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Pinehills emerging as model in new projects

In some subdivisions, roads are laid out in a grid, as straight as possible -- a nod to economy. In The Pinehills, the massive empty-nester community in the Plymouth hills, the roads are not only irregular, they are built around the trees.

''In The Pinehills, they lay the center line of the road with hand tools," said Lee Hartmann, Plymouth's director of planning and development. ''If they want to make micro-changes, tree by tree, they can do so."

That difference reflects why The Pinehills is considered a model for other planned communities south of Boston -- including one proposed for the former Weymouth Naval Air Station.

The Pinehills -- with its own cafe, bank, dental office, and post office, not to mention multiple golf courses and stores -- is an award-winning development regarded by many as the new gold standard for planned communities. It won the ''Best Masterplanned Community in the United States" award -- given by the National Association of Home Builders -- and the ''Environmental Award for Outstanding Innovation," from the Environmental Business Council of New England.

The project is notable not only for its size and amenities but also, perhaps more telling, for the sense among town officials that the gambles they took with the $1 billion-plus project have paid off.

The Pinehills ''taught us quite a few lessons," said Nick Filla, the chairman of the Plymouth Planning Board. ''We learned to look at new ideas." Filla originally opposed The Pinehills development.

Judith Kohn, who represents another developer planning a project for South Plymouth, said The Pinehills is ''a very positive example for us."

Five years ago, when Pinehills LLC negotiated a complicated deal with the town of Plymouth to build nearly 3,000 homes in woodland property once owned by Digital Equipment Corp., it promised to be sensitive to the landscape and the limits to town services. To reach agreement on complicated planning and zoning issues, the developer and officials held meetings and workshops over two years.

The company invited town officials to view examples of developments that it said sought to preserve the natural setting, and led a series of workshops analyzing the resources of the 3,200-acre site, beginning with topography and soils.

At the site, town officials ''walked along the grade where the road would be," Filla said, and saw where rocky outcroppings and big trees were located. The experience encouraged them to give the developer flexibility to build homes closer together, waiving ordinary setback rules and approving narrower roadways, in order to accommodate the natural landscape.

The result is trees along the road and houses clustered on side roads and on rises that afford views and preserve an old New England countryside style.

Tony Green, managing partner of The Pinehills, described the approach as classic New England: Put the house on the most attractive sites, and build the roads later.

''If you think of the traditional house on a hill, with a great view, the road is just a way to get to the house," Green said. ''That's what Plymouth has allowed to happen."

One example in which public and private interests were served may be what happened with Plymouth's historic Old Sandwich Road. The company had the right (inherited from a previous owner) to build 228 houses along the road; it didn't build any. It decided to cluster the houses elsewhere.

The town's open-mindedness led to a sharper focus on roads. Green asked planners to select a road design they liked. They pointed to a road near the Manomet shore that twists and turns with bluffs and trees along its edge. ''That's exactly what we want to do," Green recalled saying. ''We want to build what you love." But rules -- including a required 60-foot right-of-way -- ''won't let us do it," he said. In the end, the company was allowed to build narrower roads.

The Pinehills also challenged the presumption that ''more is worse." Communities assume more houses mean more traffic, more children to educate, more demand for services. But about one-third of the units have deed restrictions requiring at least one resident to be at least 55 years old, and there are limits on the number of bedrooms in the homes -- which limits the number of families with young children. The project has made relatively few demands on town services. It provides its own water and sewer.

Despite all the praise for The Pinehills, the process was not perfect, said Loring Tripp, a member of the Plymouth Planning Board.

''The town definitely should have negotiated more public services," Tripp said. ''The Pinehills should have built the fire station instead of just provided the land." The development also has no affordable housing, either on the site or off it, Tripp said.

The Pinehills has some ''growing pains" too, Tripp said, as the amount of traffic generated by the development appears to be exceeding projections, to the detriment of its neighbors. With the project only 10 percent built -- it is due to be finished in 2014 -- traffic is likely to become an issue.

While recognizing The Pinehills has been good for the town's bottom line, residents in nearby neighborhoods worry it will be bad for them.

The development has increased traffic in nearby Chiltonville, an upscale rural neighborhood. Trucks and other construction traffic pose safety problems on narrow Chiltonville roads, Sandwich Road resident Ann Roach said. ''If no action is taken, it will become worse and worse," Roach said.

Chiltonville residents have formed a committee to discuss the traffic problem.

On the plus side: As residents have moved in, they have made a contribution to civic life, volunteering for local charities and participating in Town Meeting.

And with nearly 700 houses sold -- at an average price of $533,135, double the town average -- and the town enjoying what is expected to be $3.56 million in tax revenue this year, both parties say they are reaping dividends on their investments.

From the residents themselves, the reviews are positive. ''The amenities are fantastic, the plan makes a lot of sense," said David Quigley, who moved to the Chipping Hill neighborhood at The Pinehills two years ago. The Pinehills ''has more than met our expectations," said John Talanian, a retired investment manager, who moved from a large suburban home to The Pinehills two years ago. Lighted walking trails, a village-style commercial area, and the development's neighborly atmosphere add to the environment, he said.

Hartmann, the town's planning and development director, cited two lessons from The Pinehills: the importance of an ''open and inclusive process" and a commitment to give town planners as much information about their concept as possible before a developer commits money and time to the plan.

Those are the lessons that other developers are already keeping in mind. A longtime cranberry grower, the A.D. Makepeace Co., is planning to develop 1,320 acres along Wareham Road in South Plymouth. Judith Kohn, director of planning for the Plymouth properties, said The Pinehills has lessons for both developers and communities.

''I think that Pinehills has been held up as a model for us to understand how a large land-use process can happen in the town," Kohn said.

The company is working with town planners on zoning changes that will allow it to develop a denser project than ordinary subdivision rules would permit, while protecting the environment and clustering houses, she said.

Makepeace has followed the same nature-first approach in planning for the Wareham Road development by ''creating an open-space framework where you define your sensitive and valuable resources as a basis, and then define the areas of no development," said Kohn.

Her company envisions a rural village built around woods, streams, and cranberry bogs that will be ''compelling to homebuyers," Kohn said.

Developers for the Weymouth naval base don't have hills or woods to work with, but their plan clusters houses in small villages and leaves 70 percent of the land undeveloped.

Robert Knox can be reached at rc.knox@gmail.com.