Attendees at a public hearing expressed a strong preference that housing, ideally with an affordability component, be central to plans for the Stephen Palmer property after it returns to town control in the spring of 2027.
The comments were made at a Jan. 12 public hearing of the Stephen Palmer Redevelopment Committee, which drew nearly 100 attendees. More than half were in person at Powers Hall and the balance participated online.
The hearing was a “blue sky” session to solicit public input on the town’s strategy for the site at the corner of Pickering and May streets after its 50-year use as a 28-unit, senior-directed apartment building comes to an end.
“Most people in the room know that, in 2027, the property is going to revert to town control,” Judi Barrett, the town’s planning consultant on the project, said at the outset of the meeting.
“What we’ve been asked to do is to develop and guide the process that will help your community decide what is the future for this property and what are the possibilities.”
“We (the committee) are not making the decisions, your community is. But we’ve been asked to narrow down, scope down what those possibilities might be,” Barrett said.
The committee will make its recommendations to the Select Board, possibly as soon as June. The Planning Board, Town Meeting and possibly other town entities will also need to act on the plans.
The hearing began with presentations on the current condition of the building, its history and relevant zoning and legal considerations, followed by a brief public comment session.
Architect David Gamble, who is working with Barrett, said visual inspections of the building have revealed that, “As old buildings go, structurally speaking, this building is in good shape. It’s been well maintained.”
He noted that its proximity to Greene’s Field provides an opportunity for the town to think more broadly of what can be accommodated, as does the site’s proximity to downtown.
“One might want to have eventually a more direct relationship between a very beloved recreational field and a building which is maybe looking to capitalize on that relationship,” said Gamble.
“It’s very close to your town center and that’s a good thing. That property actually has a lot of allure because it’s really downtown, but it seems much farther away because how you get there (to downtown) is a little complicated.”
The in-person attendees then adjourned to conference tables in the rear of the hall to participate in six small group discussion sessions to share their ideas. The online attendees also held group discussions.
The summary reports from every group included a preference for various types of housing, as well as considerable support for a youth-oriented community center that could possibly be done via a public-private partnership with the adjacent Charles River YMCA, which has expressed its interest in participating with the town.
There were multiple mentions of including some sort of performance center and/or arts studio, an inter-generational facility that could include childcare and more commercially oriented uses such as an innovation center or business incubator.
Attendees were also asked whether they thought it was important to preserve the existing building. Attendees did favor preservation over a possible demolition, but qualified that support somewhat if preservation would prove to add significantly to the overall cost.
Open forum, open minds
“We’ve been trying carefully, as have the town staff, to not lead people to a particular conclusion about what should happen,” Barrett told the Observer the day after the hearing.
“There seemed to be a strong preference for doing something with that property for housing. But there were many other ideas, which is great.”
While the committee has been agnostic on any particular solution, attendees seemed to heed Gamble’s suggestion to incorporate the abutting Greene’s Field and leverage the town’s control over five or so contiguous acres between May Street and Great Plain Avenue bordered by Pickering Street.
Barrett also stressed the near certainty that any future use will require a change in the underlying single-residence zoning at the site. The current apartments were allowed by a complex variance granted back in the 1970s to permit the non-conforming use. Barrett explained that the variance was narrowly drawn to allow only the 28 apartment units as configured.
All tenant leases for those units will expire Oct. 31. Town Meeting has approved a plan to accelerate the process of clearing the building ahead of the May 2027 expiration of the lease with the property management company Crowninshield.
Referring to the ideas offered at the hearing, Barrett said, “Any of these scenarios would require some type of zoning relief because it’s single-residence and there’s a limited number of uses allowed there — and a multifamily is not one of them.”
If the use were to feature residential housing, Barrett said there is virtually no chance that the town would become a de facto developer and/or landlord.
“We just have to really help people understand that if the town decides to convey that property to someone for a residential redevelopment, it’s not the town that’s going to be paying for the renovations or for building. It’s going to be a private developer that’s going to do that.”
“There’s some additional education that needs to happen about what’s the town’s role versus what is the private entity’s role.”
Three scenarios to be presented
The committee intends to analyze the feedback it received from the public, along with the research done to date, and come up with three scenarios to present at a second public hearing, likely to be held in March. A third and final public hearing would be held later in the spring before the committee concluded its work.
“The meeting accomplished what we had all hoped it would, which was that people would come, they would ask questions and they would tell us what they thought,” Barrett said.
“The small groups were talkative and polite, very productive meetings, and I think the online experience was the same.”
The committee’s next monthly meeting is scheduled for Feb. 5. It will include an additional member after the Select Board voted at its Jan. 13 meeting to add a representative of the School Committee, the town entity that has jurisdiction over the site and would need to relinquish that jurisdiction to allow a non-school use.
At its Jan. 13 meeting, the School Committee chose Matt Spengler as its representative. Spengler and School Committee member Liz Lee both attended the Powers Hall meeting while committee Chair Michael O’Brien, Vice Chair Alisa Skatrud and member Sri Baqri participated online.
O’Brien acknowledged that the site was not suitable as a location for a school, but that a future use could accommodate uses that align with longstanding School Committee goals. Those could include increased day care and after-school programming, as well as workforce housing units that could be attractive to teachers.
Save as PDF