Weston's First Big 40B Under Construction Soon
751 Boston Post Road
Just a heads up that residents will soon see construction start on the first of what could be many large rental apartment developments in Weston. It has been confirmed that Doug Gillespie and his family closed on the land deal to sell their family horse farm at 751-761 Boston Post Road to Millcreek Residential for $16.650M. As you recall, Doug was our former Select Board member for close to 20 years and negotiated this deal towards the end of his tenure on the Select Board earning an $8K fine for altering town records to hide discussions about this project while he was on the board. Not a bad return on investment: $8K for 16.6M! Many of you may not know that Doug was also the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Farm Bureau for over 30 years whose primary mission is to advocate for the farming community in Massachusetts and also served as our state’s Agricultural Commissioner. No comment. Doug retired to Texas after negotiating this deal.
But I digress. The important news is that we will soon see construction start at 751-761 Boston Post Road. This development includes 172 rental apartment units on approximately 12 acres within a total of approximately 60 acres with the remaining acreage being donated as conservation land. This will bring our SHI up to 8.3%, close to the 10% our Town needs to satisfy our affordable housing requirements under state law. If the other two large 40Bs in town - 150 units at 104 Boston Post Road and 180 units at 518 South Avenue - proceed through the appeals process and get approved, our SHI will be close to 15%. With the addition of the newly re-promulgated MBTA 3A guidelines that again require Weston to zone for 750 units of housing, Weston could add 1250 units of rental housing over the next few years. To put this in perspective, our current housing stock consists of approximately 4000 units of housing which is primarily single family homes and smaller condominium developments. The addition of 1250 new rental apartment units under 40B and 3A will increase our housing stock by over 31% primarily in the form of mid and high rise apartment buildings. Sobering by anyone’s estimation and a true game changer for Weston. It’s time to think carefully about how we deal with this situation.
I keep thinking about what Doug Gillespie did… it’s sickening. Firstly, there is an obvious conflict of interest! All of what he did was illegal and his deal to build apartments on his property should be annulled. I think we should get state Attorney General involved. $8K fine… are you kidding me?! I also don’t believe that our town hall officials had no idea of what was going. I remember when conservation committee approved generators to be build on the historical Highland St. These folks don’t care about town or its people.
I think it’s time to fight the state house. These mandates and the traffic they cause are horrible. And what has been found is that it never actually decreases the costs of housing. Unintended consequences of government intervention.