Lynn council to hear harbor plan

LYNN – The City Council is slated to address two key zoning issues today: The regulation of adult entertainment districts and a plan to ensure development of the waterfront includes adequate green space, setbacks and natural lighting.A representative of Sasaki Associates, the urban design and planning firm hired by the city to develop the concept, is scheduled to make a presentation at tonight’s public hearing that councilors can vote to recommend or reject.If adopted, the plan would be forwarded to state officials, including those at the Department of Environmental Protection and the Office of Coastal Zone Management, for further review.”The Municipal Harbor Plan is distinct from the Waterfront Master Plan,” said James Cowdell, executive director of the Lynn Economic Development & Industrial Corp. (EDIC). “The public hearing is the final step in adopting the harbor plan. Lynn has never had one before.”Community Development Director James Marsh noted that the upcoming $250,000 dredging of a navigational channel in Lynn Harbor by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is a separate project, unrelated to the harbor plan.”We are meeting with the Army Corps next week,” he said.According to Cowdell, the harbor plan takes into consideration such factors as wind direction and exposure, shading, green space, setbacks from the water, and the slant of high-rise buildings so that they allow adequate sun light.The plan also establishes the city’s goals and objectives for the use of specific harbor areas, while implementing a strategy designed to focus legal, institutional and financial resources on those goals. In doing so, harbor-specific development and design standards are created as substitutes for what would otherwise be general, statewide standards.”This is all very exciting,” Cowdell said. “We have relocated the power lines. We’re working on bringing a Boston ferry here, and now we’re getting a harbor plan approved, all at the same time.”State Transportation Secretary Jeffrey Mullan told the North Shore Alliance Friday that the department of Transportation was unable to obtain the stimulus funds necessary to move a Lynn Ferry plan forward in the near future.