New Southfield Plan Consists of Potential for Extra Housing

The Southfield Redevelopment Authority supported modifications that may give the brand new grasp improvement staff flexibility to construct extra housing relying upon market circumstances.

New England Improvement and Brookfield Properties are looking for the modifications to jumpstart exercise on the 1,450-acre former South Weymouth Naval Air Station property.

“This is step one in a radical course of during which we can be working intently with city officers in Weymouth, Rockland and Abington,” New England Improvement Vice Chairman John Twohig mentioned in a press release.

The revised zoning would retain the present most buildouts of 8 million sq. toes of economic area and three,855 residential items, for a complete of 13 million sq. toes of improvement.

However it will give the brand new grasp builders the choice of shifting the commercial-residential combine, relying upon market circumstances. The doc cites an instance during which a 1.3 million-square-foot lower in industrial improvement would give builders the best to construct an extra 1,000 housing items.

The brand new mixed-use improvement district, or “MUDD,” would solely apply to the undeveloped sections of the property.

“The MUDD provisions are meant to advertise artistic, environment friendly and applicable options for the event of complicated websites” and encourage complementary land makes use of,” Twohig wrote in a letter to the SRA on March 7.

Roughly 1,275 housing items have been developed at Southfield since 2011, however industrial improvement has been just about non-existent for the reason that naval air base closed in 1995. The majority of the event websites are on the Weymouth part of the property.

The one potential main industrial tenant, Dutch robotics agency Prodrive Applied sciences, dropped plans for a 300,000-square-foot headquarters in 2019 because the earlier grasp developer confronted elimination from its function.

The bottom accommodates roughly 335 acres of developable land, in line with a fiscal evaluation submitted to the SRA on March 3 by consultants RKG Assoc.

A predominantly-residential improvement would supply the best fiscal advantages to the communities, the RKG report mentioned, with annual internet revenues of $12.6 million in Weymouth, $5.4 million in Abington and $5.5 million in Rockland. The property at the moment contributes a mixed $5.3 million in property taxes, in line with RKG.

The Southfield Redevelopment Authority voted to assist the proposal final week. Modifications to the redevelopment plan additionally require approval of the legislative our bodies in all three cities.

An extra public assembly can be held by the Southfield Redevelopment Authority on March 29, Land Use Administrator Jim Younger mentioned. The following steps can be critiques by the Weymouth Planning Board and City Council, and potential votes by Abington and Rockland city conferences this fall.

The New England Improvement/Brookfield staff gained the nod from base overseers to take over the challenge in 2019. In a presentation, builders mentioned the 8 million-square-foot industrial zoning portion was not possible due to inadequate demand.

Within the newest submission, builders mentioned they’ll search to supply an interim water provide from the city of Weymouth or the Abington-Rockland Joint Water Works system. The long-term plan would faucet into Weymouth’s system if the city joins the MWRA pipeline community, a plan floated by Weymouth Mayor Robert Hedlund in 2021.

Failure to safe a long-term water supply led to the elimination of the earlier grasp developer, LStar Communities.

The Southfield Redevelopment Authority eliminated LStar as grasp developer in 2019, after Hedlund refused to offer municipal water for future improvement. Hedlund cited a authorized dispute between then-LStar executives and its former CEO.

In 2021, a Superior Courtroom decide ordered LStar to pay the redevelopment authority $36 million for its unpaid share of predevelopment and infrastructure prices.