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After a town-wide open hearing on February 10, the Millis Board of Selectmen waived the town’s right to purchase a portion of the Glen Ellen property, and the site continues on track for purchase by Toll Brothers to develop a 324-unit senior residential community.
“The question we are faced with tonight is one of great strategic importance to the town,” Selectman James McCaffrey said as the meeting opened, listing open space purchases the town had previously approved. “This would be the largest housing development in the history of this town.” He also noted the impact that the development would have on neighboring towns and Millis abutters to the property.
Under a state regulation called Chapter 61B, property owners — in this case, Corcoran Jennison, the current owners of Glen Ellen — can designate a portion of their land as recreational in exchange for a lower tax rate on that acreage. However, when that acreage comes under future agreement to be sold, a town can match the purchase and sale price and buy the land. The portion of Glen Ellen covered by Chapter 61B is under a sales agreement for $13 million, and that is the amount the town would have had to pay to purchase the property. The agreement would have cost Millis anywhere from $17 million to $20 million, depending on the length of financing and secured interest rate. In addition, if Millis had exercised its right to purchase the acreage, the town would have had to provide a non-refundable $550,000 deposit as early as two days after Corcoran Jennison received the town’s purchase agreement.
The Glen Ellen property, covered under three different purchase and sale agreements between Corcoran Jennison and Toll Brothers, consists of 230 acres, 223 of which are in Millis. Seventy-eight acres will be preserved as open space to be maintained through the new community’s homeowner association, according to Toll Brothers. The acreage that is covered under Chapter 61B includes the driving range and golf course, and does not include acreage bordering Holliston, nor does it include the swimming pool, tennis courts, or other structures or facilities.
The vote to waive the town’s right of first refusal was not unanimous. Selectmen McCaffrey and James Neville voted yes on the motion to waive the town’s right to purchase the property, while Chairman Christopher Smith voted no, instead preferring to wait until the 120-day decision period under Chapter 61B was closer to expiration. The purchase and sale agreement is dated November 23, 2015, meaning that the town had a right of first refusal under Chapter 61B to purchase the property until March 22, 2016.
“To wait is to effectively waive our right anyway,” McCaffrey said during discussion. “Waiting six weeks is essentially kicking the can down the road.”
“We don’t know what’s going to happen in the next six weeks,” Smith said. “I would never waive the town’s right.”
Neville added that, along with McCaffrey, he was in favor of waiving the town’s right of first refusal, saying that the decision would not be made solely on the discussion arising during the meeting, but from all of the information that the selectmen had gathered during the process.
Residents of Millis and Holliston spoke to the Board during the meeting, voicing concerns about the project’s impact on traffic, home valuation, water use and runoff, and land preservation. Residents also questioned the purchase price, noting that $13 million is far above the current land valuation.
A special permit was issued in 2008 by the Millis Planning Board for Glen Ellen to sell the property for future development of up to 341 units of senior residential housing. After years of litigation, that permit was approved in 2012. Normally, permits of this nature are good for two years, but the Massachusetts legislature in 2012 granted a four-year extension on such permits as part of a job and growth stimulation incentive, meaning that the Planning Board’s original 2008 permit is valid through January 2018.
The permit allows for a developer to build up to a 341-unit senior residential community on the Glen Ellen property. The current plan released by Toll Brothers consists of 324 housing units — 108 single-family detached homes, and 216 townhouses in groups of two to four units. The detached homes have an estimated sale price of $515,000, while the townhouses would sell for $440,000.
In a proposed five-year buildout plan, in which 20 percent of the proposed units are built and all are sold each year, the development would net Millis approximately $525,000 per year in added property tax revenues, culminating in an approximate annual $2.5 million in property taxes once the community is fully built out and sold through. Toll Brothers has an eight-year window for the full build-out, according to the selectmen.
If Millis were to have purchased the Glen Ellen property, the average residential property tax bill would have risen about $300 per year, given a 30-year loan period, an interest rate of 3.5 percent, and an additional $0.83 per $1000 valuation. The current average single-family home valuation in Millis is about $357,000, and the current average property tax bill is about $6,200. There would have been no restrictions on how the town could have used the property, Smith said.
According to a January 2016 report for Toll Brothers by ESE Consultants, the completed community will add an estimated 509 new Millis residents once the community is fully built-out and sold through.
Although that population consists solely of adults and would not add school-age children to the Millis school system, it could foster intra-town movement, with current Millis empty-nesters moving into the new community and families with school-age children taking their place in existing Millis homes.
The community will have its own slew of private services like trash pickup, snow plowing, and road maintenance, all paid for through a homeowner association fee estimated at $350 per month per housing unit. The development also includes a sewage treatment plant.