BROOKLINE — The owner of property across from Brookline High School is moving forward with plans for a seven-story, 99-unit apartment building under the state’s Chapter 40B affordable housing law.
But town officials, who have long eyed the Cypress Street property as a possible location to expand the overcrowded high school, have other ideas.
The Board of Selectmen voted Tuesday night to appoint a 107-111 Cypress Street Acquisition Study Committee and spend $50,000 to hire a consultant to evaluate the property for a potential high school expansion or other municipal use. The board wants the committee to appraise its value and come up with a potential financing strategy by Columbus Day.
“My goal is to make it a friendly transaction, but as far as I’m concerned every tool we have is on the table to acquire the property,’’ said selectmen chair Neil Wishinsky.
Residents of the Cypress Street area who attended the public hearing on the 40B proposal opposed the housing plans and urged the town to purchase the land.
The approximately 20 people who spoke all opposed the project, calling the traffic and congestion along Cypress street already a nightmare even without the added housing units. They said the proposed building is too big and out of scale with the neighborhood, challenged the design putting parking on the first-floor level, and questioned the need for 107 parking spaces when it’s so close to public transportation.
“This is the wrong use of a very good site, and it shouldn’t be allowed,’’ said Andrew Olins, a Town Meeting member.
Olins urged selectmen to pursue the site as a potential high school annex and to be creative, considering mixed-use options for the property with classrooms potentially sharing a building with housing.
The approximately 60 residents in attendance cheered at any mention of the property being purchased by the town rather than privately developed.
Wishinsky said options for the town include a negotiated purchase for the property, which now has a two-story building that Brigham and Women’s Hospital rents for clerical offices, or taking the property by eminent domain.
A lawyer representing property owner Henry Lewis and the developer, The Aspen Group, said they are moving forward with plans to build apartments under the state’s 40B affordable housing law. The law streamlines the approval process and requires Zoning Boards of Appeals to approve housing developments under flexible zoning rules if 20 to 25 percent of the units are set aside as affordable.
“Obviously if the town offers a gigantic amount of money, we’ll listen,’’ lawyer Mark Bobrowski said after the selectmen’s decision to appoint the acquisition committee.
The 40B application lists a prepermit land value of $6 million, while the town’s assessment puts a value of approximately $9.7 million on the nearly one-acre property at the intersection of Cypress and Brington Road.
This is the fifth 40B proposal to come before the Board of Selectmen in the past four months, according to Wishinsky, who said there is a rush by developers to get their applications filed before the town reaches the limits of the law.
Developers can take advantage of the law until 1.5 percent of a municipality’s land is used for affordable housing or 10 percent of its housing stock falls into the affordable housing category.
“We’re getting very close to the 10 percent, and then we’ll be able to get control of our zoning once again,’’ Wishinsky said at the start of the public hearing.
The property, just a stone’s throw from the Brookline Hills MBTA stop along the Green Line near the intersection with Route 9, is in the perfect location for “smart growth’’ development because of its proximity to public transportation, Bobrowski said.
Its proximity also makes the property potentially desirable as an answer to overcrowding at the high school. Enrollment has increased by more than 1,000 students across the system since 2010, according to school department figures, including 220 additional students at the high school.
But after “amicable’’ discussions for a sale of the property between school officials and the land owner over a year ago, “things just lost momentum,’’ Bobrowski said.
“We meant no disrespect by filing this application, but time was running out, as you said,’’ Bobrowski told selectmen, referring to the town’s nearing the 10 percent threshhold exempting it from the 40B law.
School Committee chairwoman Susan Wolf Ditkoff said last week that the negotiations were stalled while the town awaited word from the Massachusetts School Building Authority, which ultimately rejected the town’s application for state funds to offset high school expansion costs.
“The town wasn’t in a position to make definitive decisions without knowing the status of state funding,’’ she said.
The town is now moving forward with plans to build a ninth elementary school and explore options for expanding the high school program without state funding.
Ellen Ishkanian can be reached at eishkanian@gmail.com.
