Sullivan Prefers Housing Units at Medfield State Hospital Site

Medfield Town Administrator Michael Sullivan is worried about the town’s residents living near the former .

Sullivan said his worry is not from the contamination and hazardous waste found at the Construction and Demolition area of the 200-acre property or the oil found in the Charles River near the hospital site.

His worry stems from the uncertainty surrounding the reuse plan for a site that has not been used in eight years and the negative impact that has on the town and its residents.

“If somebody is looking to buy a house or sell a house, the first question is ‘what’s going to happen to [the state hospital]?’” Sullivan said. “It’s been eight years and we keep saying we don’t know [and when they ask] ‘when are you going to know’ [we respond] ‘we don’t know.’ It sounds like you’re not doing your job or you’re stupid, but we don’t know.”

Medfield State Hospital closed its doors in June 2003 due to low enrollment. In November 2005, the Board of Selectmen unanimously adopted an amended reuse plan allowing 440 units of housing to satisfy Medfield’s 40B requirement – a reuse proposal Sullivan still favors six years later.

“I would like to remove the uncertainty and I’ve always supported the plan that the selectmen negotiated with DCAM a couple years ago,” Sullivan said. “I thought it was a good plan, the 440 housing units. I think it addresses the need for options for seniors who want to stay in town but don’t want the responsibility of taking care of a house. It gives some housing options for people. It helps address the 40B concern.”

Massachusetts’ 40B requirement is a state law that helps address the shortage of affordable housing in the state by providing developments in a town that have at least 20 to 25 percent of its units listed at an affordable price for low and moderate-income buyers.

Sullivan said in addition to his concerns regarding the uncertainty of the reuse of the state hospital property, there’s added concern about how Medfield will satisfy its 40B requirement.

“We’ve just been approached by a group who wants to put 96 units of housing along West Street,” Sullivan said. “This is going to happen all over town as the housing market recovers. … If we can come up with a good plan up at the state hospital, it will address that and do what we are required to do without having to play Russian Roulette with the town, having these things pop over.

“Some of the towns around have had them right in the middle of single-family, residential neighborhoods, a development pop up and this [site] is a good spot to do that sort of thing. You can get a good mix so it is not all one kind of housing. There were single-family homes, there were apartments for the elderly, there were apartments for families or condos for 55 and older to help keep them in town.”

Sullivan admitted his frustration with the lack of support the proposed housing development has received from the town over the years.

“Some of these people [in town] act like it’s going to be the end of the world putting 440 housing units up there,” Sullivan said. “Well, what about West Street? You’re going to put up 96 units down there. What about all the other areas where you might get this? There’s room up there … you got 200 acres. I get a little frustrated with people that don’t want to do anything up there because something is going to be done up there and the longer you wait the worst condition those buildings are. … I’m not a big advocate for saving [the buildings].”

Sullivan favors the proposed housing development because it enables residents, especially older residents to stay in town.

“I say let’s go ahead and get rid of the uncertainty and get a good plan up there that addresses the problem we have with so many older people we have leaving town because they don’t’ have housing options,” Sullivan said. “I can name a bunch of people who have left and gone to Norfolk because they have condos over there. I can name a bunch who have gone to Franklin. [They] would say ‘we’ve looked in Medfield but we can’t find anything.’”

But the project has become more complicated than simply executing a proposed reuse plan.

In 2008, DCAM began environmental remediation of the site and reported contamination and hazardous waste in the Charles River near the site and at the Construction and Demolition area of the property.

While other remediation work has been completed on the site – clay containment area and salvage yard work was finished this year, according to State Hospital Environmental Review Committee (SHERC) chairman John Thompson, in addition to other aesthetic improvements made on the property – the cleanup of the oil in the Charles River and hazardous material at the C&D area continue to be a lingering issue between the town and DCAM.

Town officials have said publicly they want complete remediation and removal of the contamination from both the Charles River and the C&D area and do not agree with DCAM’s proposal to cap the oil in the Charles River and not completely remove hazardous waste materials from the C&D area.

Sullivan said while he wants the site cleaned up, he didn’t think it will ever get to the “pristine level” it was “a number of years ago.”

“I want it cleaned up to a reasonable level and hopefully at a reasonable cost,” Sullivan said. “I don’t want to bankrupt the state trying to clean it up. I always say, ‘OK, we are going to cart it out of [Medfield] and put it some place else.’ Is that going to come back somewhere down the road to bite us or bite the state? I guess it would be the state’s problem but they talk about shipping some of this [contamination] to Ohio. Well, Ohio wouldn’t be too thrilled about all this stuff.”

A reasonable level of cleanup, according to Sullivan, would be removing the hazardous material from the water table on the site and burying it somewhere else on the property.

“If [DCAM] can get [the material] to a dry spot and put a sufficient cover over it [that would work],” Sullivan said.

Remediation work was delayed further after DCAM missed its October deadline to complete the proposed work due to conditions of the site and the urging of Medfield’s state representatives and Congressman Stephen Lynch. As a result, DCAM withdrew its application to the Army Corps of Engineers and was informed its request for an indefinite extension of its current remediation proposal was denied by MassDEP.

Sullivan would like to see all interested parties work together to find an appropriate solution.

“I think [SHERC, DCAM, MassDEP] need to get together and find a reasonable cost-efficient solution that addresses the potential contamination,” Sullivan said. “That’s what I’m looking for. I’m not looking for every last element to be removed from the site. I suspect if you drain the Charles River you will find a lot worse from cars and a few dead bodies and oil and grease and everything else that people have dumped in it over the years.”

Sullivan also believes the contamination in the Charles River is not particularly threatening to anyone’s health in town.

“I don’t think it’s the worst stuff in the world,” Sullivan said.

Part of the back-and-forth between DCAM and Medfield has been the town keeping the state agency honest in its remediation proposal while standing firm in its demands for a complete cleanup of the site. Sullivan said he would like to see more compromise from both sides.

“Now, is [DCAM] trying to get away with things on the cleanup?” Sullivan asked. “Probably, but that’s a valid option. You can argue the different ways as to what the cleanup should be. If the shoe was on the other foot and the town was being charged for all this cleanup, we would be screaming ‘Bloody Murder.’”

Eight years into the project without a clear reuse plan or timetable for its completion has left the seasoned Town Administrator frustrated, but Sullivan said he's not the only one.

“It’s been very frustrating for DCAM,” Sullivan said. … “I think if some people have their way, we will be 100 years into it before anything is resolved. … If anyone is frustrated I would say it would probably be DCAM.”