Let the voters decide

By Matt Gunderson / Staff Writer
Thursday, December 5, 2002

Kunelius property issue to go to STM

STOW - Voters will decide the fate of the Kunelius property - after the Board of Selectmen deferred any decision on the property to a Jan. 13 special Town Meeting last week.

In the meantime, neighbors are rallying support and money in preparation for Town Meeting, hoping to avoid a 30-house subdivision slated for the Red Acre Road parcel.

Last Tuesday, selectmen gave the neighborhood unanimous support for the proposal to bring the matter before Town Meeting, passing its right of first refusal on the Chapter 61 land to voters. Selectmen Chairman Ross Perry said residents had persuasive arguments to place the issue on the Town Meeting warrant and that selectmen are awaiting final wording from the neighborhood before making a recommendation either way on the article.

"At this point, there is no planned direction," he said. "We're waiting to see what the group brings to us...They had done an impressive amount of work prior to the meeting, and they could potentially have a plan in place in a short period of time."

The property is on the market for $1.2 million, but the neighborhood hopes to reduce the cost to the town in January by going through several political channels, said Serena Furman, a Red Acre Road resident. Those include several interested conservation groups and the Eye of the Storm, an equine rescue program.

Furman said the Eye of the Storm is currently interested in finding a permanent residence. If it wanted to make the Kunelius property its new home, the purchase of the property could draw several federal and state grants.

Conservation groups such as the Sudbury Valley Trustees and the Stow Conservation Trust have also expressed interest in the property because it links Stow's conservation lands together.

"We're really wrestling with too much interest, not enough," said Furman.

Furman said the town will match the offer of the developers under the guidelines of Chapter 61, which means the town will still receive 42 acres as per the deal with the developers, CoHousing Resources Inc. and a private group called Mosaic Commons. If voters sanction the purchase next month, that could mean town officials can still pursue their goal of installing a municipal water supply on the land.

Furman said the main concern of residents in the upcoming vote is the increased traffic along Red Acre Road and the damage to the scenic vistas along the street.

"The development is fine, but it's the wrong parcel," she said. "You don't want to be developing land that is zoned conservation/recreation."

Furman said a similar sort of "co-housing development" in Acton has 28 families and 40 children - the type of thing the town may want to avoid if it wants to keep its school costs down, she said.

"Co-housing developments are known as family friendly developments," she said.

John Rosevear, a member of Mosaic Commons, currently lives in a three bedroom ranch house in Acton, but he hopes to someday move to the Kunelius property to live in a more communal atmosphere. While co-housing developments are family friendly, Rosevear disputed the point that they increase traffic because more people have been found to car pool in these types of developments.

Co-housing developments, he said, are collaborative subdivisions that seek to overcome the alienation of neighbors normally found in modern developments. Such developments are designed to create a sense of community and often have common buildings to bring residents closer together.

Rosevear said the developers are still working on a detailed site plan for the 30-house setting, but the group is working toward an environmentally conscious development.

"We're going into this with an eye toward making as few impacts as possible on our surroundings," he said.

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