SAUGUS — Despite twice earning a favorable recommendation from the Planning Board, a proposal to rezone 39R Forest Street is stuck in limbo.
The property is currently zoned as residential, but the proposal aims to include it in the Business Highway Sustainable Development district that encompasses Route 1.
The proposal was on the warrant for this month’s Annual Town Meeting, and went before the Planning Board for a public hearing in April. At that hearing, the proposal was continued pending the clarification of a pair of covenants that would prohibit the developer Sal Palumbo, who owns the property, from constructing on Forest Street.
Those covenants remain the hurdle to the proposal’s approval.
On May 4, the same night the Planning Board issued a negative recommendation on the proposed Cliftondale Square Zoning Overlay District, Attorney Mark Bobrowski, who is representing Palumbo, sought a continuance to give his client additional time to review amendments made to the covenants by town counsel.
The board granted that continuance with the proposal set to be heard — and likely recommended — on May 18. But, with the board having just three members and one set to be absent because of a death in the family, the meeting was canceled. Without a recommendation from the Planning Board, Town Meeting cannot act on the article, and with the other 20 articles on the warrant voted on by the close of the third session on May 15, the rezoning was postponed pending the next special or annual Town Meeting, whichever comes first.
It appears Palumbo won’t have to wait long.
The Board of Selectmen are set to open the warrant for a Special Town Meeting. While the date for that meeting is not yet known, it would likely be held in June. The board’s chairman, Anthony Cogliano, is the primary sponsor of the rezoning, suggesting the article would almost certainly appear on the warrant once again.
Cogliano has said he was employed by Palumbo when the zoning change for Route 1 was approved by the town. He said it was his understanding, as well as that of state Rep. Donald Wong (R-Saugus), Town Meeting members, and former Planning Board member Peter Rossetti, that the 39R Forest St. parcel was included in the new BHSD zoning. The Forest Street property is attached to 961 Broadway.
“Why it wasn’t, I have no idea,” Cogliano told the Planning Board earlier this month.
Palumbo is seeking the rezoning to permit the construction of a new multifamily development on the parcel. Bobrowski explained that in order to access the developable portion of the property, his client would need to have the Forest Street property’s zoning amended.
“He wants to take a multifamily use from Broadway, across 39R, and then make a left-hand turn onto 999 [Broadway],” he said.
The covenants concern both 39R Forest St. and 45 Forest St., both of which Palumbo owns, and essentially bar him from constructing a development on the residential street, a condition Bobrowski has indicated Palumbo is comfortable with.
Cogliano told the Planning Board he would not speak in favor of the proposal at Town Meeting unless those covenants were in place.
“I want to make sure the residents of Forest Street are protected, that’s why I wanted it to go forward in the first place,” he said.
