The rumors are over. Whispering about thousands of housing units can now become conversations with normal, or perhaps amplified, volume.
The final proposal: 2,855 households by the year 2017.
California-based master developer Lennar Partners has put a number out there, a number that has been the most talked about this year in connection with redeveloping the 1,405-acre former naval air station located in parts of Weymouth, Rockland and Abington.
In the end, it wasn’t too surprising. Lennar Vice President Greg Morrell said in July that the number wouldn’t exceed 3,000, and most expected something close to that ceiling.
The developer’s justification is that employees working at proposed biotech and pharmaceutical firms on the base must have places in which to live.
“If we could build an economically viable project without building one home, I would do it,” Morrell said.
Lennar’s proposal has more than four times as many households as the current 1998 reuse plan, which calls for 700 senior housing units, but Lennar estimates creating less than one-third the jobs that the current reuse plan proposes.
No matter how you cut it, that doesn’t sit well with some.
“I think it’s too many houses,” Weymouth Town Councilor Paul Leary said. “I really do, for the number of jobs.”
Lennar officials counter that the high-paying jobs it wants to create will not be possible without considerable amounts of housing, and it says that there will be all kinds – apartments, condominiums, townhouses and single-family homes. The breakdown:
575 apartments, 300 of which will be for senior living. 340 condominiums. 1,320 townhouses. 470 garden-style single-family homes. 150 single-family homes near the proposed golf course.
Prices would range from $250,000 for some condos to almost $1 million for homes along the golf course.
“There will be something for singles and seniors,” Lennar design consultant Evan Rose said. “First-time buyers and empty nesters.”
Many fear children will worsen strain on overtaxed schools
By JESSICA VAN SACK
The Patriot Ledger
WEYMOUTH – It was described as a veritable utopia:
The convenience of shuttle buses zipping commuters to the train. Residents happily stopping by a small village flower shop to pick up a little surprise. Or enjoying a nature walk, watching the turtles trudge by. Grabbing a bite to eat at a local cafe, no more than a five-minute walk from home.
That was the vision that California-based Lennar Partners, master developers of the South Weymouth Naval Air Base, attempted to sell the crowd last night.
Their proposal for clusters of cozy villages and a biotech center met with a slightly skeptical audience that was unprepared to endorse anything outright, but appeared to appreciate a balance of housing, open space and jobs.
“It sounds like they put more thought into this,” said Mark Leipert, a Pennsylvania-based geologist for the U.S. Navy serving as project manager for the environmental clean-up of the base.
Leipert added, however, that the roughly 2,500 jobs being proposed does not meet Navy demands. Lennar needs naval approval for the project to move forward.
Officials said they were concerned about the strain that more children will put on schools. Weymouth District 5 Town Councilor Paul Leary said estimates of a $7,000 per-pupil cost to towns did not take into account extra schools that might need to be built.
“There are still a lot of unanswered questions,” Leary said.
Several town officials and residents from Abington, Rockland and Weymouth yesterday called for an independent review because, they said, the plan seemed almost too good to be true.
“We need to look at the details,” said former Abington selectman Joe Shea, 58.
Weymouth Mayor David Madden said proposals to add more than 1,000 biotech jobs was an “attractive component of the plan.”
“I think this a very good beginning,” he said.
Robert Lundquist, chairman of South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp., the public agency overseeing base redevelopment, said he was struck by the more than 70 percent of the site proposed as open space.
“Lennar listened very carefully to folks,” he said.
However, other Tri-Town members said winning over the towns will come down to dollars.
“That’s what this is all about,” said John Ward, Rockland’s Tri-Town representative. “How much money is going to be generated back to towns.”
A few attendees immediately opposed the plan.
“It is a big negative,” said Beth Sortin, an Abington resident serving on the restoration advisory board, which is overseeing the Navy’s environmental cleanup of the base.
She said the type of jobs called for concern her.
“When I hear about bio labs I get a little nervous,” she said.
Nothing but praise came from local labor guild workers, who predict the project would create thousands of union construction jobs over 12 years.
“It’s good, especially for me,” said Stephen Senices, 33, of Weymouth, a member of the District Council 35 painter’s union. “That’ll take me into retirement.”
MAPS: A before and after look