and it's one of the major arteries and Lowell St. is the other boundary of this whole neighborhood and Young St. and Webb St. constitute an increasingly popular shortcut at the rush hour to avoid the lights at the corner of Woburn St. and Lowell St. I think that if the Fire Department were here that they might have some objection to cars being parked on the proposed Dunham St. parking area, on the half of it, referred to by Mr. Ostroff. I don't know from these plans. It's difficult to tell, gazing upon them from here, and assuming that they are drawn to scale. I don't think they can get down that street now and make any kind of turn.