In the coming weeks, residents in Manchester and Essex head to fall town meetings where each, in their own way, will take up historic zoning changes. Meanwhile, in Manchester, Cell Signaling Technology’s march to securing Planning Board approval on Manchester’s largest construction project nears its end.
Town Meetings Monday offer historic zoning in Essex, MBTS
On Monday, the Essex Planning Board will again be the focus at this year’s special Fall Town Meeting, as it continues its march to shape Essex’s zoning bylaw. It’s expected to receive some pushback from locals who feel the new districts are anti-business and create too much gentrification, too fast. Town Meeting starts at 6:45 p.m. Monday, Nov. 18 at the Essex Elementary School.
Manchester will also be holding a Special Town Meeting that night (6:30 p.m. at the ME Regional High School) that asks residents to adopt the 3A MBTA zoning overlay district that would expand multi-family housing production. The meeting also seeks approval to spend $250,000 of CPC funds for land acquisition by Essex County Greenbelt of open space along the Manchester-Gloucester border.
Residents Monday will be asked to approve two new zoning districts that, if passed, would officially end the town’s “live free or die” legacy in Massachusetts. Until three years ago, Essex was the only Eastern Massachusetts municipality to have no use-based zoning “districts.” In 2021, that changed with a measured move to create the “Downtown District,” the Main Street Causeway, to confirm what it’s always been: a downtown retail area. At the time, the Planning Board successfully moved to suspend all residential-to-commercial changes in use while it planned a strategy to shape all of Essex.
Now it’s here.
Article 3 would create two new residential only zoning districts covering over half of Essex. The smaller district, “The Village Residential Use District,” includes mostly single- and two-family dwellings,
home occupations, and mixed-use properties. It is limited to three areas: neighborhoods along the Causeway, sections off Southern Avenue and County Road, and parts of Eastern Avenue between Lufkin and
Harlow Streets. This district aims to maintain the town’s rural village character. Existing businesses are protected, and residential-to-business use changes require a special permit.
The “Rural Residential Use District,” the larger area, is also primarily composed of single- and two-family homes, home occupations on larger properties, and includes some pre-existing commercial or industrial sites. Most of the footprint falls within lands in Essex that are south of Eastern Avenue, Main Street, and John Wise Ave. (all of Rte. 133). It also includes coastal marshland neighborhoods around Island Road, the length of Spring Street and Lufkin Street to Conomo Point Road. This district supports residential and agricultural uses while permitting pre-existing business operations. Locals point to several events that influenced the move to clearly define Essex’s zoning by use. First, five years ago when complaints arose about junked cars at a specialized auto shop on Eastern Avenue. Later, plans for an industrial cell tower in a residential zone sparked community outrage.
Finally, a wedding event business proposal for Island Road led the Planning Board to act more quickly, noting that current zoning could allow inappropriate businesses—citing examples such as a drive-through coffee shop—in residential areas. The idea at the time was that under the current Essex zoning, that could happen (and it shouldn’t).
Article 3, however, is already seeing significant pushback from local businesses that say the zones will restrict new businesses and prevent expansion from current ones. Others say Essex has a long history of bootstrappy business owners that goes way back—shipbuilding, shoe manufacturing, ice making, farming—who thrived precisely because Essex was a spot of freedom from meddling.
In Manchester, CST compromise reached on Atwater Ave. sidewalk
On Tuesday, the Manchester Planning Board made further additions and subtractions to a list of possible conditions for Cell Signaling Technology’s proposed research-and-development laboratories.
CST is seeking a comprehensive special permit to build a 500-employee facility over two phases on the site of the former gravel quarry in the Limited Commercial District, just north of the Manchester Athletic Club.
The latest list of conditions contained 17 items, including a compromise over a key sticking point in previous meetings—a sidewalk on Atwater Avenue. Previously, the town wanted a sidewalk and a bicycle lane. CST officials maintained that there just wasn’t room for them, pointing to the wetlands on both sides of the road.
But Brian Geaudreau of Hancock Associates said that by moving the guardrails on Atwater Ave. and filling in the road’s shoulders, enough space for a four-foot sidewalk would be created.
While a bike lane was not part of the current plans, speed-reducing measures were. Town Director of Planning Marc Resnick said a bicycle lane was still possible, but could not be determined until the sidewalks were installed.
The compromise has CST paying for the cost of installing a bicycle lane on School Street from the Route 128 overpass to Atwater Avenue and to cover some of the cost of maintaining the 14-foot culvert through which the Sawmill Brook passes under Atwater Avenue.
Public Works Director Chuck Dam said the culvert was “not in immediate need of work but would need some work sometime in the future.”
Both Planning Board members Laura Tenney and Chris Olney praised the compromise.
Still the compromise needed dates for the work to be completed and sums of money that CST would agree to pay for this work.
Many of the other conditions did not face any objections. But Planning Board member Mary Foley questioned the condition of working hours. The town bylaw limits construction work from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays. CST had asked for an earlier start time and the board had agreed to a 7 a.m. start time, partly to allow the work vehicles to get on site and not interfere with school buses on School Street.
Foley pointed out that the Planning Board couldn’t just change the bylaw.
Planning Board Chairman Sarah Creighton and others on the board noted that projects around town often started at 7 a.m. or earlier.
Foley had a list of other condition she had previously suggested that were not on the current list. She said many were conditions that had been part of building the 77,000-sf ME Regional High School project more than 20 years ago.
Others on the Planning Board said in most cases Foley’s requests were already covered in another of the conditions, or that they were covered by other rules and regulations.
However, the Planning Board agreed to look into one of Foley’s conditions, concerning limiting the use of rock salt to melt snow and ice on Atwater Avenue that could harm wetlands areas.
The CST hearing was continued until Nov. 25 at 7 p.m.
“We are nearing the final version” of the list of conditions, said Creighton. “Maybe we can wrap it up at the next meeting.”
