With disparate backstories, developments get underway
While site-clearing for a market-rate subdivision is well underway, affordable housing projects are still facing headwinds.
After a bitter legal fight, site-clearing for a sprawling West Acton subdivision is well underway.
Builders felled swaths of trees at Main and Highland Streets this summer and recently secured permits to demolish two remaining homes on the property.
A judge said the controversial project passes muster. Even so, longtime Acton resident Gary Clayton groaned when a reporter mentioned the tree-cutting last week. Conant Street resident Kathy Johnston called the act “unconscionable” in a letter to the editor of The Acton Bridge.
Another project is springing up off Old Marlboro Road under different circumstances — and with the full-throated support of town officials.
Regarding the Old Marlboro Road project — known as Assabet River Homes at the Bluff — Acton Housing Development Corp. Chair Julie McClure said, “We’re really thrilled that we’re doing it.”
Main Street subdivision
Symes Development & Permitting envisions 20 new single-family homes around two cul-de-sacs off Main Street. Neighbors balked at the plans, and Symes sued the town twice over what its executives felt were unfair conditions on initial approvals from municipal boards.
By last week, trees on the site were gone, and one of the two remaining houses was reduced to rubble.
Symes’ Jeff Rhuda said he expects it will take most of the rest of 2025 to build new infrastructure, including pavement for the cul-de-sacs. Crews are tackling the project in phases, and Rhuda said it could take two to three years to complete.
Assabet River Bluff
The Symes plan is a market-rate development. On the other side of the Assabet River, construction preparation is underway for three new affordable homes near Old Marlboro Road’s junction with the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail. The project is a multi-agency effort and includes two affordable rental units in an existing two-family house.
The entire property is seven acres, with six reserved as open space.
Supporters hail the arrangement as an example of cooperation between conservation and affordable housing groups, which are often at odds. Supporters similarly tout Assabet River Bluff as a model for future projects.
“This project makes it possible for both goals to be reached,” McClure said, referencing open space and housing.
In a recent meeting of housing advocates, Regional Housing Services Director Liz Rust said crews expect to finish the first new home at Assabet River Bluff by April or May 2026.
Two additional large apartment complexes promise 327 market-rate and 111 affordable units between them on Baker Avenue and Forest Ridge Road. The Zoning Board of Appeals has approved applications for both projects.
Affordable housing construction projects are still facing headwinds, though, and neither developer had pulled building permits as of last week.
