By MARK SARDELLA
WAKEFIELD – An apartment building with more than 100 units will be constructed on the present site and parking lot of MG Fitness at 10 Broadway after the Zoning Board of Appeals voted last week to grant the necessary Special Permits and other relief requested by New Creek, LLC, a New York-based investment company.
Originally proposed as a five-story, 124-unit project, the number of units was reduced to 106 after the ZBA objected to the size and density.
At last week’s final hearing on the project, attorney Brian McGrail brought the board up to speed regarding several revisions to the list of conditions for the project.
One condition involved parking. The board had previously expressed concern that parking could spill out to nearby streets and parking lots, especially if tenants attempt to evade an added charge for parking on site. McGrail said that his client had agreed to a condition whereby each unit will be assigned a separate parking space for each individual motor vehicle owned, leased or used on a regular basis by an occupant of that unit.
The manager of the building will be required to notify all tenants of this requirement as part of their lease agreement. The property owner must also maintain detailed records to show compliance with this condition.
ZBA member David Hatfield called it “the most extensive parking requirement I’ve ever seen.”
McGrail talked about the Operations and Maintenance Plan for the property, including the marking and maintenance of the parking spaces in the ground-level garage under the building and the surface parking areas. A condition of approval requires that the parking gate system must be kept in good working order.
McGrail asked civil engineer John Ogren to review some minor revisions to the site plan. One of the changes involved moving six of the planned 16 electric vehicle charging stations from the garage to the exterior parking lot.
Nineteen of the 106-units will be classified as “affordable” under the town’s inclusionary zoning bylaw.
There will be 73 new trees and 290 new shrubs added to the site, according to the landscape plan for the project.
The developer has also agreed to pay the town $50,000 toward traffic signal improvements at Main Street and North Avenue. In addition, the developer will pay engineering costs to reconfigure the intersection of North Avenue and Broadway, which will allow vehicles to turn left from Broadway onto North Avenue (currently prohibited).
When chairman Thomas Lucey opened the hearing to public comment, no residents offered any testimony.
The ZBA’s approval of the project involved four separate votes. Each motion passed by a vote of 4-1, with hairman Thomas Lucey voting against approval. Lucey had consistently maintained throughout the hearing process that the project was too big and too dense for the site.
