Planning Board Administrative Meeting
Pre-application review for 29 Water St.: proposal to convert a historic mill to six residential units under a Historic Special Permit (parking waiver and affordable-unit options discussed). The Board also reviewed proposed internal administrative procedures for submittals, deadlines, interdepartmental memos, and pre-decision hearings.
The Planning Board met on March 2, 2026. The meeting included a detailed pre-application presentation and discussion for 29 Water Street and a substantive review of proposed internal administrative procedures governing submissions, departmental memos, waiver justifications, and pre-decision hearing practices. Routine agenda items (approval of prior meeting minutes and invoices) were handled and the meeting was adjourned by vote.
At 29 Water Street, the applicant (represented by Construction Operations Group, counsel, and an engineer) presented a plan to restore an 1878 mill building in the IC district and convert upper floors to six residential units (three two-bedrooms and three one-bedrooms) with the ground floor remaining non-occupiable due to floodplain restrictions. The project would pursue a Historic Special Permit, requires a parking waiver (relying on nearby municipal parking and the citys downtown sticker/fee program), and may pursue payment-in-lieu of providing an on-site affordable unit (or reconfigure to five units to avoid the affordable-unit requirement). The board discussed building preservation (roof, repointing, reuse of original floors), balconies, dormers, mechanical and elevator placement on the ground floor, the need to coordinate with the Conservation Commission and Design Review Committee, temporary construction easements and fencing, limited on-site landscaping and potential easement-based enhancements, and ideas to activate the ground floor (public-private partnership, gallery or corridor). Board members also discussed enforcement of parking through city programs and noted possible options for off-site or leased parking.
The Board also reviewed proposed Administrative Procedures intended to tighten submission deadlines (two Wednesdays before the meeting with a final Friday cutoff for minor changes), restrict presentations that introduce new information, require written departmental memos (with suggested 30-day lead time) and a clear waiver table with justification, and establish a pre-decision hearing process that separates standard conditions from project-specific conditions to streamline final votes. Board members emphasized the need to rely on subject-matter experts for non-discretionary design standards and to synthesize questions at initial hearings for distribution to departments. No final permit or ordinance votes were taken on the 29 Water Street proposal during the meeting.