Five-hour meeting leaves many applications without rulings
BY PETER B. BRACE
At one point during the Dec. 11 Planning Board meeting, there were around 65 people filling all the seats with the unlucky ones standing around, waiting for their applications to be heard.

The Planning Board waded through 16 public hearings, which took more than three hours to review.

Although lengthier hearings for the Point Breeze Hotel, Ellen’s Way and Pippen’s Way stole the show, several other up-and-coming developments that got continued without much action bear updating.

GOING UNDERGROUND

Developer Center Street ACKquisitions, which is planning an addition of a new building to house 10 new rooms over five underground parking spaces, withdrew its application because the developer needs to work out the design of the new building and its innovative parking garage beneath. Attorney Melissa Philbrick told the Planning Board that they planned to withdraw their application without prejudice, re-file it with revised plans and send new notices to abutters so it can come back to the Planning Board with Historic District Commission-approved plans.

Center Street ACKquisitions’ plans were to have been heard by the HDC at its Dec. 12 meeting, but this application did not make it onto that night’s agenda. Currently, their plans are to demolish the existing cottage at the end of the brick parking area on Chestnut Street and replace it with a 2,150-square-foot building over an underground parking area, taking care to preserve the linden tree at the entrance to the parking area. Tree Warden Dave Champoux told the board in a letter that he is satisfied that Center Street ACKquisitions’ plans will not harm the tree.

LETTERS OF APPROVAL

At the Dec. 11 meeting, both the Cliffside Beach Club and Finback Lane heard the sentence all Planning Board applicants love to hear after their public

hearings are closed: the board’s motion and vote to direct its staff to draw up a letter of approval for the next meeting, in this, for Jan. 8.

The Cliffside Beach Club’s proposal is to add a 20-seat bistro within the confines of its existing club for members and their guests only. It would not be open to the public, would close by 11 p.m. and parking would continue to be shared by the beach club and the Galley Restaurant next door.

Developer Gary Winn also heard the letter of approval utterance from the Planning Board last week for his Finback Lane development. Winn’s proposal is for a 15-lot cluster subdivision on 6.5 acres off Bartlett Road. The lots range in size from 5,000 to 6,000 square feet and Winn told the board that other than single-car garages, there would be no secondary dwellings or studios. He plans to tie into town water and then install a communal septic system for the development.

The board’s directive to its staff to write up an approval letter is contingent on Winn and the staff working out some minor unfinished engineering issues.

CONTINUED

Still working out the engineering specifics of their development are Richard and Nancy Larrabee, who want to do a nine-lot development off Millbrook Road on 10.1 acres. The half-acre lots would have town water and sewer utilities and only one dwelling per lot with the possibility of garages with apartments over them, according to engineer John Shugrue.

The Planning Board continued this public hearing to the board’s Feb. 12 meeting along with Granger Frost’s two proposed developments for his land at 78 and 80 Madaket Road, Daisy Field Way and Front Field Way, respectively, although Frost’s attorney, Arthur Reade, told the board his client is not willing to restrict his lots to further subdividing. Both plans — Daisy Field Way at 6.02 acres and Front Field Way at 31.5 acres — are two-lot subdivisions that could easily be chopped up into scores of half-acre lots under the existing R-2 zoning should Frost choose to do so.

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