Overlook housing contribution to pay for North Revere street work

REVERE – City Councilors criticize it for overburdening North Revere traffic and, potentially, local schools, but the Overlook residential development is also generating money to pay for local neighborhood street repairs.Mayor Thomas Ambrosino said Overlook developer Roseland Properties has put money over the last several years into an account established through talks between the city and Roseland.With Roseland planning to build up to 2,400 units in Overlook, local traffic estimates predict the development could add 1,000 vehicles a day to streets surrounding the project.The city initially targeted the money in the account to pay for street and sidewalk repair work north of Linden Square and drainage improvement work on Morris Street.Ambrosino wants to use $850,000 currently in the account to do additional work through the North Revere neighborhoods encompassing Ward 6 and specifically the streets around the Whelan-Anthony School complex.”North Revere residents utilize these streets on a regular basis to access these streets on a regular basis to access the new school, it seems reasonable to expand the impact area. Our intent is to do exactly that, starting this construction season,” the mayor noted in a letter to councilors.When it opened in August 2006, the Whelan-Anthony complex added traffic to Newhall and Sargent streets. Police and school officials have monitored the number of cars using the two streets and nearby ones now that two schools on the site the former Whelan School occupied for decades.”The construction of that large scale school project detrimentally impacted the surrounding streets,” Ambrosino stated in a March 14 letter to councilors.He said expanding the area, the Overlook money will allow work to be done on Fenley, Keayne and Malden streets as well as Newhall and part of Mountain Avenue.Councilors have asked for sidewalk and street repairs in North Revere for several years even as the state has prepared to reconstruct the section of Route 1 to ease congestion between Copeland Circle and Route 99.State highway officials are refining plans and a construction schedule for widening Route 1 from two lanes to three in each direction and the highway’s interchange at Copeland Circle will be reconstructed with a new interchange built north of the Salem and Lynn streets off-ramps.In addition to traffic concerns about Overlook, local worries about Route 1 have also focused on traffic noise. Ward 6 Councilor Charles Patch wants highway officials to increase existing sound barrier walls along Route 1 to benefit Revere residents.