When the Manchester-By-The-Sea MBTA Zoning Task Force meets with the Planning Board next month, they hope to present one definite area along with several alternative areas that can be part of the new MBTA multi-family overlay district.
The town is required by state law to create new zoning for at least 37 acres, including 14.8 acres within a half mile of the train station on Summer Street. The new zoning would allow by right an average of 15 units per acre.
Last year, the Planning Board moved to create the Task Force comprised of members of the PB, Historic District Commission, Zoning Board of Appeals, Finance Committee and at-large citizens to comply with the mandate by studying Manchester’s existing zoning and recommending practical options to bring to voters by the state’s deadline at the end of 2024.
Down to Brass Tacks: Task Force Weighs Options for Controlling Density
At a meeting last Thursday, Task Force Chairman Chris Olney said he felt the board had two options, with either the majority of the new zoning in downtown or in the Limited Commercial District.
“The first would put quite a bit of this development out in the LCD, because it is not going to have any dramatic impact on the downtown,” said Olney. “But it is going to generate a lot of housing units. The alternative ... is to concentrate as much in the downtown as we can, which reduces the new additional units, ... but it’s going to have an impact on a greater part of the downtown.”
The area the Task Force has identified as proper for the new zoning stretches from Newport Park, down lower Pine Street, across Morse Court and Elm Street to Powder House Lane. It does not include any lots on Central Street or in the Historic District. This area amounts to 20 acres.
“We identified an area of 20-plus acres in the (train station) circle area, which relieved us of the necessity of including a 20-acre parcel in the LCD,” said Task Force member Richard Smith, at their meeting on March 7.
The Task Force had been looking at two parcels in the Limited Commercial District, which is north of Route 128 – the medical center on School Street (about 13 acres) and the Manchester Athletic Club on Atwater Avenue (about 10 acres).
Since the combination of the two parcels would put them over the needed number of acres, Task Force member Ann Harrison suggested they consider only one of those lots and two smaller parcels on Beaver Dam Road
“The question is how much acreage do we want in the LCD versus downtown,” said Harrison.
That seemed to be a key question of the meeting. Smith had described the geographic debate as “a push-pull between development in the inner district, which risks existing neighborhoods,” as opposed to “larger size of developments in the LCD.”
Essentially the Task Force could include more acres in the half mile circle, which could disrupt existing neighborhoods with small developments, but limit the impact on the LCD, or it could allow a large number of acres in the LCD, potentially creating much larger multi-family housing projects, but limiting the impact on the downtown area.
Smith called it “a tough consideration.”
Two areas were suggested as possible additions to the MBTA Zoning within the half-mile circle of the train station. One area would start at the gas station at the corner of Beach and Summer Streets, including the apartment complex at 10-12 Summer St., and possibly a couple of lots on the same side of Summer Street before it jumped across Summer Street to include a couple of lots along Sea Street, cross the railroad tracks and end at the empty lot at the corner of Sea and Tappan streets. Smith said that group of lots, which would not include Crosby’s Market, was 5 acres.
The other downtown area that was being considered included sections of Desmond Ave., Norwood Ave. and Brook Street. The Task Force generally opposed including the former Cricket office lot on Summer Street and the houses on Allen Ave. in this proposal, The size would depend on exactly which areas were chosen.
“The question is how much acreage do we want in the LCD versus downtown,” said Harrison. “If we included Brook Street downtown, we only need 10 acres” in the LCD.
Olney said he favored the Desmond Street and Brook Street area.
“I’d like to make a pitch for that area,” said Olney. “There is one large parcel, behind the old Cricket building. It’s pretty dense along Brook Street and Desmond Avenue. So the net increase in new additional housing units would be relatively low.”
But Smith favored the Summer Street group.
“My argument is that Desmond (Street and adjoining lots) is more disruptive,” said Smith. “It also has some large developments on it. Whereas the (Tappan) to Summer (Street area) is primarily on highly developed land now.”
Another option became apparent when Chris Imming, senior director of campus planning at Gordon College, spoke to the Task Force over Zoom. He said that he and others at the college had worked with Task Force member Denny Hall since November. They were exploring the possibility of taking a piece of their land in the northwest corner of town and allowing it to be used for multi-family housing as part of the MBTA Zoning.
“We are looking at some parcels that ... would give you a large contiguous parcel,” said Imming, who said the college is one of the largest landowners in the town. He said the college could carve out 10-, 15- or 20-acre lot as an alternative to including either the medical center or the MAC. “The college is open to exploring that with you.”
Hall said that as part of the deal with the college, the college would agree to place conservation restrictions on much of the rest of its land, which would help protect the town’s water supply.
Meanwhile at the Community Center …
On the same day the MBTA Task Force was weighing optimal formulas for creating a compliant MBTA Zoning District that controls density, the Cape Ann PAC hosted a forum called “MBTA Communities: Facts & Myths” at the Manchester Community Center (MCC) just up the street.
The forum featured two speakers—sitting Manchester Planning Board member Christine Delisio and Lynnfield attorney Michael Walsh, who is currently suing the state of Massachusetts on behalf of Rockport resident John T. Kolackovsky, claiming the MBTA Zoning mandate is an unconstitutional overreach that violates the 1966 “Massachusetts Home Rule” law allowing limited autotomy for towns and cities.
Attendees in the audience were largely from Gloucester and Rockport and Manchester. Notable Manchester residents in the audience included Patrick Meehan, co-president of the MCC; Donna Furse, who last year ran unsuccessfully for Planning Board; Susan Philbrick and Sarah Creighton, both members of the PB and the MBTA Task Force; and Mary Foley, a sitting PB member who, along with Delisio, opposed creating the task force last fall because it should stay strictly within the control of the Planning Board.
Delisio said she wanted to “give you the other side of the story.” She said the 2021 state housing law, including the MBTA district zoning mandate, was pushed through “at the last minute” by then-Mass. Gov. Charlie Baker was overwhelmingly approved by the Legislature at the end of his administration, including Sen. Bruce Tarr and Rep. Ann Margaret Ferrante.
“We have a housing crisis,” Delisio acknowledged, but the MBTA district zoning isn’t the answer. Its one-size-fits-all approach for all 177 communities in Massachusetts is blunt and “punitive,” she said. Delisio did not address how she would expand housing stocks in Manchester, whether affordable or market-rate units.
Walsh—who also personally represents Delisio in a current appeal to the ZBA contesting a curb cut on her neighbor’s property and who also represents the Manchester Community Center in its legal fight against Harbor’s Point Condominium over its commercial lease—said that Massachusetts cannot forcibly make Cape Ann communities liberalize local zoning.
Walsh pointed to towns like Milton, whose voters last month rejected the MBTA zoning mandate and were willing to walk away from state grants. He said towns like Manchester should follow suit and, “Just Say No,” invoking the 1980s Nancy Reagan youth campaign against illegal drugs.
But Milton, for its part, became a vivid example of what happens to MBTA communities that opt out of the mandate. On Feb. 27, Mass. Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell filed a lawsuit against Milton, asking the court to prohibit the town from enforcing any local zoning that would conflict with the MBTA zoning mandate.
“The MBTA Communities Law was enacted to address our region-wide need for housing, and compliance with it is mandatory,” said Campbell when her office announced the lawsuit.
Cricket Editor Erika Brown contributed to this piece. The Manchester MBTA Task Force will hold a site visit to both the Desmond Street and Summer Street areas on Friday, March 15, at 1 p.m. and its joint meeting with Planning Board is scheduled for April 25.
