PLEASE ONLY SIGN IF YOU ARE AN ACTON, MASS. RESIDENT.  THANK YOU.

TO: Acton Community Housing Corporation & Acton Board of Selectmen

CC: Acton Zoning Board of Appeals, Acton Finance Committee, Acton Planning Board, Town Manager Steve Ledoux, Design Review Board, Acton Historical Commission, Acton Historic District Commission, Acton Community Preservation Committee, Acton Conservation Trust, Acton 2020 Committee, Acton Open Space Committee

FROM:  Residents of Acton, Massachusetts

We as residents of Acton, Massachusetts, strongly oppose the proposed development at 34 Elm Street, which is also known as The 1762 Wheeler Homestead [1]; The James W. (Wetherbee) Wheeler House [2]; & Four Winds Farm, the beloved childhood home of Helen & Robert Creeley, Acton's renowned and celebrated poets [3].  

We respectfully request that the Town of Acton work to preserve this historic farm, the cradle of Acton’s historical and literary identity, for the people of the town of Acton in honor of the Wheeler Family, a founding Acton family [4], and Helen & Robert Creeley, our town poets.

The dense housing development proposed by Mark Gallagher of Seal Harbor Development for the 34 Elm Street property (8-bed Minuteman Arc group home, at least 12 market-rate $600-800K single-family homes, and 2-3 Habitat for Humanity cottages) is unreasonable on the 2.7 acre lot in a residential neighborhood that is zoned for single-family homes. The lot is also located at the intersection of two streets, Arlington Street and Elm Street, which already suffer from heavy traffic flow to and from the C.T. Douglas Elementary School and Acton-Boxborough Regional High School. Finally, the Town of Acton’s support of this development of the historic James W. Wheeler Homestead / Four Winds Farm will set precedents for (1) similar high-density developments in other Acton neighborhoods and (2) similar developments of significant historic properties in Acton.

We raise the following concerns that we wish Acton Town Officials to address:

1) The proposed density for the development at 34 Elm Street overrides zoning bylaws for residential neighborhoods and sets a precedent for high-density housing developments, including 40B developments, in quiet residential neighborhoods in Acton.

In July 2015, the Board of Selectmen voted to support the Acton Community Housing Corporation (ACHC)’s new Housing Production Plan (HPP).  The 40B development proposal at 34 Elm Street is not in a location targeted by the new HPP. The address of this property is outside the designated areas for such developments [5].

As residents of Acton, we expect that neighborhoods zoned for single-family homes will remain zoned for single-family homes.  Unlike other high-density developments in Acton, the James W. Wheeler Homestead/ Four Winds Farm proposed development is not located in a village center, near Kelly's Corner, or on a state road (Routes 111, 2A and 27).

High-density developments, like the one proposed for 34 Elm Street, do not exist to date in any established, single-family R-2 zoned neighborhoods in Acton.  There are currently no dense housing developments in other established neighborhoods: Robbins Park, Patriot's Hill, Minuteman Ridge, Flagg Hill, or Stoneymeade. Therefore, we believe a dense housing development, including a 40B development, in Indian Village is inappropriate and precedent-setting.  

2) The proposed development of The Wheeler Homestead, James W. (Wetherbee) Wheeler House / Four Winds Farm property will set a precedent for the development of significant historic properties in Acton.

The James W. Wheeler Homestead and the Wheeler family are fundamental to the history of Acton.  In the 1660s, Acton was still part of Concord.  The Wheeler family of Concord was a founding Acton family. One of the biggest land grants from the town of Concord, of land that would later be incorporated into the town of Acton in 1735, was given to Captain Thomas Wheeler in 1669 [6].  The Wheeler Homestead (presently located at 34 Elm Street) dates to 1762 as shown on Horace F. Tuttle’s Historical Map of Acton: Showing The Occupants of the Old Homesteads.  The map is on the wall to the right of the flat map cabinet on the second floor in the Acton Memorial Library [7]." The James W. Wheeler House and barn were listed on the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System (MACRIS) in 1967 as Massachusetts Historical and Cultural Resources.  They were subsequently listed in 1989 in Acton’s Historical Properties Inventory as Acton historical resources.

