Hamilton Boards Begin Rezoning Process for Gordon Conwell Seminary Campus

HAMILTON -- January 17, 2023, Hamilton's Select Board and Planning Board launched a joint rezoning effort for the Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary's roughly 100-acre campus, which the Seminary has signaled it intends to sell as it relocates to Boston. At a January 17 joint session, consultants Barry Abramson and David Campbell presented a three-zone campus framework, upper, central, and lower, and identified four primary reuse scenarios: 55-plus active-adult ownership housing, rehabilitation of existing student apartments into market-rate or affordable rentals, senior assisted living of 100 to 200 units, and life-science or office development modeled on the New England Biolabs campus. Town counsel John Whitten outlined a paired strategy of a zoning overlay district and a binding development agreement, warning that "the public's sense of being rushed usually means it gets defeated at town meeting" and urging the boards to categorize uses on a difficulty scale of one to ten before drafting begins. Planning Board Chair Marnie raised statutory notice concerns about hitting the Spring Town Meeting warrant deadline, while Select Board member Bill Olson argued the town must move quickly to prevent piecemeal sales that would trigger the site's current by-right single-family zoning, an outcome all parties described as a loss for the town and the Seminary alike.