By the Belmont Housing Authority Board of Commissioners
In 2018, Belmont Housing Authority (BHA) was awarded Community Preservation Act (CPA) funding by the town of Belmont to embark on an ambitious project: planning for the modernization of its Sherman Gardens apartment community. Situated between Sycamore Street and Thayer Road in Waverley Square, the 80-unit state-funded public housing community has provided critical shelter for seniors and persons with disabilities since 1971. After more than 50 years without a major renovation, the apartments are now expensive, difficult to maintain, and energy inefficient. Designed 20 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990, the cramped apartments are inaccessible to seniors who use walkers or wheelchairs or otherwise have limited mobility.
According to Gloria Leipzig, a member of BHA’s board, “Our senior residents have a particularly hard time with the staircases at Sherman Gardens. Half of the units are located on the second floor, and elders consistently have trouble with how steep and narrow the stairs are.”
This year, BHA has requested CPA support from the town; the BHA previously received CPA allocations for Sherman Garden redevelopment planning in fiscal years 2018 and 2022. The authority says it has made significant advances in planning for Sherman Gardens’ future. Its designer, the architectural firm Bargmann Hendrie + Archetype, and its consultant, the Cambridge Housing Authority, have created a concept plan for the transit-oriented site.
The plan replaces five of Sherman Gardens’ six existing walk-up buildings with a single mid-rise building with elevators, offering seniors larger, more accessible apartments. The sixth existing building at Sherman Gardens will be comprehensively renovated. The conceptual plan envisions a variety of enhancements, including inside and outside gathering spaces, environmentally friendly Passive House design, and additional parking concealed from view in the building’s first floor.
The Sherman Gardens apartments. Photo: Belmont Housing Authority Board of Commissioners
At recent tenant meetings, current residents of Sherman Gardens have been optimistic about the new building design. One Sherman Gardens resident commented: “I like how this option preserves green space.” Residents also voiced approval for the redesigned units being larger and offering more storage.
The redeveloped Sherman Gardens will have approximately 135 apartments. Expanding BHA’s portfolio for new generations of Belmont residents will help the town meet its need for affordable housing. In Belmont, more than 29% of households experience a housing cost burden, paying more than 30% of their income on housing, according to 2020 census data. This burden is more common among renters (32.9%) than owners (27.6%), but both groups have seen their costs increase in recent years. The senior population in Belmont is also disproportionately cost-burdened, representing 58% of all cost-burdened households.
The redevelopment of Sherman Gardens with 55 new units will help Belmont meet its goals for Subsidized Housing Inventory on a site that already provides multifamily housing. Rezoning the 1.8-acre Sherman Gardens site to support multifamily housing would help to meet the town’s approximately 27-acre goal for multifamily housing set by the MBTA Communities Law.
BHA’s application for CPA funding will be in front of Town Meeting in May and June. The funding will facilitate the creation of detailed architectural plans during the summer and fall of 2023, with BHA having set a goal of appearing before the Planning Board in 2023.
Residents interested in learning more about the redevelopment project can contact Matthew Zajac, senior planning project manager with the Cambridge Housing Authority (mzajac@cambridge-housing.org).
The Belmont Housing Authority Board of Commissioners are Sarah Bilodeau, Charles Laverty III, Gloria Leipzig, Anne Mahon, and Cassandra Page.
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