Technical Review Committee

The committee concentrated on a State 40B eligibility filing for 27 Kimball Road. MassHousing has received the applicant's request for a site-eligibility letter; the proposal covers a 9‑acre site with 95 detached rental units. City staff raised multiple concerns including an isolated wetland proposed to be filled (an ANRAD has been filed with the Conservation Commission), extensive proposed clearing (about 85% of the site), close spacing of units, a high parking ratio, and sewer limitations (town sewer terminates at 15 Kimball Road, requiring a main and pump station to extend service). OCED noted the development pattern differs from typical local projects and recommended using the city's site plan performance standards when preparing comments. The TRC agreed there is an open state comment period, decided to request a 15‑day extension from MassHousing, set a departmental comment deadline of December 15, 2025, and scheduled a public TRC meeting on December 17, 2025 to review and compile comments to submit to the state. Participants also discussed how rental units would count toward the State Housing Inventory (SHI) and observed that approval would not immediately put Amesbury over the 10% threshold.

The committee also discussed clarifying the process for traffic and transportation requests. Members agreed that City Council traffic requests should be referred first to the Police Department for triage; the Police Department will determine if input from DPW, Fire, OCED or TRC is warranted and, if so, forward requests to staff for inclusion on a TRC agenda. The group noted that very small traffic requests can be handled outside TRC, large projects already come to TRC, and mid-size or contentious issues could benefit from collective department review. Administrative minutes were tabled to a future meeting. The meeting was adjourned at 10:21 a.m.