NORWOOD – In a tense deliberation on Monday night, the Planning Board effectively halted the proposed development at 55 Lenox Street, voting 4-1 to deny site plan approval for the 96-unit project. The decision centered on the developer’s plan to utilize 38 mechanized parking lifts to meet density requirements under the state’s MBTA Communities Act (Section 3A) zoning.
While the project met the technical 1.1 spaces per unit requirement on paper, a majority of the board expressed deep skepticism regarding the “functional adequacy” and safety of the mechanical car stackers.
The proposal for 55 Lenox Street sought significantly higher density than previous Section 3A zoning projects in town. Board members noted that at 112 units per acre, the project was more than twice as dense as the “Old Sam” property (53 units per acre) and the 25 East Hoyal Street development (54 units per acre).
“Perhaps if he wanted 96 units, he should have bought a larger parcel,” remarked board member Joe Sheehan. Sheehan argued that the mechanized lifts were a “hassle” that would lead tenants to abandon the system in favor of parking on neighboring side streets.
The deliberation revealed a sharp divide between board members and town officials. Both the Building Inspector and Town Counsel had previously issued memos suggesting the lifts were permissible under current bylaws, with the Building Inspector interpreting them as state-regulated “elevators”.
Ernie Paciorkowski was the lone “no” vote against the denial, urging his colleagues to “stay in our lane”.
“Everything about this project meets the bylaw,” Paciorkowski argued. “We may not like it… but we can’t punish the applicant for a down-the-road discussion. We have to vote on what the law is today”.
However, other members argued that the board’s purview includes evaluating “circulation, access, and safety”. Member Rob Bamber submitted a statement for the record, noting the application failed to demonstrate how the site would function during “system failure scenarios, operational management, [and] user error”.
A significant point of technical contention involved the definition of “tandem” parking. While the town’s current bylaws describe tandem parking as cars parked one behind the other, board members noted the developer was essentially redefining it as “one on top of the other”.
“I don’t even know if engineers from MIT could make a tandem bike in the way we are told that tandem now means,” Sheehan quipped.
In a confusing procedural twist, the board did vote 3-2 to approve a separate special permit related to stormwater management bonuses. However, because the site plan review—the “blueprint” for the project—was denied, the development cannot move forward as currently designed.
The developer now faces a two-year restriction on reapplying unless the plan is significantly changed. Meanwhile, several board members called for Town Meeting to address the “silence” in the current bylaws regarding mechanized parking to prevent future flooding the zone with similar proposals. -RD
