SWAMPSCOTT — As residents continue to voice their concerns about a proposed 40B development on Elm Place, the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) opted Tuesday night to continue a public hearing on the matter.
The ZBA met Tuesday night to discuss whether to approve a comprehensive special permit requested by WinnDevelopment, which is seeking to build a 120-unit, mixed-income building in that neighborhood.
“This board has not made up its mind yet one way or the other,” said Marc Kornitsky, chairman of the ZBA. “The law looks for this board to hopefully have a healthy dialogue and negotiation with the developer to provide for an acceptable project for the town and the developer that promotes affordable housing and satisfies those concerns within our jurisdiction.”
Chapter 40B is a state statute that allows local zoning boards of appeals to approve affordable-housing developments under flexible rules if at least 20-25 percent of the units have long-term affordability restrictions. Developers can override local zoning bylaws to increase the stock of affordable housing in municipalities where less than 10 percent of the homes are defined as affordable. In Swampscott, less than 4 percent of its housing is considered affordable.
The proposal has garnered much opposition from potential abutters, concern from members of the Select Board, and now has drawn the ire of a group of seniors in town, who spent Monday afternoon and early Tuesday morning protesting the project. These seniors live in Swampscott public housing.
The Swampscott Housing Authority has two properties designated for senior housing, located on Doherty Circle and Duncan Terrace.
The Elm Place Chapter 40B project includes a five-story building and a proposed bike path/access bridge to the Commuter Rail that will go along Doherty Circle and Pitman Road.
Joanne Rosen has lived in senior housing at Duncan Terrace for more than 10 years and has friends who live on Doherty Circle.
She said the town has never paid any attention to the seniors in the community, and now this project will take away some of the limited property the seniors have on Doherty Circle.
“We’re trying to stop that,” Rosen said. “It’s going to change the landscape of everything and add traffic.”
Kornitsky said the town has not had 40B projects for quite a while. That is why he started the meeting with a review of the comprehensive-permit statute known as Chapter 40B, concerning affordable-housing projects.
“Let’s focus on statutory requirements,” said Kornitsky, mentioning local need for affordable housing, health, safety, planning and design as issues that local authorities can weigh in on.
He emphasized that the ZBA cannot refuse a comprehensive permit unless valid health and safety concerns outway the regional need for housing. Schools overcrowding, traffic increase, sewer and water concerns are not sufficient to deny a permit according to law, Kornitsky said.
The state monitors that Chapter 40B does not become a way for a developer to become richer, said Ezra Glenn, an independent consultant who is working with the town for free, on the Elm Place review under a contract from MassHousing, an independent, quasi-public agency that supports affordable-housing opportunities for Massachusetts residents.
Glenn explained that the Chapter 40B process creates a one-stop shop for local approval and gives the local zoning board 180 days to make a decision from the moment a developer files for a comprehensive permit, which should include review of plans as well as public participation.
“We’ve taken into account many of the comments from the town and Select Board,” said Chris Drucas, an attorney representing WinnDevelopment.
He said the developer has not been idle over the past 16 months, presenting their plans to several agencies, boards and many neighbors, including the Fire Department, Department of Public Works and others.
The state Housing & Community Development Department determined that the location is appropriate for the project and economically feasible, said Drucas. The developer has also made significant changes to the original plan and was reviewing recommendations of the Planning Board, received during two meetings in November.
Various representatives of WinnDevelopment went over such changes, including adding a lot of additional parking spaces, adjusting the height of the project, reducing the number of units to 120, creating a fire-truck-turnaround plan, and overall changing the style of the development from modern to more appropriate for the neighborhood and town.
In terms of affordability, WinnDevelopment presented calculations that 42 percent of units will be affordable, including 38 units which will be at market rate, 27 units at middle-income range of 80-120 percent of area median income (AMI), 39 units at or below 60-percent AMI and 16 units at or below 30-percent AMI.
The public and ZBA were also familiarized with the traffic study, conducted by Vannese and Associates Inc., which concluded that the project will not lead to a significant increase in motorist delays, vehicle queuing or impared safety for motor vehicles or residents of Elm Place. The study also showed that the amount of parking was comparable to similar developments and should be sufficient.
The floor hadn’t yet been open for public input by the Item’s print deadline. The only question that was answered touched upon the Swampscott Rail Trail, which is supposed to go between the Elm Place project and the Housing Authority’s property, and cross the Commuter Rail, presumably via an access bridge that the developer included in their plans.
WinnDevelopment said they have reserved 10 feet of their property for the trail, free of charge for the town, and that they don’t know what agency from the town needs to negotiate with the Housing Authority.
Kornitsky replied that this was definitely a topic for discussion because the town had made the plan for the trail and this situation presented a risk for it to be cut off, but the matter was out of ZBA’s jurisdiction.
At Tuesday’s protest, Rosen said the Housing Authority has been fighting to make living conditions for its residents better, but the town hasn’t given any money or support to help. Now, Rosen said, the proposed rail trail will take more than 10 feet away from the Housing Authority’s property on Duncan Terrace.
“We just want a home we can be proud of, and now with this new development idea, they want to take away even more from us,” Rosen said.
The Housing Authority units are in need of new windows, doors, kitchen cabinets, refrigerators, floors, ceilings, and siding, but funding is needed to make these improvements happen.
Rosen is part of a tenant’s association that was recently started to try to get more tenants active to push for more help.
“It’s just going to make a big difference for us to be able to call it our home, but the town is just not helping,” Rosen said. “They don’t give us any credit.”
The president of the tenant’s association, Joe Spindler, said the proposed development on Elm Place will take over the public housing on Doherty Circle, disrupting all senior residents there.
“They want to build affordable housing, but the affordable housing isn’t even affordable,” Spindler said.
Spindler said the development also wants to have traffic going through the Doherty Circle public housing to get to Elm Place, which he said is not at all safe for the senior residents.
In regards to the rail trail, Spindler said the senior residents won’t even use it much and they don’t take the commuter rail, so it won’t benefit the more than 40 residents who live there.
“The town hasn’t done anything for public housing,” Spindler said. ‘They don’t even tell us what’s going on. We have no input on what happens to us and our homes.”
The ZBA will continue the hearing on Jan. 11.
