Reported by us | Dartmouth

Dartmouth zoning board approves The Hathaway, 280 apartments on Hathaway Road

The developer cut the plan from 300 units during the hearing, and the board tied building heights to the plans and attached money for traffic, sewer and pump station work. Construction still needs a final state sign-off.

By the SC360 Business and Real Estate Desk | Published Oct. 31, 2026 | Last verified Oct. 31, 2026, 8:46 a.m. ET

DARTMOUTH Dartmouth's Zoning Board of Appeals in September approved The Hathaway, a 280-unit apartment complex on 113 acres off Hathaway Road in North Dartmouth. Seventy of the apartments, a quarter of the total, must stay affordable permanently, the board's written decision says.

The board voted Sept. 17 to grant the developer a comprehensive permit under Chapter 40B, the state affordable housing law that lets a zoning board waive town zoning rules for a project in which a set share of the units are affordable. Board member Alvin Youman made the motion, member Halim Choubah seconded it and it passed unanimously, the minutes and the decision record.

The applicant is The Hathaway Dartmouth LLC, in care of Saxon Partners of Hingham, and the board's minutes and hearing notice list Philip Cordeiro as the petitioner. A company related to the applicant controls the land under a purchase and sale agreement, MassHousing wrote.

What the board approved

The developer first asked for 300 apartments. Over a public hearing that opened Jan. 8 and closed Aug. 27, the plan shrank to 280, three buildings lost a story and buildings on the north and south sides were moved to make room for parking, according to the minutes. The project will have about 1.52 parking spaces per apartment.

The decision calls for six apartment buildings holding 24 studios, 166 one-bedroom, 62 two-bedroom and 28 three-bedroom apartments, plus a clubhouse with a fitness area and an outdoor pool, a leasing office and parking.

Most of the land cannot be built on. MassHousing, the state agency that cleared the project to apply, found that about 96.5 of the 113 acres are wetlands, leaving 16.5 acres of upland along Hathaway Road for the buildings, a clubhouse and a pool. Its 2025 review, written before the plan changed, described four- and five-story buildings set into a slope that drops about 50 feet from the road.

The board did not lift the district's 35-foot height limit outright. Its waiver holds the developer to the maximum building heights shown on the plans, and it kept a condition that sends any future development on a piece of the land called Lot B back to the board.

Money for roads, sewer and neighbors

The decision's conditions, which the board's special counsel, Susan Murphy, reviewed with members before the vote, include:

$30,000, paid before the first building permit, for traffic safety work, which the town may instead put toward larger work at the Route 6 and Slocum Road intersection, plus traffic calming on the downhill roads inside the complex.
Replacement of the sewer main under Hathaway Road at the developer's cost, timed with the Department of Public Works as the buildings need more capacity.
$40,000 toward the town's upgrades at the North Dartmouth pump station.
Up to $5,000 for each of the six closest neighbors, for plantings, fencing or screening on their own land after a building permit is issued. The developer said it may withhold the payments if any of those neighbors, or any other party claiming standing, files, joins or contributes to an appeal of the project.
Landscape screening along the property lines, especially for neighbors on Eisenhower Street and a church next to the site.
Construction from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays, with no work on Sundays.

The conditions also require that tenants be told parking is not allowed on Hathaway Road or on side streets such as Eisenhower Street. An irrigation well will water the grounds so the complex draws less from the town's water supply. The board also turned down the developer's request to hold off paying peer review fees until any appeals were settled.

Chairman Michael Medeiros said the decision reflected months of review and discussion with the developer and neighbors. Members said they had negotiated to protect the neighbors and win as many benefits as they could, and that while the buffer along Eisenhower Street "might not satisfy everyone," the conditions covered the board's concerns, the minutes say.

Rents and the affordable housing count

In its 2025 application, the developer proposed average affordable rents of $1,545 for a studio, $1,652 for one bedroom, $1,780 for two bedrooms and $1,970 for three bedrooms, for households earning up to 80% of the area median income, a limit MassHousing put at $95,560 for a family of four in Dartmouth. It proposed average market rents of $2,100 to $2,800, which MassHousing found were above the range of comparable apartments.

Dartmouth had 980 homes on the state's Subsidized Housing Inventory as of Aug. 19, 2025, or 7.81% of its housing, 275 short of the 10% mark, MassHousing wrote. The town's own July 2025 comments to the agency raised concerns about water, sewer and treatment plant capacity, stormwater, building heights and traffic on Hathaway Road and at nearby intersections with Slocum Road, Wilbur Avenue and State Road (Route 6).

What happens next

The signed decision was filed with the town clerk Sept. 21, the clerk's stamp on it shows. State law gave any person aggrieved by the permit 20 days from that filing to appeal in court.

Before it can get a building permit or start construction, the developer must win final approval from MassHousing, and its review called for a filing with the Conservation Commission for work near the wetlands.

The decision, plans, traffic studies and letters on the project are posted on the town's The Hathaway (40B) page. The Zoning Board of Appeals office is at Town Hall, 400 Slocum Road, 508-910-1868.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.

Notes

Every fact comes from the Dartmouth Zoning Board of Appeals' signed decision on The Hathaway and its minutes of the Aug. 27 and Sept. 17 sessions, the board's Sept. 17 agenda and Dec. 16, 2025 hearing notice, MassHousing's Aug. 26, 2025 project eligibility letter, and the state laws on comprehensive permits and appeals, all listed below. We read them on Oct. 31. The decision and minutes are scanned pages, and we read each page used in full. The rents come from the 2025 review and may have changed in the final plan. We checked each date against a calendar.

Corrections

No corrections to this story. If something here is wrong, tell us. Every correction is dated on the story and listed in our public log.

Sources (9)

This story on the full site