Newburyport, A Sense of Unease
May 22nd, 2006I have this sense of unease in a “post Cracknell world.”
I read about the pre-application site plan review for the proposed project on 81-83 Storey Avenue in the Undertoad Blog (Lots of information in that post on the project along with a picture of the submitted conceptual drawings -which to me are very unnerving) and the Newburyport Daily News.
I’m glad and not surprised to read that the Planning Board was not overly impressed — no “letter of support.” Thank goodness we now have the “site plan review” in place. Whew.
(For the “power group” as Harvey Beit has referred to them — this is why we need the “site plan review,” get it.)
I read on the Undertoad Blog about our “friendly” developer, Bernie Christopher, who has violated the special permit granted him by the Newburyport Planning Board for 52 Ferry Road. Lovely.
I think about the flooding that has occurred around where Mr. Moak is now thinking of allowing the 40B project to go ahead on Low Street and shudder.
And I hear rumors of the possibility of a large piece of “infill” property at 30 Malborough Street that has reportedly been sold to a developer (there’s already a dumpster there.) The property is right across from Mayor John Moak and extends all the way back a block to the street behind it. Reportedly Mr. Bill O’Flaherty has been seen walking the property. Once I wouldn’t have cared about a rumor like that, now it makes me feel ill.
I don’t know what the status of the Wheelwright property on High Street is. I’m feeling gloomy today. I’m not optimistic.
In a “Cracknell world” I would have know that the Planning Director would have been right “on top” of the proposed 81-83 Storey Avenue project. He already had a solution to the 40B Low Street project. And I would be calling him ASAP about the property on Marlborough Street. And he was already negotiating for the city concerning the Wheelwright property on High Street.
The city feels un-moored to me, and I don’t think it’s just because of all the rain and the flooding.
I am glad that the Undertoad Blog is reporting (with pictures) all these proposed projects and violations by developers. It helps to have an informed public.
But there is just so much stuff and it just seems so overwhelming. And I would imagine that the Newburyport Planning Board and the Newburyport Zoning Board of Appeals must feel a great deal of weight.
To juggle all these things would take the energy and drive of our former Planning Director.
And it still begs the question, either Mayor John Moak just doesn’t get it, or equally as bad, he just doesn’t care.
Mary Eaton, Newburyport