Cape Cod Commission Won’t Review HAC Shelter Plan

BARNSTABLE – Saying it won’t worsen traffic or cause other regional impacts, the Cape Cod Commission has declined to review a proposal to convert the former Eagle Pond Nursing Home to a new transitional shelter for homeless families.

Under development by the Housing Assistance Corporation (HAC), the project has drawn keen interest in Harwich, which owns the only road leading to the facility.

Jordan Velozo, the commission’s chief regulatory officer, told the body last week that it should deny a request to conduct a discretionary review of the project, which she said does not meet the review standards set out by the Cape Cod Commission Act. To qualify for review, a project must not only demonstrate a regional impact, but must specify which of 10 factors create that impact, like traffic flow, environmental impacts and effects on public infrastructure.

HAC purchased the former 142-bed nursing home at 1 Love Lane, a dead end where Main Street in North Harwich crosses the Dennis town line, and plans to use it to house as many as 79 families who would otherwise have no safe place to live. The developers say a key component of the operation is educational: residents will be required to attend courses on financial management, family planning, MassHealth enrollment, housing programs, parenting, cooking and other life skills. HAC officials say this educational model has proven successful in other shelters on Cape Cod, and focuses on families — often single parents with children — who remain in the shelter for a short period of time until they can find permanent housing. HAC is developing the project under the so-called Dover Amendment, a state law that allows projects with educational components to bypass most town regulatory review.

Velozo argued that, under the commission’s regulations, the conversion of the property does not represent a change of use. “Both a nursing home and a temporary shelter are considered residential uses,” she said. Because the proposed shelter doesn’t provide rental or ownership housing units, it does not fall under the commission’s Regional Policy Plan, she added.

Dennis Town Planner Paul Foley said he sought to send the project to the commission under a mandatory referral because of the change of use of a private healthcare facility, but was told that to do so, the departing nursing home would have to apply for a permit.

“Unfortunately, when a healthcare facility leaves, they don’t need a local permit. In fact, they don’t need anything. They just filed a form letter with [the state Department of Public Health] and they were gone,” Foley said. The nursing home was a vital, essential service in town, Foley said. While he acknowledged that there is no change of use under the commission’s rules, the building code called the nursing home an institutional use, and HAC is proposing an educational use. “In any case, a private healthcare facility was replaced by something that is not a private healthcare facility,” he argued.

In many respects, the transitional shelter is a less intense use of the property than a nursing home, proponents said. The impact on water resources is less, since it will use less water and generate less than half of the wastewater the nursing home did. As for the impact on local schools, “the developer has indicated that most school-age children at the facility would likely continue to attend the same school that they’re attending, and as such no regional impact on public education facilities is anticipated here,” Velozo said.

Cape Cod Commission Deputy Director Steven Tupper said that engineering standards for similar uses — special needs affordable housing and income-limited affordable housing — predict fewer vehicle trips than happened when the nursing home was in operation. On a typical weekday, a 177-resident transitional shelter would be expected to produce 140 to 258 vehicle trips, compared to 392 for a 128-bed nursing home.

“It’s worth noting that while all vehicle trips to and from the site would go through the intersection of Main Street and Depot Road in the town of Harwich, it is not anticipated that that intersection, or any other regional intersections, would be significantly impacted,” Tupper said.

“We believe this will generate more traffic, not less,” Foley countered. “The nursing home residents didn’t go anywhere. They stayed there. They did not get many visitors, sadly. The coming and going was all staff.”

Attorney Robert Brennan, representing HAC, said the difference in the number of employees is significant, with around six workers at the shelter compared to 60 at the nursing home. “The staffing is a tenfold difference,” he said.

Harwich Town Administrator Joseph Powers spoke at the meeting, saying the project clearly has a regional impact given its proximity to the town line.

“The town of Harwich and the select board and the administration are keenly interested in this, because we are looking for an opportunity to be spoken with and heard from,” he said.

“I am mystified how anyone can come to any conclusions on the impact on the town of Harwich without formally and officially speaking with the town of Harwich,” he said. “We look forward to our opportunity to speak.”

A number of citizens spoke out against the project in a May 20 public hearing, many of whom worried that the transitional shelter would be used to house people who are in the country illegally. A few of the comments were overtly racist.

Brennan said that those comments “went off in a very dark direction that had nothing to do with the substance of the project. Those raised concerns in other corners of the state, including, I know, the Attorney General’s office,” he said. Peter Okun, Provincetown’s member of the commission, questioned why Dennis and Harwich are seeking the commission’s review.

“They obviously want us to interfere with this shelter going into place, and I don’t want to ask the question as to why that is, what are the real reasons behind this,” he said. “We need to have shelter for our homeless people as housing gets more and more difficult,” Okun said. “We need to get people off the streets, we need to teach them to fend for themselves.”

“I, for one, will not vote to interfere with that,” he said.

Brewster member Elizabeth Taylor disagreed, saying those who want review by the commission don’t necessarily seek to derail the HAC project.

“I think when the commission gets involved, an application and a development is improved and becomes the best of what it can be,” she said. “And I think the shelter is an excellent idea. I just want to make sure that it happens the best way possible and doesn’t have detrimental effects on the area.”

The commission voted 12-3 not to review the project, with three members in the minority: Taylor, Jacqueline Etsten of Harwich and Catherine Ledec of Barnstable.