Is Pine Oaks Village Consistent With Local Plans?

 HARWICH – There are different points of view on whether the Pine Oaks Village Homes’ 242-unit affordable/workforce housing project is consistent with the town’s housing production plan and the proposed update to the local comprehensive plan.

Two members of the local planning committee disagree over how the project fits in with the plans and the chair challenged the findings of the town’s chief planning official. 

 The appeals board is presently deliberating on a comprehensive permit on the proposed Mid-Cape Church Homes development that would be located on 34 acres near the intersection of Queen Anne Road and Main Street in North Harwich.

 Several weeks ago, Town Planner and Community Development Director Christine Flynn issued an opinion that the project “is consistent with the town’s 2025 housing production plan (HPP), 2025 final draft local comprehensive plan (LCP) and the Cape Cod Commission‘s regional policy plan’s housing goals and objectives.”

 That position was challenged by Local Planning Committee Chair Joyce McIntyre, whose committee played a major role in developing the two plans.

“The HPP and LCP should not be used to justify what feels like moving backwards, sacrificing pristine acreage to build overly dense apartments, for the bare profit of a few,” McIntyre wrote in a letter to the appeals board in response to Flynn’s opinion.

She said the HPP “prioritizes small housing development projects that integrate affordability and families into underutilized buildings in the community’s seven villages.”  

In a Sept. 30 correspondence to the board of appeals on behalf of his board, Planning Board Chair Duncan Berry wrote that the overall development does not reflect many of the recommendations in the final draft local comprehensive plan, particularly those relating to natural and built systems as well as preserving village character. The North Harwich village and surrounding neighborhoods as well as the Herring River Watershed will be directly impacted by the development, he wrote.

 “The project does address the overwhelming need for a mix of affordable and workforce rental housing therefore, the project is consistent with the housing section of the LCP and does assist the town with the annual housing production goals in the 2025 housing production plan,” Berry wrote in his letter.

 “I also am a member of the local planning committee, and it is my opinion the statements of the town planner are correct,” Ed McManus wrote in a letter to the editor published in this week’s Cape Cod Chronicle. “The first HPP goal is to increase the amount of rental housing.The plan calls for 80 percent rental housing and a POVH4 (Pine Oaks Village Homes IV) will exceed that at 100 percent.”   

 McIntyre made an in-depth presentation to the appeals board on Oct. 14 emphasizing that the plan calls for smaller, scattered infill housing and starter homes in existing neighborhoods and cluster development requiring preservation of open space. McIntyre said these strategies were recommended by residents of the community.   

 In his letter, McManus wrote that the comments of the chair of the local planning committee in her letter to the board were based on her opinion and “not a vote of the committee.”

 Attorney Peter Freeman, representing the POVIV project, also told the appeals board that McIntyre is a member of the “No Pine Oaks Village 4 In North Harwich” organization, which has taken a position against the development.

Another goal of the local planning committee, McManus said, is to minimize the use of open space for affordable housing. POVHIV’s cluster density will allow for less clearing of woods to accommodate a high number of affordable and attainable units, he wrote.

“With small scale projects, more land needs to be cleared to get the same number of units,” wrote McManus.  

In her presentation to the appeals board, McIntyre addressed the impacts of development on Sand Pond and the Herring River, which have been adversely impacted by nitrogen. She said Sand Pond is no longer swimmable during parts of the summer season and the state is mandating for nitrogen reduction in the impaired Herring River Watershed.

She questioned the plan to use Title 5 septic systems in the first phase of the proposed five-phase development plan. The phase would generate 100 gallons of wastewater below the 10,000 gallons per day threshold, which would require installation of a wastewater treatment system.

“Two extra showers and a load of laundry and we’re over this,” McIntyre said of the wastewater treatment threshold proposed for the first phase of development.

While a groundwater discharge permit will be required by the state to install the wastewater treatment plant in later phases, McIntyre urged the board to impose conditions for wastewater treatment provided by Conservation Administrator Amy Usowski.

POVHIV will build and operate a full-scale septic treatment plant to clean the wastewater before it is discharged into the ground, said McManus. Smaller projects only need Title 5 systems, which continue to inject nitrogen into the groundwater, he added. 

McManus also took issue with McIntyre’s statement about the project generating “bare profit for the few.”

“The people who are proposing this, the directors of the nonprofit Mid-Cape Church Homes, Inc. dba Pine Oaks Village Homes, are all volunteers and receive no salary, stipend or per diem for their service,” McManus wrote.  

McIntyre, in her presentation to the board, pushed for implementing Smart Growth principles, emphasizing redevelopment to address housing needs in the seven villages of Harwich and assessing infrastructure such as roads and sewers when weighing the proposed development.

“I encourage you to fully explore the complexity of what you are undertaking within the full limits of the law, fully explore limiting the size of the project, fully explore limiting the scope of the permitting,” McIntyre told the board. Building 242 units “of anything, anywhere in Harwich” is at “a mind boggling scale,” she said.