Robert Creeley grew up on Four Winds Farm.  It remained his favorite place throughout his life and was the source of his poetry.  As an adult, Robert Creeley reflected back:

…my childhood is more a fact of places now than a sense of changing progression.  My own favorite was Four Wind Farm, which is where our father had left us... Best were the woods well back of the barn that we’d go off into, with the sense that one could go for miles and miles – ‘all the way to Canada!’ – without being bothered by adamant, boxed-in people.  There we kids played and played…..[8]

The old classic farmhouse that my father had renovated or reshifted a bit, at Four Winds Farm – had great Elms, birch, and maple, black maple, firs, trees all around it, sheltering it like arms.  Later to be the locus of all the poet’s most vivid childhood memories (although he lived there only from ages four through ten)...  Such secure locations of life set a pattern for the mind…[9]

Placing a housing development on The Wheeler Homestead / Four Winds Farm, the buildings and property once owned by a founding Acton family and Acton’s most celebrated poet is, in effect, destroying Acton’s assets.  It would be a tremendous loss for our town.

If the presently proposed development goes forward, the majority of the farmhouse will be demolished, the antique barn will be removed and sold off in parts, and all that will remain of the Wheeler homestead and Robert Creeley’s beloved Four Winds Farm will be a dense housing development comprising 23 building units, out of character with the neighborhood.

3) The proposed development lacks a traffic study and raises safety concerns:

During the school year, from the first week of September through the third week in June, traffic to and from Acton-Boxborough Regional High School on Hayward Road and the C.T. Douglas Elementary School on Elm Street is very heavy. Buses, cars, and bicycles drive, and student pedestrians walk, down Elm Street and Arlington Street.  The proposed development of 34 Elm Street will significantly increase traffic by increasing the number of homeowners living, and Minuteman Arc for Human Services staff working, directly at the intersection of Elm Street and Arlington Street. We are concerned about the volume of traffic and the safety of children and students grades K-12 walking to and from the schools.  We are equally concerned about access for emergency vehicles to the schools, to the proposed group home, and to all single-family homes on Elm Street and surrounding streets. We formally request that the Town of Acton conduct a traffic volume and safety study prior to agreeing to the proposed 34 Elm Street development. 

4) The proposed development is at the intersection of two of Acton’s Scenic Roads:

We are concerned that the proposed development at 34 Elm Street is directly at the intersection of two scenic roads.  Acton Bylaws designate the entirety Hayward Road as a scenic road and Arlington Street as a scenic road from Hayward Road to Newtown Road.  The proposed development is on a pristine, scenic Acton property at the junction of two scenic Acton roads.  

As signers of this petition, we are not making a statement against any Minuteman Arc group home in Acton. Neither are we making a statement against affordable housing.  We are concerned about this precedent-setting density in single-family neighborhoods and the destruction of historic properties.

We sign our names, as current residents of Acton, Massachusetts, to voice our opposition to the proposed development and urge Acton town officials to address our concerns regarding this development.

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For questions about this petition, please email: actonwearedenseenough@gmail.com.  Also, if you wish to sign the petition but do not want to use the Change.org please email your name and address to this email.  Thank you.

References:

[1] Tuttle, Horace F.  Historical Map of Acton: Showing The Occupants of the Old Homesteads, And The Old Town Ways, With Dates of Laying Out, As Shown From The Old Records and The Recollections of the Oldest Inhabitants, MDCCCXC. 

[2] Massachusetts Historical Commission: MACRIS (Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System).  The James. W. Wheeler House and barn, 34 Elm Street, Acton, MA was listed in 1967 as a Massachusetts Historical and Cultural Resource. Acton’s Historic Properties Inventory, 1989; The 34 Elm St. property was listed as an Acton Historical and Cultural Resource. 

[3] Clark, Tom and Robert Creeley.  Robert Creeley and The Genius of the American Common Place: Together with the Poet’s Own Autobiography.  Copyright: 1962-1993, Robert Creeley.  New York: New Directions, 1993.

[4 ]Phalen, Harold R.  History of the Town of Acton.  Cambridge, MA: Middlesex Printing, Inc., 1954, p. 367.  Appendix I:  Between The Town of Concord and Thomas Wheeler, The Major Portion of the Original Agreement Executed January 12, 1669.

[5] Acton Community Housing Corporation, Housing Production Plan.

[6] Fletcher, Rev. James.  Acton in History: Compiled for the Middlesex County History.  Philadelphia: J. W. Lewis & Co., 1890. , page 239.

[7] The Rev. James Fletcher wrote in Acton in History, “The old house that stood near the Elm tree was owned by Samuel Wheeler (1735).  His son, Nathan, succeeded him and still occupied the old house during his life.  James W. Wheeler, his son, after a few years bought the farm and built a new house…  It is known that Henry David Thoreau and his sister walked to Acton to see this tree.”

[8] Robert Creeley’s Autobiography in Clark, p. 127.

[9] Clark, 3.