The public hearing having been closed at its last meeting, the Marion Zoning Board of Appeals was eager on October 13 to vote accept Ken Steen’s application for a comprehensive permit as amended, corrected and encased in Town Counsel Jon Witten’s revised draft decision approving the site plan dated October 6 to build Heron Cove Estates.
Steen’s 120-unit, affordable-housing development planned off Route 6 near the Wareham town line is a Local Initiative Program (LIP) 670CMR negotiated with and approved by the Marion Select Board. The public hearing was opened on January 30, 2020, according to Witten.
Steen’s representatives indicated agreement with all requests, and the revisions were acceptable.
The ZBA was especially eager to vote in part because it was down to three eligible voting members, the bare minimum allowed and even then necessitating unanimity.
With the vote of approval, Steen is required to start construction three years from October 12, 2022 and required to complete the project five years from the date he files an occupancy permit.
Steen originally sought a 10-year limit, according to ZBA Chair Cynthia Callow, but member Will Tifft said there was discussion, and five years was the board’s consensus.
Callow instructed the members that now that the decision is approved, the ZBA has until November 8 to get the decision written and signed and stamped. She hopes that happens sooner because it would allow Steen to pull his permit, triggering the state to put the planned 120 affordable units on Marion’s affordable-housing account.
“Mr. Steen is eager to start breaking ground in 45 days from the day it’s stamped. If he can’t … he has a year to start,” said Callow.
Steen confirmed Callow’s procedure, noting that the permit signifies Marion would then be over the state threshold of 10% in affordable housing, authorizing the town to reject future applications seeking permits to build such developments in favor of market-rate projects that would bring greater tax revenue to the town.
Callow thanked the ZBA members for their due diligence. “I don’t think anyone in the town could question our devotion,” she said.
Steen also thanked the board.
Marion Building Commissioner Bob Grillo called Heron Cove Estates a “textbook LIP.”
“Towns don’t like 40B’s,” he said. “The (Select Board) negotiated in good faith. They both got a little bit of what they wanted and a little bit of what they didn’t want, right? And it started out from there. Laborious as this procedure has been, it’s been pretty straightforward.”
Callow told the membership that if as expected Steen returns to the ZBA per the agreement with issues that necessitate votes, the full membership would become eligible to vote on those follow-up matters.
Grillo suggested facing three distinct stages of vetting before, during and after construction, there be an internal document for oversight. Determining ahead of time which departments are going to be involved would help identify and bring them into the loop so that the project has a central nervous system within town offices.
“It’s nothing that has to be done tomorrow, but bring it back to the next meeting,” said Grillo. “Get a document that is easily manageable, but make sure our I’s are dotted … We want to dictate who’s going to be responsible for what.”
With the Heron Cove decision rendered, the ZBA also voted to seek authorization to use the “Mullin Rule.” The board will ask the Select Board to sponsor an article in the Warrant for next spring’s Annual Town Meeting. Even with town vote, the attorney general still needs to approve the change.
The article would read: To see if the Town will vote to accept for the following boards, committees or commissions holding adjudicatory hearings in the Town, the provisions of Massachusetts General Law Chapters 39 and 23D, which provide that a member of a board, committee or commission holding an adjudicatory hearing shall not be disqualified from voting in the matter solely due to the member’s absence from one session of such hearing, provided that certain conditions as established by said statute are met. Board & Committees Affected: Zoning Board of Appeals.
On Grillo’s recommendation, the ZBA voted to continue to December 22 at 6:30 pm a case opened to hear an application for variances from Martha Collins-Gray and Robert Gray, who wish to add a nonconforming garage to their 114 Front Street residence.
The next meeting of the Marion ZBA is scheduled for Thursday, November 10, at 6:00 pm at the Marion Police Station, also accessible via Zoom.
Marion Zoning Board of Appeals
By Mick Colageo