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Updated: July 13, 2022 @ 9:48 am
PEABODY — A public hearing will be held during Thursday’s City Council meeting to reauthorize a special permit that would again greenlight 60 new housing units off Route 1 southbound in Peabody, on the site of a former junkyard.
The hearing will be held at 7:30 p.m. inside the Frank L. Wiggin Auditorium at City Hall.
If granted, the special permit would allow developers to turn the 3.7-acre lot on 190R Newbury St. into a residential site in accordance with the area’s residential overlay district, which allows housing to be built in areas that are otherwise zoned for commercial space only.
Developer Arthur Pimental, manager of Cy Tenney Residences LLC, originally secured a permit for the project from the council in June 2019. But with that permit now expired, developers are seeking re-approval of the same permit.
“We’ve been working on this project for a long time, and we want to see it complete,” Pimental said. “I think it’s a great thing for the city of Peabody since (the project) is providing some affordable housing for the community, plus there’s a need for housing now anyway.”
Pimental said 20% of the units in the four-story building would be designated as affordable housing. Units will have one or two bedrooms, and Pimental’s team will determine if they will be for sale or rentals later on in development, he said.
Currently, 98 parking spaces are also expected to be on site.
The property is located in Ward 5 behind Boston Sports Club and next to the Larrabee Conservation Area wetlands.
The site is a former junkyard that had been the subject of long-running talks with the city’s Conservation Commission over a redevelopment plan. There had been different proposals, from an elder care facility to a hotel, floated since 2009 when Bob DeNisco first built and opened the fitness club at 190 Newbury St., which had been part of one large parcel.
The Conservation Commission finally signed off on the project prior to Pimental receiving a special permit in 2019 for condos. But the commission imposed 81 conditions that developers would have to follow in order to protect the wetlands there, including the restoration of a wetland buffer.
A third-party civil engineering study at the time by Beverly-based firm Meridian Associates also found that the project would not harm the wetlands.
According to the new special permit requests submitted to the City Council, the project is undergoing a site plan review and is filing a new notice of intent with the Conservation Commission. That latter hearing is set for Sept. 14.
The application to the council is from JG Backland Realty Trust, of which Pimental and DeNisco are listed as trustees.
The requests also stated that Pimental has changed engineering firms since 2019 and the site plan has “undergone some substantial changes resulting in a more eco-friendly development.”
Ward 5 Councilor Dave Gamache said he plans to make a motion for the council to vote in favor of the permit.
“I haven’t gotten any calls in opposition to it,” Gamache said. “I know that there’s a lot of people out there that are concerned with over-development, but this residential overlay district was created for a project like this.”
Contact Caroline Enos at CEnos@northofboston.com and follow her on Twitter @CarolineEnos.
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