200 Pond Road senior living proposal on Wellesley/Natick line coming to Planning Board

The Wellesley Planning Board on Monday, Aug. 7 is slated to get a presentation from the team behind a proposed senior living complex at 200 Pond Rd., a Wellesley address for property mainly in Natick near Rte. 135.  The presentation is agenda item #5 at the meeting, scheduled to start at 6:30pm.

As The Swellesley Report posted last summer, a plan had been hatched (Wellesley officials were briefed) to build a 130-unit facility in this “bucolic landscape” on property where a massive Georgian Colonial estate now stands. Plans were to tear down the house and build a 130,000 sq. ft. assisted living and memory care facility to address the need for such services in the area (since then, the 86-unit Anthology senior living complex has opened about a mile west on Rte. 135). Still, the project team says there’s a serious shortage of assisted living, and particularly memory care units, in Natick and Wellesley. Its project plan and supporting documentation is collected at a new website for 200 Pond Road.

The developers pledged early on that you would barely see the new senior living facility, initially dubbed Wellesley Senior Living, from Pond Road, which has already undergone a big change at that end with the rise of two large homes near the street. They now say rethinking of the project and repositioning of the proposed facility further back would make the complex even less visible.

While the address and driveway for 200 Pond Road are in Wellesley, the proponents have mainly focused initial efforts for project approval in Natick.

However, the proposal received loads of negative feedback from neighbors, who cited traffic, environmental, and other concerns (some community members did cite the need for such facilities).

In April, the proponents pulled back on a Natick Spring Annual Town Meeting citizen petition for a zoning change that could pave the way for the facility. Attorney George Richards told the Natick Finance Committee on April 6 that after meetings with neighbors and town officials “we’ve kind of heard loud and clear, and we’ve gone back to the drawing board a little bit, and we’re going to reassess the project going forward.”

In fact, the project team, which includes a cast of many (consultant, legal counsel, developer, landscape architect, designer, traffic engineer, civil engineer, and project owner Welltower), has taken feedback received along the way and revised its plans. This includes “minimizing tree clearing and earth movement” by placing the new building where the current one stands. It also entails carving out about 3.5 acres of conservation land for protection.

The team has also replaced the original operating and architect, which it says will result in savings that will mean less expensive units and services than initially envisioned.

Additional arguments for the project by the team are that it will generate revenue and jobs in the towns, and won’t be a burden on the public school systems as would traditional apartments or condos.

The project team will make its pitch to the Wellesley Planning Board, though will also need to return to Natick in an effort to get approvals from both towns before moving forward. We see no meetings currently listed on Natick’s town website that include 200 Pond Road agenda items.

Wellesley Executive Director Meghan Jop told us last summer that the plan as detailed back then could necessitate a rezoning of the land in Wellesley given intentions to use it for commercial activity. Depending upon how the project plan now stands, it likely would go before the Wellesley Select Board at some point, and then Town Meeting after that if it proceeds.