‘No easy answer’ to concerns over proposed development

Town officials and residents have “no easy answer” to their worries about the proposed 300-unit Murphy’s Farm housing development in East Dracut, Community Development Director Alison Manugian told a packed room at Town Hall Tuesday night.

The Board of Selectmen had the opportunity to comment on a proposal from Andover-based O’brien Homes that would mean 1,200 bedrooms — each unit having four bedrooms — on 50 acres. Although the meeting was not a public hearing on the plan, town residents did have a chance to speak.

Commenting on the Murphy’s Farm project is the selectmen’s only power under the provisions of Chapter 40B, the state’s affordable housing law. Approval rests first with the state and then with the Zoning Board of Appeals. Selectmen can, of course, express their concerns to the ZBA at the appropriate time, but it is the ZBA that approves or denies a comprehensive permit for the project.

“Even though this is a hardship on our community, we really don’t have much we can do. Where do we turn? Where do we go?” Selectman Joe Dirocco asked. Dirocco chaired the meeting because Chair Alison Genest was absent.

Town resident Allison Stilian asked a question similar to Dirocco’s when she spoke. “Is the state going to come in and pay for a brand new school, new teachers, new staffing?” she said. “Where do we go? How do we stop this?”

Selectman Tony Archinski encouraged the audience not to give up. He recalled, “My first foray into politics was stopping a 40B proposal in my neighborhood. If you don’t want this, fight.”

The town is at the very beginning stages of working with the Massachusetts

School Building Authority about plans for the Campbell School, and it has just submitted a statement of interest for work on the Greenmont School. Working through the complex MSBA process can take years, and, in the end, requires approval from voters at the ballot box and from residents at Town Meeting to fund the project.

For example, when neighboring Tyngsboro finally received approvals for a new middle school in 2022, it ended a process that began more than a decade before.

Tim Crowley, of Dracut, introduced another issue with the plan. “I come at this from a public safety issue,” he said.

He said he’s seen traffic volume grow in the 25 years he has lived in the neighborhood. “Adding 600 more cars is not going to make things safer,” he added.

A resident of the Regency in Methuen, who did not further identify himself, recalled the kerfuffle a year ago with Brox Industries.

He is a member of a political action committee at the Regency, which is located very close to the proposed Dracut development. He said his committee has worked frequently with Methuen on issues. “This time I think we can help Dracut,” he said.

Archinski spoke of the need for affordable housing, without which young residents of town will be forced to move away. “Everyone wants to provide affordable housing,” he said.

“The issue here is going from 22 single-family homes to 300 homes. That math doesn’t work,” Archinski said.

In 2017, O’brien Homes had received approval to build single-family homes. The land was cleared in 2019, but work stopped.

Archinski questioned whether the existing infrastructure, particularly wa

ter and sewer, in that section of Dracut can handle the demand from the new

houses. The water lines may not be adequate to the demand, he said.

The project would use the Methuen sewer system and not Duck Island in Lowell. The Methuen system has more than enough capacity

for the reimbursement of mileage expenses that she did not incur.

Hayes is scheduled to appear in Merrimack County Superior Court at 8:30 a.m. Feb. 27.

According to the release, the maximum penalty for theft by deception, a Class A felony, is seven and a half to 15 years in prison. The