Largest Planned Community in State is Under Way

PLYMOUTH, MA-After five years, the largest planned community in the state, the Pinehills, is going up here, about 45 miles out of Boston. The development is being built on over 3,000 acres of land here and involved a collaboration of three parties to get it off the ground.

Tom Green, a home builder, the New England Development Company, a retail developer, and Tom Wallace, a local real estate investor are the three parties that make up Pinehills LLC, the body that owns and is developing the land here, according to reports published in the Boston Herald. The group helped to create the new zoning model that enabled them to build the community. “It required many zoning changes,” John Lenox, director of planning and development for the town, tells GlobeSt.com. “It was a long process but at this point they have all the zoning in place.”

Digital Equipment purchased the land in 1981 with the intention of developing research and development space and a corporate training center on the property, the Herald said. But the decline of the minicomputer business forced the company to abandon those plans. “When it became clear that Digital was not going to be doing anything, there was support from the town for doing a different type of development,” notes Lenox.