PEABODY — A proposed 40B project at 40-42 Endicott St. has been appealed by neighbors.
Endicott Street is a single-family neighborhood that is already overburdened by traffic and overcrowded schools, said Mary-Ellen Manning, an attorney representing the neighbors.
“A project of this size exacerbates traffic to dangerous levels, and will tower over an otherwise quaint neighborhood,” said Manning. “This is a diverse neighborhood of working-class people with a high senior-citizen population.”
Neighbors claim that the comprehensive permit decision was arbitrary, capricious, legally untenable, and exceeded the authority of the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA), according to the document.
“Further, it is alleged that an employee within the Community Development Department of defendant City of Peabody used their position to interfere in the processing of time-stamping of official city documents to manipulate the city’s low-income-housing count so that it would appear to be below the 10-percent threshold, thereby injuring the neighbors for the benefit of the favored defendant developer,” the appeal states.
It is also alleged that the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency (MassHousing) fraudulently issued a written determination of project eligibility, wrongfully authorizing the developers, The Residences at Endicott LLC, to apply for a comprehensive permit from the ZBA under M.G.L. c. 40B by falsely claiming that it had performed the mandatory on-site inspection at which local board members and officials were invited to attend, which is a prerequisite to issuing the project-eligibility letter.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to determine if the ZBA exceeded its authority, issue an annulment of the comprehensive permit decision rendered by the ZBA, determine that the comprehensive permit should be denied, award plaintiffs costs, and find that the city acted with gross negligence, bad faith or with malice, and grant further relief.
The neighbors had appealed to Land Court, contesting the issuance of a special permit to the developers to build a 38-unit condominium complex. The Residences at Endicott LLC then applied to the MassHousing for a determination of project eligibility pursuant to M.G.L. c. 40B and 760 CMR 56.00 and its submitted plans were to build a 68-unit, six-story building on 0.70 acres of land.
“The neighbors are very disappointed that their local officials failed to put the people first — rather than greedy special interests,” Manning said. “In Peabody, it seems that certain people get pushed around more than others because they don’t have the political clout to push back. People in power capitalize on this until the powerless fold.”
Manning went on to say that certain neighborhoods make all the sacrifices for all of Peabody.
“The ‘real’ residents of Endicott Street, not the LLC, are tired of being pushed around,” she said. “This project went forward because the power brokers figured no one would be able to stop them.”
Manning said that the neighbors are hopeful that a trial on the merits will allow residents to uncover what motivated the city officials in this case to allegedly act against the interests of their own residents in such a grotesque manner.
