Framingham Mayor Doubles Down On High Density Nobscot Development

Ignoring the Nobscot community's well-argued defense of its village, the Mayor appears intent on bowing to developer interests.

This is an update to a prior analysis: The Framingham Mayor's Nobscot Folly

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For months, the Mayor has schemed to use the MBTA Communities Law, designed to promote high density housing development adjacent to major transit corridors, as cover to force out of scale high density housing on Nobscot, a rural village far from transit hubs. 

Insight into the Mayor’s next move on Nobscot was obtained by noticing that in a Planning Board meeting scheduled for Thursday, November 14, 2024, the next iteration of the Mayor's plan to destroy the village character of Nobscot was going to make an appearance.

The meeting was cancelled, but agenda materials from the Planning Board meeting were downloaded by the author prior to its cancellation and provide very instructive intelligence on the Mayor’s current intentions.

The Mayor now wants to increase the number of Nobscot housing units to 620 at 20 units/acre, up from 552 at 15 units/acre in the Planning Board recommendation submitted to the City Council.

In the face of well-argued Nobscot community resistance, the Mayor doubles down.

At face value, the entire Nobscot high density housing proposition has never made any sense, except that several real estate developers appear to be in special favor with the Mayor, as they lobby to maximize their profits from developing a large parcel of originally wooded landscape near the intersection of Edmands and Edgell roads.

The parcel in question is shown below with the latest Mayoral plan (image taken from the cancelled Planning Board meeting materials):

To place this in context, it is the 4^th iteration of planning for Nobscot:

1. Iteration 1: August 22, 2024 – zero units

2. Iteration 2: September 19, 2024 – 1,104 units @ 30 units/acre

3. Iteration 3: September 24, 2024 – 552 units @ 15 units/acre (submitted to the City Council)

4. Iteration 4: November 14, 2024 – 620 units @ 20 units/acre

To fill in the developer picture, the lots in the Nobscot parcel planned for rezoning and development are owned by 4 entities, with their principals shown in parentheses, where known:

• J & Company, LLC (Joseph B Pasquale)

• Northside, LLC (Robert E Foley)

• 790 Edgell Road LLC (Robert E Foley)

• Joann Paradis Trust (?)

This was figured out by using the city’s GIS Mapping Tool and the state corporation database search tools. The developers have invested about $2.5 million in land acquisition so far.

Looking at the financial aspects of the Nobscot development provides some insight into the upside for the developers and the downside for the city.

Profit for the Developers

If 620 2-3 bedroom units were built on the Nobscot parcel, and if the average profit on each was just $50,000, the total profit would be $31 million, so big money is at stake here for the developers. When the Mayor pushed for 620 units, rather than 552 units, he upped the estimated developer profits by at least $3.6 million.

That is not pocket change.

Loss for the City

If the units were each assessed at about $500,000, the city would take in an additional $3.9 million in annual property tax revenue from the development. However, there is a strong likelihood that each unit will generate at least one more student for Framingham Public Schools, as the units will be 2-3 bedrooms. That means another 620 students would be added to the school district.

Currently, city tax revenue funds about $86 million of the school district annual budget, supporting about 9,000 students, so the city cost per added student is about $9,500. [Chapter 70 state aid supplies another $9,500 for each student at present.]

That means that the schools annual budget would need an added $6.2 million to accommodate the flood of new students. The costs could be even higher than this, because added Chapter 70 state education aid may well be less than average for these new students, as they almost certainly will not fall into the low income family or English Language Learner categories which boost added Chapter 70 funding.

That’s a losing proposition as the development would produce an estimated net annual loss to the city of at least $2.3 million ($6.2 million in added student costs less the $3.9 million in new revenue) and highlights the financial threat to the city posed by the Mayor’s plan for Nobscot.

Further, these estimates are for operating costs only. Such an increase in students from the Nobscot development could trigger a need to bring another elementary school online, with substantial capital costs.

This analysis is based on back-of-the-envelope calculations, but nowhere in sight is any estimate coming from the city on the financial impact of Nobscot development on the schools.

It is worth noting that in the past Framingham Public Schools have downplayed the role of apartment or condo buildings in adding students to the schools, estimating only 1 additional student for every 6 added apartments.

That may be true for developments like The Buckley or the Green at 9 & 90, where the average bedroom count for an apartment is about 1-1.5.

But it is completely wrong for 2-3 bedroom apartments, which are designed to be occupied by families with children, and which are the type of units especially promoted by the new zoning which would apply to Nobscot.

Nobscot also presents an imminent threat, as it is shovel-ready and development, if approved, would proceed very rapidly.

Bottom Line

The financials look great for the developers, but lousy for the city.

Solution

The simple solution, which has been raised before, is to zero out the Nobscot development and switch the units required by the MBTA Communities Law to the Staples property. Its latest iteration is shown below (taken from the cancelled Planning Board meeting agenda):

It is crystal clear that if the density for the Staples property was simply increased from 15 units/acre to 30 units/acre, it could accommodate an additional 720 units, completely compensating for zeroing out the 620 Nobscot units.

It is a puzzlement that this is not seen as a solution much more aligned with the MBTA Communities Law objective of increasing high density housing adjacent to major transit corridors. The 9/90 District parcel is sandwiched between Route 9 and I-90, arguably the best transit access location in all of MetroWest.

It also has the advantage for the city that development of the Staples property would take a great deal of time, or might never happen, greatly diminishing the threat of flooding the schools with more students in the near future.

There are no developers waiting in the wings for the Staples property and it is not shovel ready.

The Burning Question

Why is the Mayor so determined to shove a high density development on a rural village, which would forever alter the character of that village with floods of traffic, overburden the schools with floods of students, and be a substantial net financial loser for the city?

The developers make out big time.

The city loses out big time.

Explain that, Mayor Sisitsky!