MARBLEHEAD — The controversial Mariner project, previously denied by the Zoning Board of Appeals, is getting a second look from the town.
The application for what would have been the town’s first assisted living facility at 265 Pleasant St. was denied by the ZBA last year. The Planning Board had previously given site plan review approval.
The ZBA rejected a special permit for the facility, the final approval needed for Pleasant Street LLC, or Coastal Streets and Harbor Star Development, owned and led by Michael Lafayette, Heather Cairns and Phil Helmes. Helmes was on the Planning Board when the site plan review was granted, but recused himself from the vote, and is no longer a board member.
The developers filed an appeal of the ZBA decision with the Massachusetts Land Court, challenging the legality of the vote.
The land court judge has remanded the matter back to the ZBA, with a public hearing set at the board’s next meeting on Nov. 6, at Veterans Middle School at 7 p.m., according to Town Administrator John McGinn.
“This is a matter of potential settlement that the ZBA will be taking up at a public hearing on the 6th and then they’ll have to make a decision after that public hearing, whether they want to change their decision,” McGinn said. “I think that the judge in the remand order indicated that if they (ZBA) didn’t change, then the (Land Court) trial will proceed as scheduled on the 14th of November, the following week.”
McGinn said it is up to the ZBA after the public hearing whether they want to approve or disapprove the proposed settlement in the matter.
Paul Feldman, an attorney representing the Mariner developers, said the zoning board and the applicant moved the Land Court to order a remand so the ZBA in a public hearing can consider some proposed changes for the project to determine whether that will resolve the matter.
Feldman said the architecture and materials for the project have changed, which will be presented at the hearing.
“The purpose of the public hearing on Nov. 6 is to determine whether the zoning board believes that the revised project meets the criteria for the issuance of a permit,” Feldman said. “We believe that we’ve addressed the issues raised by the board in its decision, but we’ll have to see what the court says.’
The Mariner application was rejected last year because the board found that “the design features of the project are not compatible with the existing neighborhood, which surrounds the site on three sides, in that the massing is too large,” according to the ZBA decision.
The ZBA also found that the developers did not minimize the effect on the neighborhood given the impacts related to “the incompatibility of the proposed structure.” Board members wrote that the project would have adverse effects on the abutting lots, according to town documents.
Feldman said the purpose of going to Land Court was because the developers thought that it was an error for the zoning board to deny the special permit.
According to the appeal documents, attorneys for the developers argued that during the seven months of public hearings with the ZBA, the board “did not express concern over the proposed developments or massing, but denied the application for “reasons related to massing and fundamentally in conflict with the findings in the site plan approval.”
The proposed development would contain 87 apartments, including some two-bedroom units. It would be located on a 4.5 acre site and would feature parks, walking paths, sitting areas, patios and gardens. The residences would include a restaurant, private dining, pub, cafe, beauty salon, health and wellness room, library and movie theater, according to the developer’s website.
