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JKastnerPhoto t1_j6ijd4k wrote

..and this apartment complex in Somerville.

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Dozzi92 t1_j6iqxr1 wrote

Apartments, solar field for a community solar project, and "green seam" walking paths. Kind of hits all the needs of a community, totally making use of an otherwise unusable site.

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JKastnerPhoto t1_j6iwxa7 wrote

I'm cool with most commercial and recreational projects being built on brownfields, but I strongly question any dwellings. Down the way, by where I used to live in Somerville, they also built apartments called Parc View (or something like that) on an old EPA site that used to manufacture airplanes for WWII. When we bought our house near this site, we had the ground tested to be sure.

Where I used to live in Marlboro, another such site (and much bigger) known as Burnt Fly Bog was extremely contaminated, with reports of cancer and other ailments coming from residents of near that site. I wouldn't be surprised to hear in 20-40 years, hearing of an uptick of cancer from select apartments built on or near these sites.

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yuckyd t1_j6jg09c wrote

Great point. By the time residents get cancer, the politicians will be dead and the developers will be bankrupt. Once again leaving the tax payers holding the bag. But yay luxury condos !!!

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Rude-Bison-2050 t1_j6kpnqt wrote

100%. Lots of these places were also turned into fields which use tires for the turf fill …. Ever read about how goalies in soccer have extremely high rates of cancer?

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Dozzi92 t1_j6kq0np wrote

Yeah, my understanding of the site (and I'm going back a number of years to the planning board meetings for the development) basically broke the site into two parts, one that acted as the landfill, and the other that was more open space where dumping occurred of mainly construction debris and whatnot.

I am hopeful that standards for developing on sites like this have improved since the early 2000s and 1990s. I say hopeful because I can't say 100% yes, because I don't know what the standards were back then, but for this site, with cutting it in half, and then remediation efforts on the residential portion, removing fill, adding screens, and capping entirely, outside of radioactive waste, exposure potential is practically zero.

And the areas that still are functioning landfill are not even being disturbed, but for some roads to access the solar panels. The panels won't even be in the ground, they're sitting on top of the lawn essentially, with ballast of course.

I understand concern with it, but it comes down to either using or not using the site. Exclude the fact that it was a landfill and it's a great location between two major thoroughfares to travel in all directions. I believe the LSRP process the DEP utilizes now is much more effective at monitoring remediation efforts.

Also, I'm pretty sure half the units are for ownership too, which IMO is better than just offering rentals. Giving folks an opportunity to get equity is always a good thing.

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JKastnerPhoto t1_j6kroyn wrote

That's great man. You're welcome to live there if you want.

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Dozzi92 t1_j6kuyun wrote

So in your mind, is it just undevelopable land in perpetuity? Would you put it on the same level as John's Manville and American Cyanamid? You raised a point and I felt there needed to be some clarification, because it isn't so cut and dried.

So yeah, just in general, are you opposed to building on top of contaminated sites blanketly? And if that's the case it's obviously fine, I just like to know where someone is coming from when they say things.

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JKastnerPhoto t1_j6l4o0b wrote

Sure. To me, I would never live on land that was once industrial (specifically chemical or toxic) or used as a garbage dump. Somewhere down the line in homeownership, basements seep water, pipes leach, sewage backs up, and old crap from yesteryear comes back to haunt you. I don't trust anyone from the 80s, 90s, or today truly knows how to remediate everything and I want nothing to do with land like that. Like I said, commercial purposes is fine, but I would never want it for housing. At the very least, transparency is key. Disclosing the land's history to perspective buyers is important for their peace of mind.

>I just like to know where someone is coming from when they say things.

I'm coming from a guy who grew up in the 80s/90s in an area that was near questionable land use. I'm coming from a place where people all around our area were getting sick and wondering why the lot by my old development never grew anything despite being surrounded by woods (spoiler: it used to be a junk yard.) I'm now scratching my head as to how my mom got the kind of cancer she has now. I think it's unfortunate but the polluted land we used for industrial crap needs a lot of time to heal. There's no easy solution, but in any case, I do my homework and will never live in such a place.

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