Peabody council votes to keep IZ buyout ordinance

PEABODY – Despite receiving the majority of votes, the request to remove the Inclusionary Zoning Buyout ordinance failed Thursday night.The decision needed to receive an 8-3 vote in order to pass, but came up short at 7-4. Councilors Barry Osborne, Michael Garabedian, Dave Gamache and Bob Driscoll voted to keep it in place.The provision first came to Peabody in 2001 when councilors voted to give developers the option to pay the city a calculated amount of money in lieu of building affordable housing units. The Council then decided to either accept or reject the offer on an individual basis.Since then, only the developers of The Highlands at Dearborn apartments have successfully completed the buyout process. They paid the city $1.2 million in lieu of the required 67 affordable housing units. Another project was approved, but never developed.After years of not knowing exactly what to do with the money, the city has agreed to use portions of it for existing affordable housing programs, and most recently, to fund a downtown project by Habitat for Humanity.The vote Thursday night was the second taken by city councilors, as Mayor Michael Bonfanti vetoed the first one in September.The office of Community Development also felt that eliminating the option wasn’t the best idea.”Removal of the language could act as a deterrent to developers, financers, and others in the future and hold back quality projects from being done in Peabody,” a memo stated.Bob Driscoll agreed.”Developers need some incentive,” he said to the Council Thursday, explaining that with the drowning economy, developers need incentive more than ever.”This shouldn’t be thrown away,” said Garabedian, adding that the city may not have needed the money before, but they certainly do now.Councilor Arthur Athas has long opposed the current IZ Buyout ordinance, saying that it’s full of loopholes and has proven to be unsuccessful.”What have we to show for it?” he asked. “This is the perfect time to wipe the slate clean.”Everyone, however, agreed that the city must learn from their past mistakes and tighten the ordinance.”We have to make a lot of effort to change it,” said Osborne. “It’s not the developer’s right. It’s up to us. No one’s going to buyout if we don’t let them.”