ZBA approves Revere St. senior housing project

A pair of separate yet strangely intertwined senior housing proposals experienced a reversal of fortunes at last month’s Zoning Board of Appeals meeting, where the smaller of the two projects, proposed on a commercial parking lot site on Revere Street by the owners of the Plymouth Rubber property, received its long-awaited special permits, while the larger, BOS-backed project on Turnpike Street faced heavy scrutiny from both ZBA members and concerned abutters.

Click the image to watch the hearing courtesy of CCTV.

For the former group, the ZBA’s unanimous decision on December 19 to approve the project with conditions marked a welcome departure from the last few months, during which the developer endured a string of unexpected challenges — including a forceful letter of opposition from the Board of Selectmen and an 11^th-hour legal challenge from the competing project’s attorney, Richard Staiti.

In particular, Staiti had challenged the building commissioner’s original finding that the Revere Street project constituted a nursing home and was therefore eligible for a special permit in a residential zone. Staiti’s position was subsequently upheld by the town counsel in a November 20 opinion, leading the ZBA to withdraw itself from the case due to jurisdictional concerns.

Bewildered and frustrated by the board’s decision, the attorneys for the Revere Street project were prepared to take the matter to Superior Court before deciding instead to pursue an alternative source of relief — namely a change from one nonconforming use to another.

Under the town’s zoning bylaws, the zoning board is permitted to grant such a change as long as the new use is not “substantially more detrimental” than the existing nonconforming use.

Ultimately, the ZBA determined that the proposed new use — an 86-unit residence with 30 “memory care” units — would be far more beneficial to the town and to the neighborhood than the existing parking lot, which is currently being used by a taxi and limousine service.

ZBA Chairman Paul Carroll, who had long been skeptical of the project, went so far as to call the zoning proposal a “brilliant idea.”

“Why we didn’t think of it earlier I don’t know, because it is clearly a nonconforming site,” he said. “It is [zoned as] a residential district, but it has not been residential, I don’t believe, since zoning was created in the town of Canton.”

ZBA member Kevin Feeney also supported the proposal, and he thanked the applicants for their patience throughout a hearing process that he described as “circuitous” and “labyrinthian.”

“It has taken us down roads that have led to blind alleys,” he said. “It’s given rise to concerns that were brought in at the last minute and were unforeseen and that took us in different directions.”

Despite these challenges, Feeney said the developers were able to address all of the board’s concerns while also satisfying the direct abutters and various town stakeholders. He added that a project of this type was needed in Canton and would bring “significant financial benefit” while placing no further strain on the schools or the town’s roads.

Reached for comment last week, Paul Schneiders, attorney for the developer, said his clients are pleased with the end result and are eager to move forward with the project. Schneiders estimated that construction of the facility, which has been dubbed “Cornerstone at Canton,” could begin sometime in the next 90 days. The property will be operated by Massachusetts-based Senior Living Residences, and the developer, as one of the conditions set forth by the ZBA, has agreed to give the town a one-time mitigation payment of $50,000 upon the issuance of a final occupancy permit.

In the meantime, the ZBA will now shift its focus to the Turnpike Street project, which is being proposed by Brightview Senior Living following a successful zoning change at last year’s annual town meeting.

Tentative plans call for a three-story, 162,000-square-foot building consisting of 84 independent units and 76 assisted living units, of which 28 will be set aside for memory care patients.

The developer has also agreed to give the town a cash payment of $630,000 in lieu of affordable housing units and will donate approximately 14 acres of open space upon successful completion of the project.

Both of the above conditions have already been approved as part of a development agreement with the Board of Selectmen; however, at the applicant’s initial hearing on December 19, at least two ZBA members questioned the logic of the land donation, claiming that the town would be better served by obtaining an easement while still being able to tax the land in question.

Members also expressed significant concerns about the height of the proposed structure, which has been tentatively set at the maximum of 42 feet. A few neighbors who spoke at the hearing also balked at the three-story proposal, and one neighbor even submitted his own computer-generated image of what the building would look like from his back yard on Red Tail Run, to which Carroll quipped, “I don’t know if I’d want that in my backyard either.”

Responding to the concerns about the height, both Staiti and the architect for the developer, Eric Anderson, indicated that the building has been placed as far away from neighboring residences as possible and they would be open to exploring additional mitigation measures, such as plantings and fences, to further lessen the impact on the abutters.

The developer also agreed to further investigate various alternative plans, including two-story configurations, in advance of their next meeting with the ZBA on Thursday, February 13.

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Posted by Jay Turner on Jan 9 2014. Filed under News, Town Government. Both comments and pings are currently closed.