Pollution concerns nix plan for West Acton housing

Housing advocates have backed off a push to build new units near Main Street and Route 2 after an environmental review turned up pollution concerns. 

Affordable Housing Trust members envisioned as many as six units on what’s now an empty, state-owned lot at 91B Main Street.

The group voted in favor of the project in February but unanimously reversed its decision on April 14 after the environmental report “changed our minds,” Chair Keith Bergman said.

A gas station once operated across the street. Gas stations are notorious in development circles for leaching pollutants into soil, and experts warned that 91B Main could be affected. 

Acton would assume responsibility for any cleanup if it bought 91B, officials said. 

“While acquisitions subject to such risks do happen in the private market, it would increase the cost and risk,” Regional Housing Services Office staff wrote in a summary of the environmental study. 

Advocates have been looking at 91B Main Street for years. Some saw the tract as a prime place to build “workforce housing” for people who earn too much for traditional affordable units but too little to afford Acton’s market rate.

Bergman relayed the housing trust’s decision at a meeting with fellow committee chairs. “We’re disappointed,” he said.

Housing Development Corp. Chair Julie McClure echoed Bergman’s comments about potential pollution but said she’s “grateful that we learned [about] it early in the process.”

The housing trust has $500,000 in American Rescue Plan Act money reserved to buy 91B Main Street. With that purchase off the table, Bergman said, the trust would schedule another meeting to decide how to spend the money. 

In an updated memo, Housing Services Office directors Liz Rust and Kristen Guichard mentioned possible alternative projects, including rental assistance and various “buydown” programs, in which groups purchase a market-rate unit and convert it into restricted affordable housing.