NEWBURYPORT – The town’s Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) closed the public hearing last week on the proposed Plaza Landing building that will replace the vacant Kmart store with 212 new apartments.
The five-member board, which has little wiggle room to deny approval under state rules, will now grapple with several questions, such as:
Is the proposed building too tall at 55 feet, compared to the old Kmart at 40 feet?
Is it the right architectural design for Newburyport?
Will it be safe for the increased volume of pedestrians and bikers?
Is there a place for residents to walk their dogs?
But maybe the most vexing challenge is whether the ZBA should insist that the developer, Richard Kaplan’s Port Plaza Realty Trust, build a left-hand turn lane on Low Street to facilitate vehicles turning into the new building and Shaw’s parking lot.
The cost of a 10-foot lane, according to Lisa Mead, the attorney who represents the trust, would be about $700,000. And the project’s traffic engineer Jeffrey Dirk described the turn lane as a something that would be nice to have, but is not required due to the estimated increase in vehicular and pedestrian traffic created by the new building.
“A turning lane is not justified by the project,” Dirk, the managing partner and senior engineer of Vanesse & Associates, told the ZBA.
The bottom line, according to the board’s discussion, is that this intersection has long been deficient. Vehicles traveling downhill from Storey Avenue are usually in a hurry to get to work and school and often swing around vehicles turning left into the plaza. There is no turn lane now.
Kaplan opposes building the turning lane to solve a traffic problem the project is not creating. As ZBA chair Rob Ciampitti said, “It is a pre-existing condition.”
There has been strong public support for adding the lane, which would increase the width of Low Street in front of Hodgie’s Two ice cream shop from 36 to 42 feet. In addition to the proposed standard 10-foot turn lane in the center, there would be two 11-foot wide through lanes on either side of the turn lane and two five-foot bicycle lanes against each curb.
In place of the turn lane, the developer is proposing to add a Hawk Signal, a flashing stop light pedestrians can order, and a well-striped crosswalk to create more safety for pedestrians crossing Low Street to catch a MeVa bus.
Mead also told the ZBA that MeVa has been asked to begin again making a stop inside the plaza in front of the new building.
“This would encourage residents to ride the bus,” she said.
The ZBA might also propose that the developer build an island opposite the turning lane, which would calm traffic and give pedestrians a safe zone in the middle of the street to stand while crossing.
The ZBA vice chair Ken Swanson was also worried that unless there is a turn lane, the increased number of bicyclists might be threatened by frustrated drivers sweeping into the bike lane to go around cars backed up to turn left into the plaza.
Dirk dismissed Swanson’s concern, saying there are no reported accidents involving a car and a bicyclist at that intersection.
The ZBA began this week to debate whether to approve the proposed Plaza Landing apartments that will offer 25 percent of the 212 apartments at a rental reserved for tenants who earn below 80 percent of the area’s median income or about $127,000. The remainder of the units would be market-rate rentals for at least 35 years.
That will make the city’s housing stock about 12 percent affordable, which is over the state’s mandate of 10 percent, that allows the city more regulatory oversight in approving future housing projects. ♦
