The proposed 26-home subdivision on the former site of the Walden Eco Village in Peterborough was met with a considerable amount of public opposition at a Planning Board meeting on Monday. It was the first opportunity for public comment on the formal proposal.
Applicant Akhil Garland first described his plan to subdivide the Walden Eco Village in July 2020, at which point 25 tenants were renting the seven cottages and nine tiny houses, or casitas, on site. The 52-acre property is accessed via Garland Way off Middle Hancock Road in Peterborough’s rural district. The project’s application process led town staff to discover that 15 structures on the property lacked required permits, including all the casitas. Town officials observed hazardous electrical and gas configurations during a December site visit associated with the application, which caused the town to evict the site’s 25 tenants on Dec. 16. A class-action lawsuit between Garland and 13 former tenants is ongoing.
Ultimately, a majority of the Planning Board supported reducing the number of proposed homes to 20, situating houses on quarter-acre lots, exploring opportunities for ganged, rather than separate, septic systems, and requested the applicant conduct a hydrology study on the property, as well as a certified wetland delineation.
Public testimony was largely opposed to the project. A leeriness of the proposal prevailed, even while Planning Board Chair Ivy Vann repeatedly reminded speakers that the Planning Board was obligated to consider the proposal on its own and they would not entertain testimony about the site’s past code violations and evictions.
“I don’t think you should separate the past practices of this developer as a landlord,” abutter David Johnston said. He and his wife, Hannah, said that, while they were okay with the Eco Village, they don’t trust the new development, or the level of oversight and control the town would exercise to “keep something like what happened in December from happening again.”
“Some of what we’ve dealt with tonight is what broken public trust looks like,” Planning Board member Sarah Steinberg Heller said, asking project representative Chad Branon to relay the message to Garland, and that she hoped to see “some humility” in that regard as the project advanced.
Public concern broadly focused on concerns about how so many new wells would affect the water supply, traffic and road impacts, and conflicts with the town’s Master Plan, which recommends dense, new developments be within walking distance of downtown and connected to town water and sewer utilities. The Board received 76 pages of letters from the public, all in opposition to the project, Planning Board Chair Ivy Vann told the 37 virtual meeting attendees. Some speakers asked what the recourse would be if aquifers would be depleted over time, or how to hold the developers accountable for maintaining conditions associated with potential density bonuses, such as publicly accessible hiking trails.
Two former Eco Village residents spoke during the meeting, and both encouraged the town to take advantage of the site’s opportunities. “If we think about it creatively, it could be a real asset to the area where there’s not a lot of housing,” 12-year resident Amy Wilson told the Board, even if the ultimate design is different than the standing proposal.
Some requests from the public went beyond the Planning Board’s jurisdiction, Steinberg Heller and Vann cautioned. “We don’t have a mechanism for preventing development in the rural district,” Vann said, and zoning ordinance dictates the lot is allowed to be subdivided into 15 three-acre lots. However, the Planning Board does have “a few tools” they can use to ensure that development on the site is done optimally, she said, which is where the Open Space Residential Development criteria comes in. That allows the Planning Board to ask that houses be clustered together to minimize sprawl, and although “density bonuses,” or additional units can be awarded to developers, the Board is not obligated to grant them, she said. The Planning Board alone also can’t guarantee that any approved housing be affordable, Vann also explained to attendees, after some brought up the high market prices of new, small houses on small lots elsewhere in town.
The Board is next scheduled to consider the project on April 12.