Blueberry Hill Townhouse Development Approved

Five years after first receiving approval from the Melrose Planning Board, the Blueberry Hill townhouse subdivision off Forest Street in Melrose is finally moving ahead.

The Melrose Planning Board voted unanimously on Monday night to approve both the project's affordable housing permit—two of the units will be designated as affordable—and the overall site plan review that examines all aspects of the project, subject to landscaping, street lighting and other details of the plan receiving approval from the board's Design Review Subcommittee.

Blueberry Hill's approval is also subject to several other conditions, including a few that resulting from a late letter from the Melrose Department of Public Works and DPW Superintendent Bob Beshara that Planning Board members read just as the public hearing began Monday night.

In the letter, the city requested specific calculations regarding the blasting and shaping of the bedrock on the site that Mike Penney, a geotechnical engineer from firm GeoInsight, said would be impractical given the highly variable nature of the bedrock on the site, which "changes so much in 10, 20, 50 feet.

"In this case with this kind of rock, I would strongly recommend that the most key aspect of making this a successful rock cut is what you do after the face has been exposed," Penney said.

Developer Delta Fairfield Corporation must hire a professional geotechnical engineer as one of the conditions of the project's approval. That engineer would oversee the blasting and shaping, and certify the resulting walls are stable enough for the project.

"That level of attention gives me a level of comfort," board member John Sadowski said. "I think it's absolutely consistent with what I think is the intent in Bob’s [Beshara] letter."

New water main on Forest Street—but how long?

The city also requested the Delta Fairfield to replace the current and aging 6-inch water main along Forest Street with a new 8-inch main, and to repave Forest Street curb-to-curb after the installation.

Attorney Patrick McAvoy, representing the developer, said that Delta Fairfield would be willing to replace the water main, but only the approximately 150 feet from Lebanon Street to the entrance of the new development—not the additional 100 feet to Hunt's Terrace, that the city requested.

"What we didn't anticipate—and we don't know where it's coming from—is the entire street be repaved from Lebanon to Hunt's Terrace, which is really an incredible expense considering the size and scope of this development," McAvoy said.

Delta Fairfield's proposal is to install an 8-inch line from Lebanon Street to Blueberry Hill Lane, rather than down to Hunt's Terrace, and repave that length of roadway, McAvoy said. That new water main, he said, would also supply the closest fire hydrants on Lebanon Street.

Changes over the last 15 months

The Planning Board originally approved the subdivision in 2006, but after failing to get enough votes from the Zoning Board of Appeals, an appeal in Land Court, and a subsequent settlement, .

After a , in August the Planning Board set Monday as a .

At the start of Monday's hearing, McAvoy said "we think we've made a lot of progress with the development since we started site plan review and I didn’t want that to get lost in us inching along for the past four or five months."

McAvoy said among the changes made since the project came back before the board last summer are:

• Project started out with 20 units. Reduced to 19 by eliminating one of the units on Lot 3, overlooking Forest Street, which decreases the size of the necessary wall on the east side of the project.

• All 20 units in the original proposal were three-bedroom units. The project is now five two-bedroom units and 14 three-bedroom units. The number of affordable units has stayed the same.

• Lowered the height and scale of buildings on the east side of the development to reduce visual impact on Forest Street.

• Raised buildings on the west side of the development to minimize the ledge cut.

• Gone from 30 parking spaces to 31, and now 26 indoor spaces, as opposed to 20.

• Increased landscaping on east side of the development to soften visual impact on Forest Street, and eliminated seven driveways from the east side of Blueberry Hill Lane, now replaced by one driveway into the back of two lots.

• Gone from 15 curb cuts to nine.