The Planning Board met during their meeting on April 22 to vote to take no action to support the Neighborhood Mixed Use District proposed at the Lumber Street and West Main Street intersection which is on the Annual Town Meeting Warrant as Article 55. Doug Resnick, Marilyn Stickler, James Lambert, Rob Hewitt, and John Connery presented the plan.
A fiscal study for the site was first presented. The site will no longer have three bedroom units, instead having 40% of the units with one bedroom and 60% of the units with two bedrooms and 280 units total. This arrangement can accommodate 74 school age children. The retail portion of the mixed use district will cover 166,000 square feet of the area. The largest non-school costs for the site are police and fire services totalling about $140,000, and medical expenses totalling about $15,000. School costs for school busses and students total about $180,825. With the residential portion of the site, the commercial portion, and the proposed school bus parking area, the whole project is revenue positive.
Planning Board VIce Chairman John Coutinho asked why new jobs were not added as revenue in the reports, and was told that the report was focusing on the fiscal operating budget of the town. Board Member Claire Wright asked if tax revenue generated by school age children in the apartments would offset the cost generated by the students. Stickler commented that the net cost of the rental, compared to an owned condominium or townhouse, would be higher, but the cost generated by a student would be the same. However, Hewitt noted that there are no playgrounds and the site is more adult oriented.
Wright and Planning Board Chairman Ken Weistmantel stated that they were not comfortable with the project at this stage without additional economic studies, traffic studies, and outreach to the community. Weismantel was also concerned with the fact that a host/community agreement for the project was not complete. Stickler responded by saying that the Board of Selectmen had been asked to schedule another meeting at the beginning of May to discuss a completed host/community agreement. However, Weismantel did not know whether that would be enough time for residents to get to know the agreement before Town Meeting. Weismantel also noted that the project is $131,000 positive, of which $111,000 is from school bus parking.
“If we found another place to park the school busses, this would really be a real wash,” said Weismantel.
The Planning Board voted to take no action unless a host/community agreement is completed before Town Meeting. If the agreement is finished, the Board will call a special meeting to go over the agreement before Town Meeting.
