Can we talk about another housing issue in Milton that has the potential to bring residents together. Town farm. In 1701, Royal Governor Stoughton deeded his 40 acre wood lot to benefit the town’s poor. Today, only 4 acres remain and many in town believe affordable housing is the best way to honor the will. In 2023, Governor Stoughton Trustees (who double as Select Board members) issued a request for proposals for thirty-five units of affordable housing on the site. But a change in control of the Select Board in spring 2024 meant the responses to that RFP were put on hold.

A Town Farm review committee was set up in July 2024 and didn’t meet until January 2025. When we did (yes, I managed to get appointed to this committee), we held a public forum to hear ideas for the site from residents.

While there is a wide range of opinions among committee members and town residents, I believe there is a strong consensus forming in town that the remaining four acres of one of the last remaining poor farms should include permanently affordable housing. What that housing looks like, how many units, and who should live there are all questions where there isn’t full agreement. But most residents seem to agree that housing for the “poor” is part of the history of the site dating back to 1805 and should be part of its future.

Our committee heard from many Milton residents who support that position. Fully forty of the fifty-five commenters supported some form of affordable housing on the site. Some said it should be senior housing. Some preferred rental housing while others pressed for homeownership. We heard from residents about a “Home Inc” style development featuring townhouses while many commented positively on the farmhouse style design reusing existing buildings featured in one of two RFP responses. A dozen commenters opposed affordable housing on the site and another three expressed other concerns.

We listened to several ideas about alternative uses and heard creative proposals around a public farm to support the Milton Food Pantry, a non-profit animal shelter for people that need to find a home for their pet while they work toward stable housing, an organic farm/beehive, and hybrid ideas such as a land trust or co-housing, food forest, environmental education park, childcare facility, nonprofit incubator, or veterans housing. We heard from some that the land should be sold, similar to the 30 acres on Woodlot Drive, to a developer to build market-rate homes and the interest on the proceeds used to increase support for the Food Pantry and Milton Residents Fund.

The Governor Stoughton Trustees should move swiftly to pursue a plan for the site that prioritizes the creation of affordable housing held in perpetuity. This site has been a political football for far too long. Serious debate about the future of Town Farm began over twenty years ago. In 2011, the town sold 30 acres to Pulte Homes but left the remaining four acres for future Trustees to decide.

We have a chance to save one of the last remaining poor farms in New England and now is the time to do it. Both neighbors, and the town as a whole, deserve certainty about the future of this historic piece of land. Governor Stoughton Trustees should open a conversation with the Milton-based development team that responded to the RFP to see what is possible on this important site. The Homes at Stoughton Farms, as Milton resident Ralph Parent has proposed, would honor the past and provide for a future of this site that would make Milton proud.