Napleton offers up ‘simpler’ rezoning proposal for Plymouth Rubber site

Three years after Canton voters rejected its proposal to build a large, mixed-use development at the former Plymouth Rubber site on Revere Street, Canton Development Properties, a subsidiary of the Illinois-based Napleton Company, will head back to town meeting and try again — this time with a proposal that is far more general in scope, according to Canton attorney Paul Schneiders.

Revere Barn on the Plymouth Rubber site (George Comeau photo)

In fact, this latest rezoning attempt, submitted by Schneiders and filed under Article 17 in the town meeting warrant, does not even have a specific project associated with it; rather, it simply would extend the Canton Center Economic Opportunity District “around the corner” to parts of Revere and Neponset streets, including the entire Plymouth Rubber property.

Schneiders said such a move is “not uncommon at all” and would effectively give the town another option for the site besides the industrial uses allowed under the current zoning.

“It’s actually the more proper way to present zoning at town meeting,” explained the former town moderator, adding that zoning changes, which require a two-thirds vote to pass, should not be tied too closely to any one specific development.

And Schneiders of all people should know, as that was precisely the problem with Napleton’s previous rezoning effort in 2008, when the zoning took a back seat to the specifics of the project itself.

“Our last proposal included an extraordinarily detailed plan,” Schneiders acknowledged. “If anything, it was too detailed; it was too overwhelming.”

Initial plans for the site had called for 650 units of housing — including several hundred apartments — to go along with 20,000 square feet of retail space. However, Napleton twice agreed to reduce the number of housing units at the insistence of selectmen, eventually settling on a plan that included 395 condos and no apartments. The developer had also agreed to a multi-million-dollar mitigation package that would have included cash payments to the schools and municipal departments; preservation of the historic barn and rolling mill on the site, both of which have ties to the famed patriot Paul Revere; and an agreement to build a community center and public walking trails.

Looking back on the project’s failure at town meeting, Schneiders said the proposal became too complex as they “tried to give very specific answers and address each issue one by one.” Ironically, he said the “whole issue of developing a condo project became moot” shortly thereafter when the housing market — and the economy as a whole — went bust.

This year, Schneiders said Napleton has decided to “go to the other extreme” and simply ask the voters if they would be interested in alternative uses for the property, if not now then at some point down the road.

“I can’t tell them who would develop it,” he said. “I can’t tell them how exactly they would develop it. But whatever it is, I can tell them it would look like Canton Center.”

He added that residents would have to look no further than Article 16 of this year’s warrant to determine the limits of what the new zoning would allow, since the proposed overlay, the Canton Center Economic Opportunity District, is up for a vote as well.

Initially approved at the 2000 annual town meeting and later amended in 2005, the CCEOD encompasses the area along Washington Street roughly from Neponset Street north to Lewis Street (just before Canton High School) and allows for a mix of residential and commercial uses, all of which require a special permit issued by the Zoning Board of Appeals. The district was not included as part of the town’s recodified zoning bylaws (approved at ATM 2010) and therefore must be reapproved in April.

Attorney Paul Schneiders (left) with Rick Brandstatter, Napleton's director of real estate, at the Plymouth Rubber site - August 2007 (George Comeau photo)

However, even if Articles 16 and 17 both pass, Schneiders stressed that Napleton would not gain any new uses “as of right” because the CCEOD is an overlay district. As a result, any mixed-use proposal would require a full review by the Planning Board and Conservation Commission and final approval from the ZBA, which could slap any number of conditions on it — including preservation of the two Revere buildings.

“There’s no more risk than you would have with other [mixed-use projects] downtown,” said Schneiders, adding that years of case law prove that it is very difficult to challenge the denial of a special permit.

As for Napleton, Schneiders said company officials still have a “very keen interest in the property and would very much like to develop it,” but they are currently “keeping their options open because of the economy.”

However, one thing is certain: Napleton has “no interest whatsoever” in developing an industrial property, which is why they have spent the past few years shopping the site to prospective buyers.

“We didn’t have any choice,” Schneiders said of putting the property up for sale. “The town meeting chose not to rezone it, and that’s all we had to work with.”

Of course, that could soon change if residents decide to approve the rezoning in April, although there is no sense yet from any of the town boards as to whether they would endorse such an idea. Members of the Planning Board are scheduled to review the article for the first time at their meeting next Wednesday, March 9, while early indications from selectmen suggest that they may not take a position on the article at all.

Either way, Schneiders emphasized that the current article, unlike the one that died on the town meeting floor in 2008, is really quite simple.

He said the entire request could be summed up in one sentence: “It gives the town and the owner an option to do something other than industrial, but to do so you would have to get the approval of the various town boards. That’s it, really.”

Click here to view the 2011 Annual Town Meeting Warrant.

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Posted by Jay Turner on Mar 3 2011. Filed under News, Town Government. Both comments and pings are currently closed.