The Saugus Planning Board defended its conduct regarding the proposed development at 1631-1639 Broadway after a Daily Item article found 42 conditions had been added to the board’s decision approving the development after it was voted on.
The “Maddy’s Place” development, proposed by the Wong family, will see a pair of buildings constructed on the former site of Victor’s Italian Cuisine on Route 99. The first will feature a ground-floor restaurant and a rooftop bar, with apartments in between, while the second will be comprised only of residential units. The Planning Board voted unanimously to approve a draft decision approaching the site plan, master plan, and hillside protection plan for the development at its Jan. 4 meeting. Then, after that date, and after a supposed final decision was filed with Planning Board Clerk Nancy Stead, 42 conditions were added to the decision, many of which had not been discussed by the board.
Planning Board Vice Chair Jeannie Meredith, who dubbed The Item story “misleading,” said the added conditions resulted from the process of finalizing the draft decision presented by Planning and Economic Development Director Chris Reilly at the Jan. 4 meeting. Indeed, that draft document had 38 conditions included, and the board discussed adding several conditions, including those to be determined by Town Engineer Larry Durkin during the meeting. However, the final decision, which contains 82 conditions, includes other conditions that were not discussed.
The decision sent to Stead, containing 40 conditions, was intended to be the final version to be filed with Town Clerk Ellen Schena.
Meredith said the board opted to vote to approve the development because the applicant was “anxious to get it done” and agreed to delay the filing deadline for the decision to ensure Durkin and board members could finalize the document.
“He had several conditions he wanted, and they were lengthy, and it was agreed upon that night that he would get those conditions over to Chris,” she said. “The problem is sometimes things change, but they don’t want to keep continuing it.”
Meredith noted that the project had been before the board for some time before it was approved and had previously been the subject of two Development Plan Review Committee meetings, where she said “a lot of conditions were talked about.” That committee is not a public body but comprises several town officials, including Town Manager Scott Crabtree.
It’s certainly possible that the conditions included in the final decision filed with Schena were discussed at those meetings, but the Planning Board is the permit-granting authority in this case, and thus, the conditions voted by that body would be the final conditions applied to the plans.
Planning Board member Bob Long said The Item “didn’t reflect good light on what we do here.”
