Brightview – Canton, MA

Brightview’s seventh senior living community in Massachusetts has been completed.  The  project contains 160-units, 95 independent living apartment homes, 40 assisted living apartment homes and a 25 apartment neighborhood dedicated to memory and Alzheimer’s care.

Brightview Canton is located on a former sand and gravel operation and manufactured soil processing plant. Wetland areas border the site; therefore extensive permitting was required for this project and included an Abbreviated Notice of Resource Area Delineation (ANRAD) and a Notice of Intent (NOI) through the Canton Conservation Commission.  The project also required a Site Plan/Special Review Permit through the Canton Zoning Board of Appeals and the Planning Board to allow development within the Senior Housing Overlay District (SHOD).

In order to minimize direct and indirect impacts to the surrounding resource areas, A&M designed the project to be located as far from the resource areas as possible. A&M designed the stormwater systems within the existing grades of the site to allow drainage to maintain the existing drainage characteristics. Stormwater runoff from is captured and managed through a treatment train of low-impact design (LID) elements including sub-surface infiltration & vegetated swales (bioretention). Additional landscaping and upland enhancements were included to create a natural buffer between resource areas and noise, lighting, and other disturbances.

Additional environmental considerations include 13,782 square feet of wetland creation and a large swath of un-vegetated areas left by the previous sand and gravel usage were planted with low-nutrient, native grassland. Grassland was determined to be well suited to the droughty sandy soils and would support an unobstructed view of the woodland and wetlands located in the adjoining habitat and an improved ecology that supports feeding and nesting of local wildlife.

Exhaustive efforts were made to provide ecological and environmental improvements over the site conditions that existed. Shelter Development, who owns the project, has donated 13 acres of the wetland area over to the Town of Canton.