Update: Special Town Meeting, 2107 ~ Articles 7 & 8, Coast Guard Housing

By Dot Bergin

TR/A’s Fran Decosta answered questions posed by voters during Monday night’s session of Special Town Meeting – Image (c) JMcCT, 2017 all rights reserved – Click to view larger image

What Happens Now? What’s the Fate of the Coast Guard Housing?

Those are the question on voters’ minds today after last night’s Special Town Meeting turned down Article 7, a zoning bylaw amendment to establish the Military Housing Reuse Overlay District. Its companion, a zoning bylaw amendment in Article 8, would amend the Bedford Zoning Map to incorporate the property commonly known as the Coast Guard Housing on Pine Hill road into the Military Housing Reuse Overlay District. The Selectmen, the Finance Committee, and the Planning Board had all recommended approval of both articles.

Zoning amendments require a two-thirds vote to pass, but Article 7 was defeated on a voice vote. After the defeat of Article 7, the Meeting voted to postpone indefinitely Article 8.

Feelings ran high as speakers on both sides of the issue lined up at the microphones to register their opinions. Many speakers applauded the Town’s successful effort to acquire the 5.4 acre “Coast Guard” property from the Federal government and its resale to a private developer as an innovative way of salvaging the existing homes to provide additional, much-needed, smaller-scale housing.

The “rub” came with the way in which the project is currently being handled. Major objections were:

the lack of accessibility in the rehabbed homes;
the disappointingly high price of the homes – currently listed above $459,000; and
little consideration given to the ideas that emerged from the 2014 Charrettes.

The developer, TR/Advisors, originally planned to offer the rehabbed homes for rental for one year but changed their marketing strategy to meet the demand for homes to purchase.

One questioner asked, “if we do not pass the article, where does that leave us?” Shawn Hannigan, Planning Board Chair, pointed out the difficulties of “going back to the drawing board.” He said variables were vetted in the RFP process and in public hearings. “Everything is a trade-off… We want to get the maximum value for the town in the aggregate.”