Newton Reuse Committee Delays Grove-Hancock Public Hearing to September

NEWTON -- June 12, 2025, Newton's Real Property Reuse Committee voted 7-0 to seek a City Council waiver of the 60-day public hearing deadline for a city-owned parcel at 169 Grove Street and 136 Hancock Street, pushing the hearing to September. The committee received the final report of the Joint Advisory Planning Group, which spent roughly nine months studying the 36,356-square-foot Auburndale site purchased in 2021 with ARPA funds for affordable housing and Williams Elementary School expansion. JAPG Vice Chair David Hison presented two options, both requiring demolition of at least one of three historic structures and neither accompanied by a clear funding source, and told the committee redevelopment costs for affordable housing would run "just under a million dollars per unit." Because the city used federal ARPA dollars to acquire the site, only a lease, not a sale, is available under current law. Auburndale Historic District Commission member Robert Dudek signaled the commission might consider limited demolition "favorably" if the oldest structure on the site, the 1847 Harding Complex, were preserved and improved.